Risidio: Indigenous NFT Marketplace Phase I with SIP0013

[radicleart]

Background

What problems do you aim to solve?

Our project is designed to address five core problems each of which is individually designed to serve the mission of a user-owned Internet, while collectively they advance that mission to a new level. As such we are really excited to present this plan to the Stacks Foundation for support.

The five core problems we have identified can be summarised as the following:

1. Specific technology-related problems, for example, the current problem of multiple additions and lack of standards
2. Market, economic and community-related problems, in this case specific to Indigenous people and their communities in all parts of the world
3. Environmental, conservation and sustainability problems, including climate change and related issues, that have a huge impact on or with Indigenous people
4. UX/UI problems, in particular in the crypto/blockchain space, as well as specific to Indigenous artists/creators, assuring the best possible user journey
5. Perception and awareness problems, again in relation to the industry as well as for Indigenous artists and Indigenous people all over the world

Before addressing our proposed solutions to each of these problems in our Project Overview, each problem – and the corresponding opportunities – are more fully detailed here below.

Technology

With Clarity just turning one year old, experiments and standards are emerging rapidly.

Risidio’s mission has always been to push the frontier of what can be achieved with Clarity. This includes building applications that open the space and invite new players and artists while at the same time exploring NFT technology and helping to evolve standards.

One such initiative was our implementation of editions of an artwork; see for example the series of artworks entitled No 1. Smiley. These were in fact a series of 1000 editions of an identical NFT, all minted into the same contract as independent NFTs which could be separately owned and sold with the edition number as well as the token id maintained within the smart contract.

A year later and this early endeavour is being formalised by the Stacks community, working alongside the Stacks Foundation on a new standard for Semi-Fungible Tokens. This standard is in the process of being defined (see SIP0013) but promises to solve the multiple edition problems - and many others - inter-operably - allowing developers and projects to build on each other’s work.

The Semi-Fungible Token standard has a parallel (EIP 1155) on the Ethereum blockchain where its introduction enabled entire new classes of on-chain applications to develop with the hugely beneficial impact on the Ethereum community. Within the Stacks ecosystem there are additional benefits because fungible and non-fungible tokens are supported natively within the Clarity language and the language itself is interpreted directly on-chain as opposed to being compiled before being deployed.

The semi-fungible standard works by combining the core standards for non-fungible and fungible tokens respectively (009, 010) into a single specification. The benefits of doing so enable multiple collections to be managed within the same contract - reducing resource use and gas fees on the main chain.

In addition, semi-fungible tokens provide standards for new categories of use cases that previously (as in our Smiley No 1. series) could only be handled ad-hoc, project by project.

Furthermore, as the hype around NFTs soars, so does the demand. This culminates in the prices of NFTs becoming more expensive with each passing day, making them too pricey for many to afford, impacting liquidity and access to a larger base of investors and buyers.

Market and Economic

As of now, there has not been a platform for Indigenous groups and artists to connect with each other and promote their work to the wider community. As we live in an increasingly digitalised world, Indigenous artwork produced solely in a physical form currently limits the scope for these artists to become recognised within creative spaces. In turn, this limits the income sources for artists as well as the spread of culture from Indigenous groups which is so central to these communities.  

Another problem is that of inauthentic Indigenous art. In Australia, for example, as much as 80 percent of all ‘Indigenous’ products available in stores are in fact fakes.

Art forgery is no new phenomenon, but the counterfeiting of work produced by Indigenous artists violates much more than just the creators’ intellectual property.

Not only does fake Indigenous art have serious economic consequences for Indigenous artists, by taking away a key source of income, it also has deeper, cultural consequences.

The creation and distribution of inauthentic Indigenous art endorses the misappropriation and caricaturising of Indigenous culture and undermines the ancient narratives that underpin it.

In Australia, art acts as a medium for preserving culture where ancestral stories are told and passed through generations through works of art. Its sale often acts as a vital source of income and the range of impacts that can occur when fake Indigenous art is made and sold can be devastating.

As Dr Marika, a Yolngu Indigenous artist from north-east Arnhem Land, Australia, explains:

“Our art is our resource, it belongs to us, we use it in a ceremonial context. It is a resource for our survival. If control of that resource is taken away from us, we cannot meet our cultural obligations; we cannot use it for our families’ benefit. Exploiting our resource needs to be negotiated on our terms, we need to have control of how that’s done.”

The UN states that Indigenous people have the “right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property over such cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions.”

Ideas around maintaining and protecting intellectual property echoes the values that blockchain, NFTs and the user-owned Internet were built upon. The financial empowerment from new NFT-based revenue streams could also allow these communities greater preparedness and resilience to external shocks, such as pandemics or the effects of climate change.   

For example, the Indigenous-run Nashulai Maasai Conservancy in Kenya, saw visitor numbers collapse during 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and its decimation of the tourism industry. 90 percent of Maasai employment is dependent on the tourism industry which led to many families struggling to afford food and other basic necessities. These types of economic shocks can have long-lasting impacts and have the potential to trap families and communities in a cycle of poverty. Therefore, it is important to take action to diversify incomes to increase the resilience of Indigenous communities.

Environmental, Conservation and Sustainability

The environmental impact of crypto and NFTs are often correctly cited; any negative environmental impact is extremely detrimental to Indigenous communities due to their close relationship with nature, making them some of the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

A large amount of market research has been applied to the development of this project ensuring that the market is fully understood. This has included research into specific Indigenous communities in a wide range of countries, so far mainly focused within Australia, Latin America and Sub-Sahara Africa. This research has allowed us to understand issues faced by specific communities as well as the wider problems faced by many different Indigenous peoples, such as climate change-related droughts or political marginalisation.

