SydTek: Interoperability Meets Interdisciplinary Research

Need this formated into a full white paper.

Preface

Discuss the importance of creating a DAO (legal wrapper (LLC))

Explain why Substrate (go into Polkadot and Kusama) – to create a marketplace that will provide a number of solutions from students from different discipline around the world. (Legal wrapper (LLC))

Why ink! – Gavin’s vision of non-chain maximalism provides the correct mentality for students to standardize protocols. (Legal wrapper (LLC))

Acknowledgements

Context

Founded in January of 2021 based on the Voice of the Customer - the founders from current Polkadot projects - SydTek is a scalable, interoperable network that serves as a sandbox for students to learn about blockchain technology and allow them to develop decentralized applications (dApps). The SydTek project is a blockchain incubator where technical and non-technical students from universities worldwide will collaborate and create solutions that can be implemented as we move into the Web3 future. We are building a testnet - a mini Kusama if you are familiar with the Polkadot ecosystem - where we encourage students from Computer Science, Finance, Business, Supply Chain Management, and other disciplines to fail early in a controlled environment as we feel this will harness innovation and new Polkadot projects. Not only are we creating an incubator for future Polkadot projects, but we are also creating a feeder system and a consulting arm of certified developers, validators, and testers of smart contract and DeFi projects.

NOTE: This document is subject to legal disclaimers…..

Introduction

SydTek is reinventing higher education the Web3 way by creating a platform for students to monetize their innovations of the future. Through DeFi, intelligent contracts, and NFTs, we are bringing together students from different disciplines to innovate.

The solution to that is to develop a platform where students from around the world from different disciplines such as computer science, business, finance, law, and supply chain management to have a platform where they can be educated on the technology of blockchain so we can move away from the misconception that blockchain is only about crypto.

Discuss the registering of an LLC as a DAO in Wyoming

A platform for industry and blockchain internships

A platform for organizations to post bounties for blockchain projects, along with a variety of other projects

The integration of AI with blockchain use cases in a number of different industries.

The Problem

Slow adoption by universities

Blockchain technology is experiencing exponential growth as its adoption across multiple sectors is on the rise. This technology, alongside artificial intelligence, virtual reality and the internet of things are largely viewed as the key drivers of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Web 3.0. As such, blockchain technology is expected to play a major role in the transformation of the global economy. Already, it has shown its potential and as a result has been employed across various sectors like finance, supply chain management, healthcare, and across public sectors around the world.

With its rapidly growing adoption, blockchain technology continues to gain interest from the business world, governments, financial regulatory agencies, and a host of other institutions. Interestingly, universities and other tertiary learning institutions have been slow to adopt this emerging technology. Typically, higher education institutions are the leaders of innovations and on multiple occasions are at the forefront of adopting new technologies. In this respect, their approach to adopt blockchain technology is rather slow, and there is room for improvement.

Limited talent pool

The blockchain space is faced with a shortage of talent as only a handful of developers have the required expertise, technical knowhow and experience. New startups, projects and entrepreneurs seeking to develop blockchain-based applications are therefore facing difficulties in adequately staffing their operations. This situation is not ideal or sustainable as the existing talent is not able to meet the demand of this rapidly growing sector. The accelerated pace of new initiatives is outpacing the production of new talent, hence there is a need to bridge this gap.

Knowledge and expertise gaps

The limited involvement of universities and other tertiary learning institutions has also created gaps between the education sector and the industry. Only, a few higher education institutions offer blockchain technology related courses to help students gain relevant knowledge and expertise about this novel technology. This has forced some startups and organisations within the blockchain space to start offering blockchain courses as they attempt to bridge the gap and produce more talent to cope with the rising demand. However, some of these courses are focused on specific aspects of blockchain technology, hence, the learners do not get all round training. Furthermore, a fair share of these independently offered courses are very theoretical with little practical application. Also, a majority of them are not accredited by the relevant education authorities and therefore some institutions may be reluctant to consider individuals with such certifications.

In this respect, there is a need for universities to formalise training on blockchain technology to equip learners with the required skills and expertise that makes them useful in the industry. SydTek is taking the initiative by providing a platform for university students to formally get acquainted with blockchain technology and learn skills through application in readiness for their foray into real world application.

