Polkadot sponsorship for LIFT Learning - A Fenasbac + Central Bank of Brazil initiative

📣 Update: The surplus (~20k USD) was send back to the Polkadot Treasure on April 10, check here.

Execution Timeline: 12 months

Allocation Request: 84.000 USD (DOT at 7.45 from Subscan EMA7)
Beneficiary Multisig: 16NEjygPCe4kS1pXHuTTa59TVCGpeE97KKZmqo5PtqaBTGmx

Publish Date: Friday, January 16, 2024

 

Summary: Sponsorship for Polkadot to be included in the program “LIFT Learning” by Fenasbac, a server from the Central Bank of Brazil. This program objective is to develop Interoperability and Bridging solutions that can be used by the Central Bank.

 

This proposal is a direct result from the efforts from the Brazil BD Team initiative - Bounty #28. The members of the multisig are also members of the BD Team.

 

⚠️ This is not an educational program, the sponsorship costs will cover the development to buil a product using the Polkadot SDK at the point of a Proof of Concept (PoC) with a software house (COPPETEC) and the University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), overseen by Fenasbac and the Central Bank of Brazil, to be used for the Brazillian CBDC.

 

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1. Contextual Information

1.1 Fenasbac

National Federation of Associations of Central Bank Employees (Fenasbac), is an institution created over 50 years ago to promote benefits to the Central Bank of Brazil, through differentiated services in insurance, consortiums, and personal loans.

1.2 LIFT Learning

LIFT Learning (https://liftlearning.com.br/) is a Fenasbac program, in partnership with the Central Bank of Brazil, which brings together the financial industry and higher education institutions for the development of innovative solutions that benefit the National Financial System (NFS) and the population.

The theme for this LIFT Learning edition is Interoperability and Bridges. Fenasbac chose UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) and COPPETEC (Foundation for Coordination of Projects, Research, and Technological Studies) to be the parties involved in the development of the PoC.

In addition to aligning with the Central Bank agenda, the LIFT ecosystem uses the Technological Readiness Level scale in choosing projects to be accelerated and developed in its initiatives.

 

1.3 LIFT Learning Objectives

• Offer a project-based learning opportunity contributing to the education and connection of students with the financial market;
• Contribute to the formation of a qualified workforce, foster entrepreneurship, and the creation of fintechs and startups related to the National Financial System (NFS);
• Accelerate the development of selected projects in the LIFT Learning;
• Unite the regulator, academia, and financial institutions in the specific search for innovative solutions for the NFS in a complementary way to the LIFT Lab.

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2. Our Goal

2.1 The Vision

LIFT Learning is the best place to showcase the power of the Polkadot SDK at a national level. At the end of the program, it’s expected to have at least a PoC completed or an initial prototype of an interoperability/bridge solution using the Polkadot SDK that will be able to further advance and be integrated in the National Financial System (NFS).

Since XCM from the Polkadot SDK is not a protocol, but a format, it’s extremely flexible and teams have been already experimenting with it trying different things, we think this is valuable. With that in mind, we'll also make a post in the Polkadot Forum to bootstrap collaboration and discussion around interoperability and bridging solutions. This may lead to the possibility of the participation of such teams in guidance and mentoring of the development of the solution on LIFT Learning, but that's not a guarantee.

 

2.2 Short and Long Term Benefits

Short term, the partnership will activate the University of Rio de Janeiro, one of the biggest universities in Brazil, to participate in the Polkadot ecosystem, attracting potential developers from computer science courses, masters, and doctorates. Also, software houses like COPPETEC will develop a relationship with Polkadot, which will make further initiatives with them, funded by the government itself, easier. There will also be a lot of attention from the media and from financial institutions coming our way, bringing more deals to Polkadot.

Long term, being at the forefront of this innovation will remove all the technological and regulatory obstacles for Polkadot to be connected with the Brazilian CBDC, making it one of the first public blockchain ecosystems to attract all the potential use cases a digitized nation can bring, such as tokenized assets living on the CBDC chain and CBDC itself as an available coin to be used on Parachains, giving them even more use cases.

Other indirect benefits include a clear path for Brazilian regulators to also start integrating DOT into ETFs, more Web3 businesses and banks following this movement, and starting to see Polkadot as one of the best places to launch a chain or expand their products, establishing Polkadot as the preferred public ecosystem in Brazil to integrate with.

 

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3. The Plan

We’ll present the contract to be signed by Web3 Foundation (they are aware of the deal), given they will be better for the awareness of the partnership, but we also have a legal entity that can sign the partnership. The reason we have not done this already is that the contract was just sent to us, and to have the ability to give a response about the necessary amount for the sponsorship being available or not, the proposal has to be approved.

It’s mandatory to have at least one representative from Polkadot with enough knowledge to be present at meetings (in portuguese) with Fenasbac, UFRJ and COPPETEC. Luis Dal Porto (current Polkadot Brasil Head Ambassador) and Arthur Gontijo (Polkadot Brazil Senior Ambassador, member of Parity Tech. and Polkadot and Kusama Validator) will be appointed as representatives.

The program usually takes about a year and will require from the representatives availability to also be present in in-person conferences.

 

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4. Payments

The total amount requested will represent the following:

	Sponsorship Cost	Taxes (15%)	Risk (5%)	Representatives Costs
12 months amount (USD)	~ 60,000	9,000	3,000	12,000

Sponsorship Cost:
The payment to Fenasbac will be done by a legal entity registered in Brazil from the Polkadot Brazil BD Team:

Name: Benshigeru DAO LTDA

CNPJ: 42.801.937/0001-06

Taxes:

Requested 15% from the total sponsorship amount to cover taxes for the exchange from DOT to BRL (Brazilian Reais) based on Law Number 14.754 known as “Offshore Law”.

Risk:

The risk considers price movement so we can pay exactly the amount expected in BRL to Fenasbac. If the prices stay around the same or DOT goes up in price, we’ll return the amount to the treasure.

Representatives:

The two representatives will receive 500 USD per month per representative and will have the following tasks:

 

• Attend the regular online meetings and discussions with the UFRJ, Fenasbac and COPPETEC
• Flight to national or international conferences where LIFT will be present
• Help to bring awareness to this partnership and contribute to editing the marketing materials with relevant information about Polkadot and its ecosystem.