The global Indigenous community makes up 5 percent of the world’s population and they safeguard 80 percent of the world’s remaining biodiversity. This means that they hold ancestral knowledge vital in helping to mitigate climate and disaster risks. The land and natural resources on which they depend are inextricably linked to their identities, cultures, livelihoods, as well as their physical and spiritual well-being. While Indigenous people’s vital role in the protection and conservation of the environment is becoming increasingly recognised internationally, Indigenous peoples themselves continue to be marginalised and discriminated against. This is true in many areas of the world with Indigenous communities often subject to discriminatory policies and legislation.

An even more tangible problem we wish to address through this project, and which has huge significance to Indigenous communities around the world is their relationship with fauna and flora, increasingly threatened wildlife and habitats and endangered species. One such example in Australia is koalas. After being repeatedly threatened by habitat loss, forest fires and disease, koalas have now been classed as endangered and are rapidly heading towards extinction by 2050 unless urgent action is taken.

Many other examples of both land and ocean animals (whales and dolphins in particular) have strong connections to the Indigenous people and require equally urgent action.

User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI)

Significant barriers to the adoption of blockchain and the user-owned Internet still fall on accessibility and user experience. Frequently, the process to even sign up or understand how to interact with decentralised applications is technically complicated, arduous, and confusing. For most users, decentralised apps simply aren’t easy to use.

In summary, UX/UI problems/opportunities include:

• Making the user feel that their assets are secured
• Meeting user needs without fuss or frustration
• Making complex concepts like blockchain and NFTs simple and clear
• Making users confident with using the application
• Going beyond giving users what they say they want and understanding what they actually need

Likewise, usability is an important factor with complex applications like blockchain. It is important that users feel at ease with abstract concepts that might be new to them. For this reason, we need to be aware of and address the following issues:

• Affordance: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the application?
• Learnability: How easy is it for users to understand new concepts in the application?
• Efficiency: Once users have familiarised themselves with the interface, how quickly can they perform tasks?
• Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how quickly can they re-establish proficiency?
• Errors: How users are being accompanied and supported when making mistakes?
• Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the application?

“The user should always know what is happening, what just happened, and what will happen next.”

Sarah Baker Mills, Design Director at ConsenSys.

Perception and Awareness

The success of NFT projects is heavily reliant on the continuous development and strengthening of the communities formed by the sharing of common values and interests. The underlying principles behind NFT and blockchain technologies, such as fairness, equality and the power of community, resonate strongly with many Indigenous philosophies around the world.

However, many of the current NFT businesses are perceived to behave “like a bunch of wild wolves” as they attempt to exploit the Indigenous art within the NFT space. And given that “perception is a reality”, this is a very real problem not least for Indigenous artists and their communities.

Another very real problem which has arisen due to Bitcoin’s growing popularity and its high energy intensity. With Bitcoin currently consuming more energy than entire nations, it is a large contributor to global carbon emissions and such a reputation is often hard to shake off. With increasing pressure for companies to adopt more climate-friendly business practices, there are very real barriers to widespread adoption.

While Stacks has already begun preparing its climate change mitigation solutions, through the development of its energy-efficient proof-of-transfer blockchain mining mechanism, we believe that there is plenty of room for further improvement as an integral part of our solution in this area.

In simple terms, if the level of engagement in and expansion of the user-owned Internet is inhibited by certain perceptions (e.g. “it’s too difficult for me” or “it’s not climate-friendly”) or lack of awareness, then such problems are very real and need to be tackled head-on.

Project Overview

What solution are you providing? Who will it serve?

Our project has been well researched and designed to address each of the five problems outlined above with appropriate solutions and continues to build on all of the innovative work Risidio has done over the past 18+ months with support from the Stacks Foundation (grants) and Accelerator programs. This is including but not limited to launching the first NFT marketplace on Bitcoin with This is Number One back in May 2021 and all the open marketplace design and development work before and since.

To build on this further, we have written Medium articles to showcase and give further context to our projects. These include a focus on Indigenous art theft and showing how the Sustainable Bitcoin Standard could be used to create a more sustainable metaverse. This again shows how this is a well-informed, detail-oriented project that can help support a range of social and environmental issues.

Our overall vision is to preserve and promote Indigenous culture by bridging the gap between Indigenous communities and new emerging decentralised, open-source technologies, specifically NFTs and the metaverse. In doing so, we aim to tackle the issue of fake Indigenous art by creating an Indigenous authenticity driven NFT marketplace, appropriately branded as “Indige”.

Indige is an ethical purpose-driven technology supporting socioeconomic ventures and initiatives throughout global Indigenous communities. Indige values courage, culture, innovation, passion, persistence, creativity, and global ambition.

Relevant market research and initial product development for this project has already begun and, as a result, we have unparalleled insight into this sector not least through our close partnership with Indigenous artist and cultural expert, John Smith Gumbula.

John has an impressive history showcasing why he will help make this a successful project and ensure it has authentic art at its heart. This includes work with the lighter company Zippo where he became the only Indigenous artist in the world to be invited to join the Zippo World Artists Group, reflecting the impact his work has had.

This demonstrates that our project will meet market demands for highly authentic and reputable art and will ultimately help create a positive impact in the promotion of Indigenous culture.