The SydTek Solution

SydTek is building a platform that addresses these problems that continue to plague the blockchain space. The project has multiple initiatives that will help universities, students, tutors, and key industry players to work together to improve learning, widen the talent pool and bridge the knowledge gaps between school and practice. SydTek is building a robust ecosystem that will provide the following solutions:

Learning

SydTek is providing a platform for students and their instructors to learn and apply blockchain technology in a test environment that resembles the real world. The platform will serve as a sandbox where students can experiment with different ideas by building decentralised applications on the SydTek blockchain. This will enable them, together with their tutors, to evaluate their capabilities, acquire new skills and gain experience on the rigours of the blockchain market in a familiar environment. In this regard, SydTek will act as a safe space for students to try out new ideas, build communities, and analyse the market fit as well as the financial viability of their inventions. This will help them get holistic experiences by simulating the real world, albeit in a controlled environment. Most importantly, the platform will help them to learn from their mistakes, and to sharpen their skills further before venturing into the actual blockchain industry.

Building and incubation

SydTek will also serve as a platform that allows students to conceptualise their unique ideas and turn them into real world solutions. The platform will provide all the necessary tools for the students to build such applications on the SydTek testnet and launch them into the market. This will be open for those with entrepreneurial minds to fine tune their ideas and turn them into useful applications by building on the SydTek platform. While the application is on the testnet, the innovators can get feedback from their peers, teachers, and subject matter experts on the viability, development, and other aspects of their project. In this respect, SydTek will serve as an incubator allowing the inventors to further develop their ideas in readiness for the market. The SydTek team will support such initiatives during the incubation period, helping to better align them with the market and the real world. At the end of the incubation period, the best projects will be launched to the public on the most suitable blockchain protocol depending on their specifications and the team.

Networking

Quite often, a fair share of new inventions fails to make it to the market or even take off at all for various reasons. Key among these reasons is the lack of connections and networks that can turn a dream into reality. At the same time, some very poor ideas, fraudulent schemes and bogus products get their way into the market continuously. There is nowhere else where this phenomenon is quite prevalent than the blockchain space.

SydTek aims to put a stop to these unfortunate circumstances, or rather limit their occurrence. The platform aims to accelerate the development and launch of innovative blockchain-based solutions by linking university students with blockchain industry insiders and experts in the real world. The platform will enlist various players within the blockchain sector on the platform to provide counsel, guidance and share their business acumen with the students. They will help the students to network and learn from the experts thus gaining valuable advice in anticipation of their foray into the blockchain industry.

Professional Development

SydTek will contribute to the students personal and professional development by granting them exposure to this novel technology, allowing them to collaborate and grow their skills together. The platform is keen on delivering holistic experiences to all the participants by equipping them with life skills that they will apply once they leave the universities. SydTek will be highly useful even for those students not keen to enter the blockchain space upon graduation. It will help all users build financial literacy through proper education, technical application and engagement with professionals. This is a common gap across the higher education space and SydTek will remedy this through specifically structured personal finance programs. The platform will also allow the students to build, nurture and improve skills like collaboration leadership and project management through experiential learning.

Token Rewards

SydTek intends to replicate the blockchain industry in its ecosystem to give its users the real feel of the real world. The blockchain space is usually quite lucrative with various platforms giving rewards to users for their participation and contributions for a wide range of activities. SydTek will act in the same manner by offering its participants various rewards for their engagement in the ecosystem. The platform will have its native token $SYD that will be used in a similar manner to ETH on the Ethereum blockchain. All participants will be given free tokens upon registration and enrolment on the platform. The issued tokens will help the participants to pay for transactions and participate in the governance of the platform.

The platform will also regularly reward users for various activities on the platform such as completing learning courses, developing applications, and giving feedback to peers about their products among other uses. SydTek is also keen to promote collaboration between students from different institutions and disciplines to help them develop more holistic solutions and robust decentralised applications. As such, the platform set aside tokens for rewarding teams that create useful tools and applications as well as those that contribute to the further development of SydTek. All in all, SydTek will offer numerous rewards to its users to incentivise them to participate more.

Sydtek technical structure

SydTek is a Substrate-based blockchain that is custom built to serve as a testnet for various DApps by students from higher learning institutions globally. It is a scalable, multichain protocol that supports innovation by acting as an active breeding ground for new ideas, concepts and solutions. The SydTek network allows its users to build functional decentralised applications that can be easily deployed across different blockchain networks. It is custom built to allow experimentation and risk- taking for university students interested in the blockchain space. SydTek allows them to test the capabilities of this new technology through deployment of breakthrough solutions in a fast paced environment. Most importantly, SydTek allows users to sharpen their blockchain development skills by reviewing the functionality of their creations in a safe environment. SydTek’s agility gives its users valuable and long lasting lessons to help them navigate through their entry into the blockchain industry.

