Treasury Proposal: Polkadot Africa Community Growth (West and East Africa regions)

TLDR: Create a collaborative strategy for Africa aligning different stakeholders and the community to drive awareness, adoption and growth.

Introduction

In emerging markets, blockchain technology is essential and a chance to leapfrog several difficulties. Africa is one of the places where Web3 can fulfil its full adoption potential where people use the technology for daily things like remittance and cross-border payments.

Motivation

Polkadot has limited engagement and few project developments in Africa compared to newer platforms like Ethereum L2s, Solana, Avax, ICP Network etc

Mission

This proposal aims to build a supportive community of agents representing Polkadot in Africa. There are so many pieces to the puzzle when growing a diverse community. For instance, we would want developers and content creators. How do we achieve this?

Solutions

Educational sessions.
Community engagement and management.
Ecosystem representation.
Developer outreach and support.
Encourage the building of Polkadot native apps and integrations.
Providing guides on utilising Polkadot native apps and products in the ecosystem.
Recruit mentors to help out and onboard new community members.

Plan

There would be different phases of development for this 6-month strategy. Please note that these 2 different phases could run in parallel too.

Icebreaker events (Phase 1)
Rust community activations (Phase 2)
Developer workshops (Phase 3)
Community meetups (Phase 4)

The team

Bekka - Developer relations lead West and East Africa
Kratist0s - Operations lead East Africa
Sanchez - Content creation and community manager
Victor - Business developer lead West Africa.

We are also the team behind the Polkadot Africa X account and collectively we've assisted to highlight activities by different community members as well as contribute in various capacities towards bringing Polkadot community together online and IRL.

Requested amount: $92,880

Duration: (Jan - Jun 2025)

We would focus on setting up the foundations for the rest of the year and carry out initiatives properly next year. The full proposal is here.

Team Compensation - $47,520
Events (sourced from EB) - $39,000
Utilities - $30,960
Transport (IRL events)- $11,400
Marketing - $3,000

Total (after EB deduction) = $92,880

Regions/Key countries

Our initiatives would be mostly carried out in these countries, we selected 2 countries from West and East African regions.

Nigeria
Kenya
Ghana
Uganda

Limitations

While our IRL activities will start with West and East Africa regions in select key cities, we still have a broader view to reach out to North and South African regions, support them online and create a website and discord community that caters to all community members from Africa

Goal: Build a strong Polkadot community in Africa to grow awareness and adoption.
Why: Africa has great potential for blockchain technology, but Polkadot is less active there compared to other platforms.
Plan:
- Host events like workshops, meetups, and educational sessions.
- Support developers and create guides for Polkadot apps.
- Build a team to manage and grow the community.
Team: Four leaders focusing on different areas like development, content, and business.
Budget: $92,880 for 6 months, covering team pay, events, and marketing.
Focus Countries: Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and Uganda, with plans to expand later.
Challenges: Starting in West and East Africa but aiming to include all of Africa over time.

#85·Treasury Proposal: Polkadot Africa Community Growth (West and East Africa regions)