As a corporate social responsibility (“CSR”) and values-led organisation, coupled with our existing collaborations (JSG, Mirthquake, Novum, SBS, Project Ark and more), our virtual marketplace is a truly unique proposition and will establish Stacks as a pioneering force behind the world’s first truly Indigenous NFT marketplace, underpinned by cultural conscientiousness and a commitment to authenticity.

Our aim is to allow Indigenous communities to connect with Stacks and with each other, in order to establish a diverse ecosystem based on shared interests at the intersection of art, culture and technology.

Technology

Our technological vision and innovation is for a system that allows Indigenous artists to get blockchain-based proof that their art is original, unique and unadulterated.

Our long-term goal is to democratize the Indigenous art market globally. Making it fairer and more transparent for artists and collectors.

Indigenous artists will be able to receive an NFT for every original artwork they create and verify to the world that the art was created by them.

They will also get the ability to receive royalties automatically every time their artwork changes hands in the secondary market.

This ability to certify their creation through blockchain technology, and get lifetime revenues from it, will level the playing field for Indigenous artists and creators. It will also provide collectors with an important provenance tool for their purchases. Our near-term technology development plan (“Phase One”) for this grant is to bring Indigenous art onto the Stacks Blockchain incorporating the emerging Semi-Fungible Token standard.

Semi Fungible tokens are brand new, and the standard (SIP0013) is yet to be ratified by the community. Our solution will continue to push the frontiers of what can be done with NFTs on Stacks, by extending current NFT marketplaces with support for multiple editions, diptychs and triptychs of real artwork.

As such, we will explore and develop our NFT marketplace that looks at:

• Minting multiple collections of the art within the same contract
• Minting multiple editions of individual artworks within the same contract • Providing a marketplace that supports transfer and sale of both editions and originals

It goes without saying that this work will also adopt the new standards for commission-based contracts that we have also helped pioneer in the development of the CrashPunks and Loopbomb projects.

Market and Economic

Our innovative economic solution focuses on integrating NFT technologies into Indigenous art spaces, thereby empowering these communities economically and ensuring that Indigenous cultural narratives are preserved for many years to come.

Our project offers a unique and fully researched solution to the issues (problems) raised above in the form of an Indigenous-focused NFT marketplace dedicated to authenticity and bridge-building between global Indigenous communities.

This project also aims to offer a virtual space for the Indigenous artists to gather, a niche thoroughly underserved by current platforms. Here, Indigenous artists across the globe can freely express themselves and forge long-lasting connections through shared interests and values.

We will provide the technological support to help these artists digitalise their artworks by transforming them into NFTs. Through this, Indige aims to meet its goal of Unifying Indigenous Communities Through Culture, Innovation and Technology.

Indige NFT uses an acknowledgement of past and present Indigenous peoples and their culture. Our educational content channels also provide a pathway for our users to articulate and share the meaning behind their artwork, in order to educate the wider world about Indigenous values and narratives.

Our project will allow the Stacks Foundation to participate in this new and emerging blockchain market space; the development of our Indige NFT marketplace, alongside our partnership with Napier Marten and the Mirthquake Foundation, means that our work is at the cutting-edge of this currently under-represented sector.

This project can also further improve the public perception of the Stacks brand, showcasing it as an innovative forward-thinking organisation, whilst simultaneously bringing benefits to the wider community. Therefore, by diversifying the portfolio of Stacks, our project can grow the overall market, improve brand awareness, helping to make Stacks even more competitive and desirable.

Environmental, Conservation and Sustainability

As a CSR-led corporation, environmental, conservation and social sustainability are at the core of everything we do.

For example, we have recently developed an initiative dedicated to the UK agriculture industry, whereby landowners and corporations can trade NFTs in exchange for regenerative or rewilding practices on an acre of UK farmland.

Today, it is increasingly important for corporations to incorporate sustainability into their business models; according to Harvard Business Review, the most sustainable businesses are also the most profitable, and purpose-driven corporations almost always have the edge over less ethically-conscious competitors.  87 percent of American consumers prefer to buy from companies that advocate for an issue that the consumer cares about and 73 percent would refuse to buy from a company that did not care about climate change.

While Stacks has already begun preparing its climate change mitigation solutions, through the development of its energy-efficient proof-of-transfer blockchain mining mechanism and its work with the Sustainable Bitcoin Standards (“SBS”) initiative, our project will further amplify these initiatives.

Our sustainability expertise and the partnerships we have already forged with industry experts (such as John Smith Gumbula and Napier Marten) alongside external philanthropic blockchain initiatives (such as Project Ark) have allowed us to build a solid CSR-centred blockchain ecosystem. By aligning ours with the ecosystem already formed by Stacks, we can use our collective expertise to help progress blockchain solutions even further and transition the sector towards a more sustainable future.

The values held by our ecosystem also reflect the values that Blockchain technologies were built upon, such as equity and taking back control of creative works. Our project will support fairer and more inclusive crypto trading spaces, serving the Stacks’ mission of creating a user-owned and empowered Internet.  

We’re also working with like-minded partner organisations such as Project Ark, who use NFT technologies to promote conservation and protect biodiversity. Much like Earth Day’s ‘Canopy Project’, our partnership with Project Ark aims to restore endemic wildlife through reforestation and use tree planting to help mitigate the effects of climate change.

