Andamio

When it is fully released later in this year, the Andamio Platform will provide a cohesive experience of learning and contribution management so that people can access knowledge and opportunities. Right now, the Andamio course platform is rolling out for preproduction testing at andamio.io, and pioneering course creators are currently writing course content.

At the same time, we are testing processes for group collaboration that will help to inform the design of the contribution side of the platform. In this blog post, we introduce the Andamio Contributor Prototype, which is currently deployed on Cardano Mainnet for live testing in three instances:

Gimbalabs - funded by Project Catalyst proposal: Gimbalabs Research: "Contribution Treasury System" Model
Dandelion Intersect Grant: funded by Intersect
Andamio + Cardano Go Development: funded by Project Catalyst proposal Open-Source Cardano Go Libraries + Docs + Andamio CLI

What Does the Contributor Prototype Do?

Each Contributor Prototype holds tokens. For now, these tokens include Ada and Gimbals, which can be changed. Each prototype also includes a list of approved Projects. There are three roles for interacting with the Contribution Prototype:

Contributors commit to completing projects and earn tokens.
Reviewers approve completed work and releaase the tokens to Contributors.
Administrators decide which projects are listed, and they define the rewards connected with each.

The purpose of our three prototype deployments is to test how people taking on these three roles interact with the Andamio contribution platform.

Wait, You're Testing on Mainnet?

We certainly are - but not in the way you might think! The Andamio Contributor Prototype is a project that has been in development for nearly three years. It made its public debut in the second iteration of Plutus Project-Based Learning, in early 2022.

Since then, we've developed and refined the smart contracts, built reliable transactions, and rigorously tested the application on testnet. From a software development perspective, the app is ready for mainnet release.

But that's only part of the story.

The contribution platform raises new questions about how people work together. No matter how much we might test the application on the technical side, a different sort of testing happens when people start to use an application.

Governance Questions and Roles

The most exciting questions raised by Andamio relate to people and to governance. To understand these questions, we must start conversations about the roles introduced above:

Who gets to be a contributor?
Who gets to be a reviewer?
Who gets to be an adminstrator?

Theoretical ideas will not be sufficient to answer these questions. We must practice with the possibilities. Even though the technology works, we have to figure out how people actually use it together. These questions have more to do with people, collaboration, politics and transparency.

Implications for Catalyst, Intersect, and the Conway Era

Project Catalyst is the first step in the global governance of Cardano funds. For nearly four years, people have gained first-hand experience with new forms of governance by participating in Catalyst. We have seen what works and where the Catalyst system falls short of expectations. The advent of Intersect MBO presents a similar opportunity. Here at the dawn of Cardano's Conway Era, we need more opportunties for people to experience the details of on-chain governace.

Andamio's experiments with the Contributor Prototype are one such venue, and we invite you to get involved.

Identity Questions

Our current experiments also drive research and development in decentralized identity and verifiable credentials. When people start to make on-chain commitments to learning and contribution, critical questions about the connection between people and blockchain addresses become very real. If you are seeking opportunities to engage in this phase of R&D, be in touch.

The Andamio Platform