Educational-Akash Round #1

Developer Grants Grant Applications
#1

Project Title:
Educational-Akash Round #1 (short: EDU-Akash #1)

Problem Statement: What is the problem you will solve?
Akash is both hard to find, and hard to use. Docker is usually pretty hard to get started with for newer users. This project will help combat that by spreading easy-to-follow tutorials via guest posts on blogs and various social media.

Goals: What are you aiming to accomplish?
With this funding, I hope to create:

  • 2x Reddit Posts on r/CC: How to host a website and host a Minecraft server on Akash. The persistent storage will make it possible to make them a bit easier to follow. They will be similar to this** post, with step-by-step instructions, and targeted towards non-techie people. These may be cross-posted in other communities as well, other than just r/akashnetwork.
  • Medium Post: How to acquire AKT. This will be updated across the entire span of this project and will be useful in the onboarding process of certain users, as we are still waiting for testnet.
  • Assist in creating YouTube tutorials and fund sponsorships for niche topics such as possibly dockerizing and shipping advanced net code, getting the word out there on how to host a Minecraft server, and getting the word out on how to mine various crypto’s on Akash. I will put up advertisements in a Discord channel I moderate regarding finding YouTuber’s for the net code specifically.

I have also planned to create these tutorials, but these are only related to the project if I can get them out as guest posts instead of Medium Posts. Funding and contacts will decide that.

  • Medium Post: How to Create and Host a Simple Game Server on Akash.
  • Medium Post: How to Create and Host a Discord Bot on Akash.
  • Medium Post: How to Create and Host a Steam Bot on Akash.

This will steer thousands of eyes to Akash and its ecosystem. With YouTube videos especially, it will be easy to get the users to follow the tutorials and get their deployments active. It should also be easy to get a lot of views on these videos, as it would be a collaborative effort between me and someone with an audience. If all goes well, I will be working on getting another round of this project active.

Impact: What impact will this project have?
By providing visibility and tutorials, there will be more users on the network and fewer beginner questions. Users will be more educated and more plentiful. This will lead to more general awareness about Akash, and more developers willing to use Akash for their deployments.

Budget: How much funding will this require?
$10,000. This comes down to about $1,000 per guide, including development, fine-tuning, and sponsorship costs if they are relevant. See the goals for how I want to spend and earn it. If it’s successful and it comes a round 2, we will see if this number is too much, just right, or too little - and adjust accordingly.

Timeline: What is the timeline for accomplishing this task?
This project is planned to begin after the v0.15.0 release with persistent storage. This is so that we may skip the need to include databases in every single tutorial. A few of these guides will have to wait for the testnet release, to make it easier to board. The others will include a link to the tutorial on the various ways to get AKT. I will approximate every guide to take up to a month, but they should come out bi-weekly, on average, if all goes well.

Team: Are you looking for additional team members?
No, but if you have any social outlets you could contact me to work together.
Reporting: How will you report your progress to the community (e.g. weekly calls, reports)?
When every guide is finished, I will cross-post it on the r/akashnetwork subreddit. It will also be visible in the outlet where it is relevant, whether that’s r/CC, some blog, or a Youtube channel.

Design: Do you have any mock ups or screenshots?
Yes. I have made this guide* on medium with about 300 views. It is a perfect example of how someone can go from 0 experience to their own deployed application on Akash. This has only been promoted in Akash channels, so it hasn’t reached a lot of new users, but it has helped a few ones who have already found Akash. I will also make guides in this** fashion to share on r/CC, but each post is a huge gamble in how well it does. It can reach dozens to thousands of r/CC members - and if it does reach thousands, it will very well be worth it.
´* Developing & Deploying on Akash. This guide will go through the… | by figurestudios | Oct, 2021 | Medium
** NOT AN AKASH GUIDE, BUT I WILL USE THE SAME CONTENT STYLE https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/r1z2y5/backing_up_your_photos_on_the_dweb

#2

Project Title:
Educational-Akash Round 1 (short: EDU-Akash #1)
Contact:

  1. First & Last Name: (optional)

  2. Email Address:
    figuregang@gmail.com

  3. Akash Wallet Address:
    akash1nzakpmfj3wf6lde9z0mq2z6llscr0n255cdc0s

  4. Akashian URI:

  5. Time Zone:
    CET (UTC+01:00; CEST, UTC+02:00)

  6. Language:
    English & Swedish

Social Networks

  1. Akash Forum Username:
    figurestudios

  2. Discord Username:
    stelballe#2785

  3. Github Username:
    figurestudios

  4. Twitter Handle:
    stelballe

  5. LinkedIn:
    none

  6. Website:
    no personal one

  7. Blog:
    figurestudios – Medium

Experience:

  1. Are you a developer or software engineer?
    Yes.

  2. Are you currently involved in Akash’s Discord developer community channel? (discord.akash.network)
    Yes.

  3. Have you deployed on Akash’s Mainnet or Testnet? (docs.akash.network)
    Yes.

  4. Do you have other team members?
    No.

  5. Are you looking for additional team members?
    Only ones with social outlets, but it’s not necessary.

  6. Are you interested in working on Akash full-time?
    No. I am a student and don’t have time for that at the moment.

  7. What Cloud hosting services do you currently use? (Amazon/Google/Microsoft)
    Akash.

  8. How much do you pay per month for Cloud services / hosting?
    Roughly 50 AKT/year.

  9. How did you hear about this program?
    I found it through Colin when he messaged me on Discord.

Product Vision:

  1. What is your project?
    Creating educational content on varying platforms.

  2. What is the problem you will solve?
    How hard it is to (1) find Akash and (2) use Akash as a developer.

  3. What are your goals?
    Creating about 10 tutorials on different topics and social media platforms.

  4. What impact will this project have on the Akash developer community?
    More developers will join the project from it.