This project can bring added value to the existing relationships we have forged as we have a strong, proof-of-concept project that can be used alongside our expertise to sustainably grow within the metaverse. This will enable us to make these existing relationships stronger by showcasing the opportunities that exist.

Furthermore, this same proof-of-concept can be used to expand and forge new relationships with companies which may be looking to enter the metaverse in order to take advantage of the growth that has been seen. Again, the expertise we have developed here will be crucial to adding value to these initiatives. This shows the potential that exists with this project and how impactful it could be in a range of scenarios.

Earth Day Launch Plan: ‘Invest in Our World’

22 April 2022

“For 2022 the event makes a call to invest in our world, to protect our health, family and livelihood. Businesses, government and citizens must be together to fight climate change, because a green future is a prosperous future.”

The theme for Earth Day in 2022 is ‘Invest in Our World’, a call for the private sector to take legitimate action against climate change and environmental degradation. In its own words, ‘Earth Day should not be seen as a deadline but rather a spark that inspires future action’.

For this reason, we have chosen Earth Day 2022 to release an exclusive Indigenous NFT collection to coincide with and further promote it to the wider world.

A further Earth Day 2022 project ('Artists for the Earth’) resonates strongly with our own work.

We aim to further our conservation impact by partnering with the Australian Koala Foundation. After being repeatedly threatened by habitat loss, forest fires and disease, koalas have now been classed as endangered and are rapidly heading towards extinction by 2050 unless urgent action is taken.

Our project is currently exploring the release of 100,000 new NFTs, a figure chosen to represent the number of koalas remaining in the wild, in order to protect and conserve this iconic Australian animal.

User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI)

Our Solution: User-centric approach to the application.

Our marketplace will continue to benefit from extensive user research. We’ve learnt that great UX and UI aren’t ingrained in the first iteration. The early incorporation of our design team into our (blockchain) development team and our design-thinking approach from day one will continue to enable us to address and solve UX and UI problems we are facing today – both common and unique.

Our designers are planning to conduct the study of the visuals In Indigenous cultures for providing a relevant user Interface for Indigenous people, that respects the graphical code meaningful to their culture.

Our designers are the checks and balances who protect users during product development and head off user experience problems before we encounter them.

By combining our deep technical understanding of blockchain, with a human-centred design, we turn technical processes into beautiful experiences that we aim for users to love.

Our project will continue as we started, with design-thinking as an integral part of everything we do.

Perception and Awareness

Our educational content channels also provide a pathway for our users to articulate and share the meaning behind their artwork, in order to educate the wider world about Indigenous values and narratives.

This project can also further improve the public perception of the Stacks brand, showcasing it as an innovative forward-thinking organisation, whilst simultaneously bringing benefits to the wider community.

In order to ensure this project has a wide-ranging positive impact, an integrated marketing strategy and PR campaign has been devised. We believe that building a community is one of the core aspects of this project. Therefore, we have created a campaign consisting of four stages:

• Education • Introduction • Promotion • Immersion

At the education stage, we will use our social media channels (Instagram and Twitter) to educate both the community we create and the wider community about Indigenous people and their culture. We will also focus on the struggles that Indigenous communities face in areas such as political marginalisation or in terms of their vulnerability to climate change impacts and how Indigenous practices can impact the planet in a positive way. The aim of this stage is to further educate the public on the importance of supporting and preserving Indigenous communities around the globe. 

In addition, we will be using other social media channels that we believe will give the project more exposure. We will promote the project through the “nft_club” Instagram page which has over 148 thousand followers. Alongside this we will be using several Discord servers and YouTube channels, this will help us reach a much greater audience and lead to a wider impact from this project.

The introduction stage will bring the Indige project and brand to market by sharing the project’s mission, values, and goals. This will be done through various “conventional” social media posts and professional videos showing John Smith Gumbula giving insights into his collection and his expression of cultural values through art. Overall, we are going to implement a storytelling approach as we believe that the human element of this project will enable us to connect with more people and have a deeper impact. 

The promotion stage brings in the PR side of the project. Besides social media communications, PR will enable us to cover a larger audience and promote the project more efficiently. Based on that, Stacks and all other involved parties will be able to get public exposure.

Last but not least, at the immersion stage, we will explore ways in which we can further motivate the community to keep up their momentum in protecting the sustainability values through an accumulation scheme.

For example, as our project evolves, whenever anyone purchases an NFT product on our platform or contributes to the conversation from the education/introduction/promotion above, they will be given a point. Accumulating points may be used towards the purchase of one of our physical Indige-branded or other Indigenous products.

Scope

What are the components or technical specs of the project? What will the final deliverable look like? How will you measure success?

The scope of this grant is to deliver the components to take our Indige project to market. We are by no means starting from scratch, we have over 18 months’ experience in building marketplaces on Stacks.

The scope for this Phase One therefore includes:

1. A fully functioning prototype for both desktop and mobile with a well-thought-out user experience and a clear and relevant user interface, as a final deliverable from our design team
2. Development, test and deployment of two Clarity contracts:

 A minting contract - that follows SIP0013 for Semi Fungible tokens and specifically enables minting of diptych, triptych and unbound editions of NFT artworks

 A separate marketplace contract that enables listing and buying/selling of artworks as one-off originals, as diptych/triptych combinations or as editions

3. Development of the API to support the caching of data from the smart contracts

In our experience an API cache layer is needed to:

a) Take a load off the Stacks network - i.e. the project will wrap its own Stacks node where data is read, and

b) To provide the best possible user experience - the end-user is delivered data from a fast cache

This said we are also interested in supporting the expansion of the Stacks Network by building scaling solutions and we see the investment in the infrastructure here as the first step in supporting the marketplace running on a Subnet of the main Stacks chain at some point in the future.