Put simply, SydTek is a Kusama for Universities.

SydTek is built using Substrate and in the same manner as Kusama with a codebase that is similar to the revolutionary multichain protocol, Polkadot. This infrastructure will give SydTek similar functionalities as the industry-leading Polkadot blockchain and more. As such, the platform will be highly scalable as developers are able to build decentralised applications on their own parachains. This will unburden the main chain by allowing transactions to run simultaneously on numerous other side chains; this will in turn ensure fast and cheap transactions. The platform will borrow these features from Polkadot thus enabling various learners from multiple universities spread across the world to build applications simultaneously without affecting the SydTek network throughput.

On the other hand, Substrate is specifically designed to help developers to quickly and easily put together various components so that they build their individual blockchains and DApps. SydTek will allow its users similar convenience as Substrate to allow students to easily develop their solutions. Moreover, this will be highly beneficial for those with entrepreneurial mindset but fall short in terms of technical knowhow. They can easily deploy codes, smart contracts, databases and libraries to accelerate the speed of development. This functionality also supports experimentation by allowing students to try out various components and combinations to arrive at the ideal solution. Considering SydTek is built for experimentation like Kusama, the availability of tools will help accelerate the learning process and grant the students greater flexibility.

The underlying infrastructure gives the SydTek protocol exceptional interoperability by enabling cross-chain communication with various other blockchain networks. This feature will help SydTek to test and push the limits of decentralised technologies by allowing users to build applications that can be deployed on different protocols according to their preferences, build and dev team. The platform will have a repository of tools and modular frameworks that users can deploy to create their own blockchains and decentralised applications. SydTek will feature their own pre-built components and a host of other tools developed by members that can be easily incorporated in the creation of new solutions. These will mainly include foundational components that can be easily put together to accelerate the development process. The developers can then customise their applications and blockchains on the additional layers according to their specific preferences and the desired functionalities.

SydTek will employ a Proof of Stake (Pos) consensus mechanism similar to that of Polkadot or Kusama networks. The platform will have a council that will provide oversight for all decision making across the network. The main chain responsible for connecting all other side chains, protocols and Dapps built on SydTek. These additional layer components will be connected through SydTek and will be able to solve interoperability issues and have better security while helping the network to scale up. More in depth details about consensus on the platform are discussed under the governance model. SydTek Token

The SydTek platform will have its native token known as $SYD. $SYD will serve as a governance token that will be used by the members of the network to vote on various issues that determine the future direction of the protocol. The tokens give the community a voice and control over the decision making based on the proposals brought forth. This open governance model is in line with the current evolution of the decentralised networks and is aimed at ensuring the participants stay abreast of the current trends in the market.

Why a DAO in Higher Education?

Expand on creating a DAO for this project.

The SydTek Community

Established the SydTek Student Ambassadors program

• Full Ambassadors

• Senior Ambassadors

• Regional Ambassadors

• Global Ambassadors

Future hackathons on campuses

Sponsoring SydTek/Polkadot Student Clubs to continue to build up the blockchain discipline and the Polkadot ecosystem

SydTek’s Market position

Discuss Student Coin and what they are doing in higher education https://www.studentcoin.org/

Market specifics

13,711 higher education institutions globally (World Health Organization)

124 different institutions offering blockchain courses

258 total blockchain degree and certificate programs globally

The ‘Facebook Effect’ at higher education institutions for investing and staking with ~200 million college students globally

Georgia (U.S.) passed a bill to teach digital currency in high schools (808 schools) -

Roadmap

Q3 2021 Registering DAO in Wyoming

Q1 2022 Projekt Blakchain Launch - Projekt Blakchain is an off-the-grid platform that will be created to harness innovation through controlled chaos.

Q2 2022 – Projekt AiNGEN Launch - Projekt AiNGEN will introduce AI into our Intelligent Contract and DeFi/HyFi offerings.

Q4 2022 - The SydTek Marketplace - The SydTek Marketplace will offer Intelligent Contracts and other offerings that can be purchased using the SydTek utility token.

Tokenomics

Governance

250,000,000 $SYD (Governance) – Subject to DAO input

Treasury

1,000,000,000 $BLK (Utility) – Subject to DAO input

15% Founding Team

15% Academic Institutions

20% Early Backers

40% Community

40% Auction/Liquidity program 20% Treasury 15% Ecosystem Development 15% Reward Reserve Treasury will increase with investment of the DAO token.

sydtek1 / white-paper

SydTek: Interoperability Meets Interdisciplinary Research #1