S11 Planning: Global Alliances and Grants

Announcements Season Planning
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Hi everyone,

My name is Kevin Tharayil, Planning Steward for the Global Alliances and Grants Working Group. With the aim of creating transparency and seeking community feedback, I’ll be sharing with you the work our working group has been doing. You can learn more about the Season 11 planning initiative here.

Working group’s purpose

Increase Celo adoption through global partnerships and grants.

Team composition

The Global Alliances group focuses on both the short-tail and long-tail partnerships that support builders in the Celo ecosystem. This includes supporting early stage founders through incubator and accelerator programs, grants through both strategic partnerships and inbound applications, and rails that helps build awareness and access to the assets native to the protocol.

Our team comprises 4 individuals.

  • Jason Rodrigues (Founder programs)
  • Masha Healy (Grants and Alliance)
  • Natalie Alfers (Ramps and Wallets)

A view of the last season

  1. Collaborations with Mysten Labs, Etherscan, DappRadar to improve architecture, dev tooling, and reporting.
  2. Alliance expanded to include Deutsche Telekom, Goldfinch. New committees established to support focused efforts around DeFi, Creators and Social Impact.
  3. Programs to support early stage founders expanded - Celo Camp Batch 6 and Startup Pathway. New program Celo Jura launched, focused on legal support for founders.
  4. The Grants program received 258 applications YTD. Key grant focus areas: 37% DeFi, 25% ReFi, 10.5 % Infrastructure
  5. New integrations with quality on/off ramps and continued collaboration with existing global fiat gateways such as Ramp Network and Simplex.

Goals for the upcoming season

  1. Ramp Partnerships: Continue to support Connect the World program to increase access to Celo in key markets [fintechs, wallets, ramps].
  2. Grants: Grant priorities for Q4 is on public goods, revamping the internal grants process and supporting Gitcoin Round 16 for community grants.
  3. Alliance: Hold Alliance Members Meeting & launch Alliance Hub.
  4. Founder Programs: Focus on shipping the highest quality founder programs till the end of the year. Read more here.

Key milestones and dates

  • Grants:
    • Gitcoin Matching Round GR16 - Dec 1-15, 2022
    • Gitcoin 2.0 - Jan/Feb, 2023
  • Founder Programs:
    • Celo Camp 6, Demo Day - Nov 15, 2022
  • Alliance Memberships
    • Setting up Alliance Hub - Nov 30, 2022

Your feedback

We would love your feedback on this post. Please share your thoughts on the areas that we’re working on, what you think we should be doing more or less of, and how we can improve. We truly believe that we can get better with the inputs from you all in the community and we look forward to it.

Thanks,
Kevin

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Thanks for putting this together and driving this, Kevin!

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This looks great! One question though are grants focused on ReFi only? Just saw that on discord

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Hi Serge, in addition there’ll be community driven grants focusing on public goods that are broader in scope than just ReFi. You can expect to see more about this on Gitcoin in Dec :slight_smile:

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Season 11 update

Hi all, hope you had a good holiday break. Here’s sharing a quick update on the goals we shared in October for our Working Group!

  1. Ramp Partnerships:
    We made progress in the number of connect the world and ramp partners supporting Celo that will help make it more widely available. Expect some exciting announcements in the coming weeks!

  2. Grants:
    We have taken this time to revamp the internal grants process using Hubspot to manage the grants pipeline. In line with supporting public goods, we continue to engage partners like Gitcoin, Future Quest and others to support builders in the Celo community.

  3. Alliance:
    The Alliance for Prosperity members’ meeting was held on Nov 30, 2022. The agenda included member updates from Mercy Corps Ventures, Climate Collective and EthicHub. A sneak peek into the rebrand was also shared.

  4. Founder Programs:
    From the perspective of Founder Programs, Q4 2022 saw the launch of a new batch of Celo Camp Batch 6. With about 30 teams that were obtained from >300 applicants, this was the strongest batch so far. Last month, we wrapped Demo Day and announced winners. Additionally, Startup Pathway, another program in the Celo ecosystem that is also run by Upright went live.

We’ll be sharing shortly our goals for the upcoming Season. Till then, wishing you all the best for the new year!

Thanks,
Kevin

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