Note: In building our API we provide some general-purpose endpoints to users and projects. An example is this endpoint for sensibly caching the results of extracting the BNS name from an address bns nft-events- by using a sensible caching strategy we can provide fats lookups for seldom changing data

4. Development of a new gallery specifically for Indigenous art

As these are NFTs, users are free to list, buy and sell them on any decentralised marketplace that supports SIP0013. However, we will deliver a new site that is tailored specifically to this sector.

We are not starting from scratch as we have developed tools for minting and in-contract marketplace for SIP009 projects (see for example loopbomb, risidio .

Milestone 1: SIP0013 Minting Contract • Suite of Clarinet unit tests • Deployment on testnet

Milestone 2: Marketplace contract supporting SIP0013 • Suite of Clarinet unit tests • Deployment on testnet

Milestone 3: API endpoints to support caching of SIP0013 data • Read local nodes SIP0013 contract state • Read marketplace state

Milestone 4: UI to support Gallery and Marketplace features • Support for just in time minting of new artwork - i.e. NFTs are created as needed, rather than in batches of thousands; support for trading artworks • Support for commission contracts with fair dividends on secondary sales to the artists

The final deliverable of this (Phase One) of our project will be a successful launch on Earth Day and the follow up to that (see our roadmap and key milestones).

We will measure success by the level of engagement we achieve not least in terms of our involvement with other artists, e.g. we will be exploring involvement through Mintery.

For each issue and solution of this project, we have developed specific success measurement scales with different KPIs:

• Technology: as specified above

• Market & Economy: measured by the traffic and penetration towards our marketplace, revenues generated from selling NFTs

• User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI): measured by a customer experience survey launched periodically, the number of interactions and sales

• Perception & Awareness: measured by the number of interactions between customers with our educational content and (in future) accumulating points

• Environmental, Conservation and Sustainability: measurement combined with the Perception & Awareness above

  Another valuable deliverable evolving from this project will be illustrated and measured by a holistic research study to be designed as part of Phase One and conducted in Phase Two, including:

• Overall tracking: This metadata picture will provide the general business performance, identify key challenges, pitfalls or opportunities for further strategies.

• 1st phase of Qualitative deep-dive: Based on the overall data, we will conduct qualitative interviews with our purchasers and non-purchasers (e.g. those who visited our marketplace but did not buy) and artists. The objectives are to identify what makes them satisfied and not yet satisfied with our platform, learning, values and areas for improvement.

• Quantitative validation: The initial input from the 1st qualitative phase will be used to design the quantitative questionnaire to validate the results on a larger scale. Besides, this quantitative phase will also measure Risidio brand equity and competitors’ benchmark.

• 2nd phase of Qualitative co-creation: Finally, another round of qualitative will be conducted with the ambition to brainstorm new ideas and strategies for the next business phase. This round will be organised in the form of crowd-sourcing (in which we will gather ideas from our loyal customers) and ideation (in which we will filter the most potential ideas and co-create new strategies with our important stakeholders.

The final report of the holistic research process will cover the current business performance, focusing on five issues and solutions, as well as proposed strategies for the next milestones.

Budget and Milestones

What grant amount are you seeking? How long will the project take in hours? If more than 20, please break down the project into milestones, with a clear output (e.g., low-fi mockup, MVP with two features) and include the estimated work hours for each milestone.

All the identified milestones will be run in parallel, including the following:

M1: Minting Contract Deliverables: New Feature Timeline: 10 days (78,4h) Cost: $7 664

M2: Marketplace contract supporting SIP0013 Deliverables: New Feature Timeline: 12 days (91,2h) Cost: $8 880

M3: API endpoints to support caching of SIP0013 data Deliverables: New Feature Timeline: 4 days (31,36h) Cost: $3 066

M4: Design Deliverables: Product Design Timeline: 40days (116,8h) Cost: $5 979

M5: Front-End Development Deliverables: Product with Visual Design Timeline: 38 days (161,12 hrs) Cost: $4 514

M6: Research Deliverables: Market Research Timeline: 21 days (50,4 hrs) Cost: $2 688

M7: Marketing Deliverables: Launch Campaign, Social Media Campaign, PR Campaign Timeline: 45 days (78h) Cost: $3 765

M8: Testing Deliverables: Fully functioning product Timeline: 25 days (60h) Cost: $3 900

M9: Project Oversight Deliverables: Product Launch Timeline: 45 days (63h) Cost: $5 040

Total Cost: $45 496 Total Timeline: 45 days (730,28 hrs)

Team

Who is building this? What relevant experience do you bring to this project? Are there skills sets you are missing that you are seeking from the community? Please share links to previous work.

Core Team

Mike Cohen PhD. | Co-Founder of Risidio; Technology Adviser (Brighton, UK)

Mike studied Chemical Physics at Sussex University and went on to receive his PhD in Quantum Chemistry from the University of Cambridge.

Following a postdoc at UBC in Vancouver, Canada, Mike returned to the UK and followed an eclectic career path that led him from specialising in telecoms protocols with Ericsson in the 1990s to start-ups and work with Guardian News and Media.