  5. Who will use your project when it’s complete?
    Anyone who is interested in tech. Skill level varying, because I will create tutorials with varying technical knowledge necessary.

  6. Will you monetize your project?
    Yes, by funding.

  7. Will you open source your project?
    If there are any aspects that can be open-sourced, yes.

Product Leadership / Drive:

  1. Tell us about yourself, your passion, your values
    I am a technology student whose interests are currently devoted to helping others and bringing light into the open-source world. A weakness of mine can be seen as the fact that I strongly dislike not finishing or maintaining my projects. I could never dream of gate-keeping knowledge that may be essential for others to learn. Sometimes I do tech support, write guides, or work on my personal projects; other times I devote myself to whether that’s watching movies, listening to music, or hanging out with friends.

  2. What’s your aspiration for blockchain technology?
    After getting de-platformed from Steam and their Steamworks program, I realized that you can’t take anything for granted unless you are in control. I lost years of development on games, along with the bigger part of my then wallet - which consisted of assets held on Steam. With blockchain, you can stay in control of your own assets. Thanks to Akash and a few other disruptive networks, it is now possible to utilize similar technology through the blockchain as without - even if you might pay a premium to do that.

  3. If you had $1 million in grant funding what would you do?
    I have no idea. I’m not ready for a project that large yet.

  4. Who will benefit most from your project?
    Akash, me, and everyone who can utilize these guides.

  5. How will you help grow the Akash community?
    By making these guides, it will be easier to use Akash as a cause of the simple tutorials. I will not even focus all my guides to developers, but also to people who want to deploy.

  6. How will you make Akash approachable to developers?
    I will make step-by-step guides similar to ones I have previously done, and make them fit into certain niches.

  7. How do you think Akash should improve?
    I personally think that there should be way more workshops and tooling to play around with.
    When I first found Akash, I had no idea what Docker was, and without that essential knowledge, Akash is impossible.
    The documentation isn’t helpful for those who don’t already know the necessary systems, unfortunately.

Product Execution:

  1. How would you utilize the grant funding?
    I would create, on average, bi-weekly guides. Some of these guides would need money to be advertised for say guest posts.

  2. Have you already started this work?
    I have previously made guides, but I haven’t done anything specifically for the ones talked about in this proposal.

  3. Do you have a GitHub or website for your project?
    No, but I will cross-post all resources in the r/akashnetwork subreddit.

  4. How will this task be accomplished?
    I will be working directly with influencers for some of the guides, and some of the guides I will be working on my own. I will then make sure that they’re posted where they should. Lastly, I’ll cross-post them on the r/akashnetwork subreddit.

  5. How would you break this work up into 3 or 4 phases / milestones?
    Breaking it up into 3-4 milestones is not possible. I highlighted a few tutorials in the original post, and each one of those is one milestone.

  6. How many months of work will this project require?
    Expect about 3-4 months.

  7. What’s the expected amount of funding required for your project?
    $10,000.

Product Progress:

  1. Will you open source your project?
    If there are any aspects that can be open-sourced, yes.

  2. How do you plan to share your work with the community once complete?
    I will cross-post every finished guide in r/akashnetwork.

  3. Will you report your progress to the community every month?
    Not other than the cross-posts, but I would be happy to discuss anything with anyone on Discord in DMs or #awards.

  4. Do you have any screenshots, videos, or other context you can share?
    Yes:

Developer Associations:

  1. Are you associated with any accelerators, incubators, venture capital firms, or startup funds?
    No.

  2. Are you associated with any startup communities?
    No.

  3. Are you associated with the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF)?
    No.

  4. Are you associated with any open source projects?
    No.

  5. Are you associated with any of the Akash Network core team members?
    No. Unless being a moderator counts.

Legalese:

  1. Are you a resident of, citizen, or located in a geographic area that is subject to UN, US, EU, Swiss or any other sovereign country sanctions or embargoes?
    Yes. I live in Sweden and am subject to both UN and EU laws as far as I know.

  2. Are you over the age of 18?
    No. I will be in February.

#3

This could impact the akash greatly because I was reading your nodejs guide and the backing up photos on decentralized web with skynet + sia, and those were great so can’t imagine what else could come with these youtube videos, tutorials and more guides!

#4

Thanks a lot! A few of these guides would come regardless of the proposal passing or not, but no funding makes it impossible for those YouTube videos - as who would accept an offer to create a tutorial for no money unless they’re very devoted to the ecosystem already?