His last project, before becoming captured by the possibilities on the blockchain, was to build an auction platform, from scratch to a 200M a year e-commerce site. Mike led and grew the team that developed the Bidlogix bidding engine that serves clients worldwide in sectors including, cars, industrial, arts and collectibles and runs over 1000 live and webcast auctions a year.

Mike left this role in February 2018 - the weekend of the Berlin Blockstack summit where he became a partner in a new venture - building decentralised applications on the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains. Since then, he has not looked back and been the winner of several prizes for innovation in the Lightning and Stacks ecosystems.

Mike co-founded Risidio at the start of lockdown in March 2020.

Peter Ponton | CEO and Co-Founder of Risidio; Chief Strategy, Marketing and Business Development Officer (Surrey, UK)

With over 10 years’ experience in construction, real-estate, development, and manufacturing, followed by 25 years’ experience in global high-tech, which has included conducting market research and feasibility studies for the top players in fields such as mobile communications, rapid prototyping, and the Internet in the US, UK and Europe, Peter has a unique vision, insight and understanding of the needs for international companies competing in a global marketplace.

As a strategic advisor, Peter has been able to transfer these skills into new vertical opportunities in low-tech industry sectors, where companies and individuals alike are seeking to gain competitive advantage using innovative new technologies.

Peter’s ability to provide the business and commercial focus for all types of technology, interactive media and Internet applications is based largely on his ability to initiate and maintain long-term win-win relationships and his unique track record within the industry.

In 1991, he participated with the Chief Scientist of Israel in developing the first stages of the Israeli high-tech incubator system and helped establish one of the first software firms to employ programmers from the former USSR.

After that, he worked as an advisor to the UK Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) for technology-based systems at the World Expo92 in Seville; followed up with initial design and development of one of the most ambitious and innovative technology roadshows ever conceived, coinciding with the pre-launch of Microsoft Windows NT and building on Compaq’s repositioning efforts and the strategic alliance between the two companies.

Upon transferring to Boston in the ’90s, he worked with students in Babson College’s Entrepreneurship Program and later spearheaded the development, naming and branding initiative for Southern California’s Tech Coast with the objective of attracting capital and talent, creating visibility, and forming a united tech community initiative that spanned from Santa Barbara to San Diego. The Tech Coast, and the Tech Coast Initiative was born, elevating the region from not ranked to ranked #3, for total venture capital dollars deployed by region in just 4 years.

In 2006, Peter founded Grow3 with a focus on helping companies large and small to grow their business internationally through a unique combination of market research, business development and purpose-driven marketing initiatives. As a result, his work has been at the cutting edge of many of the latest technology trends of the last ten years including FinTech, HealthTech and EduTech, while supporting various clients including top-tier law firms such as CMS and Dentons expand their global footprints and sector reach.

In 2019, at the start of lockdown, he co-founded Risidio with Mike Cohen to focus on building the products, tools, and services for the next ten years of digital transformation and disruption based on blockchain, AI and IoT.

Arnold Diaz – CFO & Acting COO (London UK)

An enthusiastic, self-motivated and ambitious professional who has graduated with an MSc (Merit) Management in Project Management. A graduate in Business Management & Judicial Administration with demonstrable leadership skills, as well as a proven ability to manage multiple responsibilities. A career-driven individual with a diverse background in Textiles, Manufacturing, Real Estate, Law, Technology & Events Management who possesses a wealth of entrepreneurial experience.

An articulate, ambitious, entrepreneurial, multi-faceted & focused individual with over 23 years background experience in management, operations management, change management, HR, project management & business ventures in various sectors such as real estate, consulting, textiles and technology.

Over the last 3 years, as CFO of Mainyard Studios, supporting the expansion of the business from 4 to 9 locations, as well as implementing financial and project management solutions with the organisation, allowing maximum profit and minimising costs.

Arun Kumar Singh – Senior Technical Lead (India)

Arun is a full-stack technologist with more than 12+ years of experience in coding, architecture, and design. He is responsible for orchestrating Risidio’s core Technologies whilst leading and delegating the software development team. He works on bringing technology to life through concepts and cohesion from other departments, related to marketing, design, and business development.

Celine Everaert – Senior Designer (Belgium)

Celine has been designing for the web since she was around 12 years old. At Risidio, she has been leading the design team for over a year. Her main task is to organise her team and provide harmonious design, focused on the user needs and feelings.

Irina Turkina – Senior Marketing, Senior Market Research (London, UK)

Irina is from Russia, via Singapore, graduating with an MBA in international business from the University of Greenwich in London. She has a passion for marketing. During her previous academic and work experiences, she developed high-level analytical experience in both research and digital marketing skills. Driven by in-depth research, she can determine the approach to customers to create effective marketing campaigns and go-to-market strategies.

Quynh Khanh Tran Nguyenn – Senior Market Researcher (Sheffield, UK)

Khanh is from Vietnam, with over 7 years’ experience in market research. During her career, she has conducted a high number of in-depth market research assignments across multiple sectors and geographic markets.

Bara Konateh – Front-End Developer (London, UK)

Bara, from Norway, is a front-end developer with great skills in Java, SQL, HTML, CSS & JS. Having learnt software development at university, and with experiences from other start-ups he is proficient at creating dynamic web pages and web apps, he can support the team with the implementation and testing of web designs and new features as well as explore new tools to create more sustainable and ethical designs and data collection.

Camila Tavares – Front-End Developer (Brazil)

Camila, from Brazil, is a front-end developer within Risidio’s development team. Communicative, dedicated and always interested in learning new technologies, together with the team she is responsible for identifying, suggesting and executing continuous improvements in new and current functionalities and processes, using HTML, CSS, Sass and Vuejs.

Farima Talebi – Product Designer (London, UK)

Farima, from Iran, is a product designer. She has a master’s degree in the field of technology management. She works on the user interface and user experience of products, trying to improve them in terms of appearance and functionality.

Molly Perry-Clark – Sustainability Market Researcher (Kent, UK)

Molly is working at Risidio within the Sustainable Resources team. Her main interests relate to climate change research, environmental management, and sustainable development. After completing her undergraduate degree in Biology with Management at Imperial College London and a master’s degree in Sustainable Resources at UCL, she worked in the agricultural research sector before joining Risidio. Those experiences helped Molly to develop remarkable skills and approaches to research.

James Cottam – Sustainability Market Researcher (Suffolk, UK)

James is based within the Sustainable Market Research team at Risidio. His interests focus on how the water sector can respond to climate change in terms of households reducing water demand and how development can be achieved in a sustainable fashion. He has an undergraduate degree in Geography and International Development from the University of East Anglia and followed this with a Master of Research in Social Sciences at UEA for a postgraduate degree. This gave James a greater understanding of how to perform research and ensure that detailed, useful analysis can be conducted from it.

Artists and Advisers

John Smith Gumbula - Founder of Indige & Chief Indigenous Officer

John is the Founder, Ambassador & Chief Indigenous Officer of the Bur’an Visionary initiative and was born of the Wakka-Wakka / Goreng Indigenous people of Queensland and is an Adopted Son of the Yolngu people of the Northern Territory of Australia, with a strong connection to this land and its people. In 1997, he was awarded the prestigious 'QEII Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Trust award for young achieving Australians and has travelled to over 60 countries to share his creativity and talent with the rest of the world. For over three decades John has been on a passionate journey exploring both traditional and contemporary Indigenous art mediums. His vision is to develop long-term sustainable cross-sector partnerships and increase the access that Indigenous Business has to global markets. 

Napier Marten - Trustee and Founder of Mirthquake Foundation and Mirthquake Productions Chairman

Napier has always felt a profound connection with nature. Born into a traditional land-owning English family, Napier recognised from early boyhood there is a world of wisdom beyond rational human constructs of conditioned experience. Growing up as the principal on an estate in South West England, he was able to develop a committed interest in ecology, the environment and sustainability. This has informed the trajectory of his life with increasing resonance, resulting in setting up a charitable foundation, Mirthquake.  

Mirthquake was initiated on the Nullarbor Plain, South Australia 28 years ago where, at the Head of the Great Australian Bight, he met with the Mirning, a dispossessed group of ‘whale dreaming’ Indigenous Australians, declared extinct in the mid-1950s. Their appropriated land and expulsion caused the loss of their connection with the Southern Right Whales, whom they consider their ancestors, and with whom they had had a continuous, remarkable relationship for many tens of thousands of years. 

Napier’s profound awakening in communion with Southern Right Whales was the spark of realisation fuelling his heartfelt quest to create a cetacean mirthquake around the world. Mirthquake World focuses on the preservation and celebration of the ancient connection between Man and Cetacean to precipitate a ripple, a wave of change for humanity. In myriad myths and legends from all corners of the earth, it seems whales and dolphins, amongst other things, have been constant harbingers of conscious evolution for mankind. Mirthquake World has established foundations in UK, Australia, Fiji, Mexico and is also on assignment in the Amazon, Vietnam and North America. 

Napier has met many First Nation cetacean people around the world, and now focuses on understanding and sharing the urgent need for global recognition of this profound and ancient relationship with cetaceans, sharing intelligence, wisdom and a greater understanding of how our reconnection to nature is fundamental for our long-term survival. Blessed with a varied career including rural management, arborist, an actor, helicopter pilot and consultancy. Napier is an active Cranio-Sacral Practitioner. He has also developed Mirthquake Productions, a platform dedicated to informing individuals, institutions and politicians using music, film, entertainment of the work of Mirthquake Foundation. 

Toby Lewis - Blockchain and Investment Adviser

Toby Lewis, frontier technology market monitoring company Novum Insights’ founder and CEO, is a repeat entrepreneur, and well-known analyst in the fields of blockchain, artificial intelligence, robotics, fintech and venture capital.

Novum Insights has a sophisticated analytics tool that can help identify the fastest growing crypto projects and other signals linked to decentralized finance.

He was one of the co-founders of venture capital analyst company Global Corporate Venturing, where he led both the analytics team and its editorial efforts. Toby has written regularly for the Wall Street Journal.

Toby has spoken at numerous international technology conferences including Blockchain for Humanity, which took place during the World Economic Forum, Global Technology Symposium, South Summit, White Bull, Tech Tour and Global Corporate Venturing.

Risks

What dependencies or obstacles do you anticipate? What contingency plans do you have in place?

One of the main risks associated with this project is the time crunch. To mitigate time risk, we assign the resources for the project oversight to establish a clear and straightforward flow of work and act if some tasks are delayed.

Another Important risk Is the technology risk, specifically blockchain. To mitigate this risk, we plan to involve the community. We have already started conversations with community members. Also, we have additional resources available within the team that will be available on standby to mitigate this risk.

Other risks for this project include risks associated with the successful launch of our project. To mitigate these risks, we will be conducting in-depth market research, as well as the preparation and execution of marketing and PR Initiatives.

How will you manage the project effectively?

The structure of our project is based on multiple stages of development work with parallel marketing and market research tracks. The stages of development work will Include the design stage, product development & testing stage. The design stage will begin with the UX research that will provide the necessary information for further design creation. This design will form the basis for product development.

At the product development stage, there will be back-end and front-end work, where the back-end work will be focused on the development and integration of 2 smart contracts (minting contract and marketplace contract) and API for caching of the data from the smart contracts. Alongside the development work, we will be conducting the testing of the technology and product in general.

As for the market research, which will run in parallel with the final stages of the product development (preceding and post-launch), providing valuable insight in support of the launch as well as for the next stages of product development and marketing.

Besides that, there will also be work on the marketing side, which will include preparation and execution of the launch strategy, social media, and PR campaign to support the launch of the project.

The Gantt charts and plans in the Budget and Milestones section lay out in detail all the work.

The methodology used internally for the effective management of various projects consists of a tailored Agile version, involving sprints, aimed at making interaction and exchange easier, despite the barriers of virtual work.

The introduction of the work into the team is preceded by a phase of consultation and preparation between the CEO and team leaders. The start of the work is marked by briefing and planning meetings with the entire team responsible for each work package. The closing of each section of work goes through scrutiny and approval by the team leaders, in consultation with the CEO.

On commencement, the project plan will be converted into epics and user stories. Each epic is in turn subdivided into "stories" which constitute the principle of the activities that will populate the backlog.

The prioritisation of the timebox work is based on the principle of incremental development and is carried out according to MoSCoW prioritisation techniques.

The monitoring of the plan is entrusted to the team leaders who report directly to the CEO, in charge of the project control. We favour Atlassian tools and due to the level of complexity, use Trello to manage timebox deliveries and Confluence for project documentation.

We use Slack for communication within the team and Zoom and/or Google Meet for meetings.

Community and Supporting Materials

Do you have previous projects, code commits, or experiences that are relevant to this application? What community feedback or input have you received? How do you plan to share your plan to the community over time and as the final deliverable?

The team has the necessary expertise and experience across UI/UX, development, marketing, research, and community involvement to develop and deploy this solution.

Our previous Stacks Foundation grant-funded projects include the following:

• https://github.com/stacksgov/Stacks-Grants/issues/12

• https://github.com/stacksgov/Stacks-Grants/issues/54

• https://github.com/stacksgov/Stacks-Grants/issues/87

• https://github.com/stacksgov/Stacks-Grants/issues/137

We plan to share our progress throughout development on Twitter and other community spaces, so we can get real-time feedback from potential users and maximise exposure and awareness within the Stacks and Indigenous communities.

A series of articles relevant to our project will be published on Medium and other channels before, during and after the launch

[stx-grant-bot[bot]]

Thanks for submitting a grant proposal. Our team will review your submission and get back to you.

[will-corcoran]

@radicleart -

Thank you for the very thoughtful presentation and for being patient while we review your application. Since you have already received funding through grants and the accelerator I wanted to get feedback from a larger group of individuals. We have decided to reject this application as the new / novel parts of the application have already been taken on by others - namely the testing for semi-fungible tokens. Additionally, we feel funding the majority of the non-novel (generalized code) would be a duplication of resources since we already supported the initial Risidio NFT marketplace.

I hope you consider this feedback and reach out when you have a new and novel project for us to help support you with.

Best, Will

[radicleart]

@will-at-stacks thank you - this is reasonable - a lot of the generalised marketplace place will be recycled for this application as you say. I'm certain we will continue to innovate and look for interesting use cases. I'll report this back to the Risidio team. Mike

[314159265359879]

@radicleart -

Thank you for the very thoughtful presentation and for being patient while we review your application. Since you have already received funding through grants and the accelerator I wanted to get feedback from a larger group of individuals. We have decided to reject this application as the new / novel parts of the application have already been taken on by others - namely the testing for semi-fungible tokens. Additionally, we feel funding the majority of the non-novel (generalized code) would be a duplication of resources since we already supported the initial Risidio NFT marketplace.

I hope you consider this feedback and reach out when you have a new and novel project for us to help support you with.

Best, Will

Hi Will,

I am a bit surprised by this result and Mike's reply too. It looks to me like there is more in here even if the focus was on building a fully functional dapp/(non-custodial)marketplace for SIP013 semi-fungible NFT's which is closely related to the previous Risidio grant. For example I have not seen a SIP013 implementation that allows for minting of diptych, triptych and unbound editions of NFT artworks. For devs coming across this grant it could be interesting to see links to the relevant semi-fungible work already available:

• The SIP013: https://github.com/stacksgov/sips/pull/42
• The ALEX yield tokens (not art): https://github.com/alexgo-io/alex-v1/tree/main/clarity/contracts/yield-token
• Fractionalizing and recombining semi-fungibles: https://github.com/stacksgov/sips/pull/42#issuecomment-1026435760 such as, https://github.com/MarvinJanssen/stx-semi-fungible-token/blob/main/contracts/examples/fractional-nft.clar
• Anything else?

I think what has surprised me in this result is that there was no conversation before/after the rejection, it seems there is still room for novel work related to the ideas in this grant. Seems worth exploring to me.

[radicleart]

@314159265359879 thanks for the support and your helpful comment. I can understand the foundations reasons but I also think this project would be great for stacks in so many ways. Hopefully Risidio will find some funding and make it happen.