[DAO:4a7b403] Decentraland’s MENA Community Outreach Plan (DEI)

Governance
1

by 0xb2463ab833b4aed1575a68b3311d7dc1bdfe914d (aleppoketamine#914d)

Should the following Tier 4: up to $60,000 USD, 6 months vesting (1 month cliff) grant in the Community category be approved?

Abstract

Problem

Beside DCL Report’s Arabic stream, there’s next to no Arabic content about DCL, neither in media where people can learn about DCL, nor educational content to guide new users through DCL’s ecosystem.

While Arabic is the 5th most spoken language on earth, and MENA residents account for 12.5% of all humans, there is no dedicated language or regional channel for Arabs on DCL’s Discord.

Solution

We will create and publish a package of media and educational content on DCL in Arabic, launch an Arabic channel on DCL’s Discord, and attract streamers, gamers and users and provide them with support in Arabic.

Team

We produced 5 videos in Arabic about DCL & metaverse. Our team includes the first Arab DCL Reporter, and members of CBD.

Grant size

33,550 USD

Beneficiary address

0x776b3b6238CB38b55c7492824318ADAFA1e6fa45

Email address

contact@taxir.xyz

Description

We are a multidisciplinary team of 8 members. We are a member of AbjaDAO, the DAO producing the first Arabic blockchain glossary, and a co organizer of the Arab Blockchain Week, the leading blockchain conference in MENA.

Team and Partners: https://taxir.xyz/
Whitepaper: TL;DR - Taxir
Taxir on Insta: ‎Taxir - تكسير‎ (@were.taxir) • Instagram photos and videos
Taxir on Twitter: https://twitter.com/were_taxir
Taxir on Discord: TAXIR

Our plan aims at building an Arab community in DCL by achieving two goals:

  • Attract attention towards DCL through quality media content published on pan-Arab media with high reach amongst youth.
  • Provide new users with guidance and support, through producing quality educational content and resources in Arabic, beside launching and moderating / activating an Arabic / MENA channel on DCL’s Discord for six months.

The plan consists of the following parts:

Arabic / MENA Discord channel on Decentraland’s main server:

  • Duration: 6 months
  • Activities: wearables giveaways, interaction with Arab youtubers / streamers (more on the below), DCL trivia and rewards, DCL games competitions, memes, bi-monhtly (twice a month) tour in Arabic
  • Cost: $700 / month, $4,200 total
  • Bonus: Taxir is organizing a weekly tour in DCL in Arabic during November

Educational videos in Arabic (to be posted on DCL’s channel or on Taxir’s):

  • Content:
  • SDK 101
  • Builder 101
  • Wearables design on Blender
  • Marketplace 101
  • LandWorks 101
  • DAO Grants
  • Overview of DCL communities ecosystem: CBD, The DCL Reporter, Metatrekkers,
  • Emotes design
  • Decentraland & VR
  • A one-hour-long tour through DCL (Genesis, Museum, Wondermine)
  • Bonus (already produced content):
  • The Metaverse 101
  • Beginners guide to DCL
  • Biggest partnerships in DCL
  • Decentraland 101
  • How to make money in DCL?
  • Duration: 8 - 15 minutes per video, released over 6 months
  • Cost: $350 per video, $3,500 total

Streamers:

  • Two mainstream-level (+100K followers) streamers, one from Lebanon, one from Egypt
  • Taxir to provide blockchain and Decentraland training to streamers
  • Package per streamers: two 2-hours streams, 4 social media shares, 2 sessions of interaction on Arabic Discord channel, over six months
  • Cost: $4,000 per package / $8,000 total

Media buy ins:

  • We will be commissioning established mainstream pan-Arab media outlets to do stories on Decentraland in Arabic
  • Content plan: 4 articles ($500 each), 2 podcasts ($1,000 each), 2 video report ($1,000 each)
  • Cost: $6,000

Events:

  • 1 week-long exhibition featuring 25 of leading Arab NFT artists
  • 1 3-days-long virtual festival (genre: electronic music), featuring leading night clubs and electronic music collectives in Beirut, Lebanon
  • Cost: $4,000 per event, $8,000 total

Decentraland Booklet:

  • 40-pages long pdf booklet in Arabic, featuring a list of points of interests and things to do in Decentraland, and a beginners guide
  • Cost: $800

Budget: $30,500
Contingency: 10%
Total Budget: $33,550

Specification

Events methodology:

Our events organization efforts will be spearheaded by a highly experienced trio. Ammar Manla Hasan who has worked before with Boiler Room and Ma3azef magazine, and produced many videos and events reaching pop culture status. Adele Jarrar, an art researcher and curator who recently launched the successful virtual exhibition titled ‘We are sorry to inform you that…’ And Nour Ezzedine, who worked in cultural events organization and curation for over a decade, and is well connected in the clubbing scene in Lebanon.

Educational video production & Booklet methodology:

This effort will be spearheaded by Moustafa Sbeity, the first Arab DCL Reporter and Taxir’s inhouse streamer, and Peter Houaiss, an expert in Blender, SDK and Builder, and Taxir’s inhouse NFT artist.

We have produced 5 educational videos in Arabic on Decentraland and the metaverse previously, which you can view here:

We have also produced an Arabic course on Discord Essentials, which can come in handy onboarding new DCL users to DCL’s Discord communities. You can view this course here:

Streams & Media buy ins methodology:

Over the past year, Taxir has been developing a business directory that indexes highly localized and specialized service providers in the fields of media, education and research, who are interested in offering their services to the blockchain industry. Today, the directory, named Tajsir (Arabic for: bridging) includes: 21 youtubers / streamers, 24 media organizations, 3 researchers, 7 social media influencers, 4 developer collectives, and 7 graphic and video editors.

We will be leveraging our Tajsir network to find the best streamers and media outlets to partner up with for this plan. We will commission multiple proposals and go with the ones with the highest result per dollar efficiency.

Discord channel methodology:

Members of our team will rotate brainstorming and organizing activities on the Arabic / MENA channel for the duration of the plan (six months).

Personnel

Ammar Manla Hasan. A journalist and media entrepreneur with over a decade of experience, Ammar is the former Editor-in-Cheif of Ma3azef, the leading Arab music magazine. He has collaborated with AFAC, Sharjah Art Foundation, Boiler Room and Roskilde Festival amongst others.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ammaro/

Adele Jarrar. An independent curatorial and cultural worker and a researcher. Adele has an MA in arts and cultural management and a BA in architecture. She is experienced in curating, writing, and production. Recently collaborated with The Question of Funding, and has been a resident artist at Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adelejarrar/

Moustafa Sbeity. The DCL Report’s first Arabic reporter, and member of CBD, Moustafa is Taxir’s metaverse lead on the community front. He’s well versed in Twitch, streaming, gaming culture, memes culture and tech, and is a dedicated and thorough researcher.

Peter Houaiss. Video producer, NFT artist specialized in video games photography, and 3D designers cooking Taxir’s line of wearables, Peter is our metaverse lead on the technical front, gaining experience with builder, the SDK and Blender.
LinkedIn: Peter Houaiss | LinkedIn

Nadim El Roz. A media virtuoso with filming and video production expertise spanning the Lebanese video industry, Nadim worked with news channels and music video directors.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadim-el-roz-a2a40a126/

Roadmap and milestones

1st month:

  • Arabic / MENA Discord channel: launch, 4 activities, participation from streamer (Egypt)
  • Streams: First stream (Egypt)
  • Media buy ins: 1 article
  • Educational Videos: SDK 101, Builder 101

2nd month:

  • Arabic / MENA Discord channel: 4 activities, participation from streamer (Lebanon)
  • Streams: Second stream (Lebanon)
  • Media buy ins: 1 article
  • Educational videos: Wearables design on Blender, Marketplace 101
  • Booklet release

3rd month:

  • Arabic / MENA Discord channel: 4 activities, invitation to exhibition, interaction with curators and artists
  • Events: Exhibition
  • Media buy ins: 1 podcast + 1 video report (on the exhibition)
  • Educational Videos: Decentraland & VR

4th month:

  • Arabic / MENA Discord channel: 4 activities, participation from streamer (Egypt)
  • Streams: Third stream (Egypt)
  • Media buy ins: 1 article
  • Educational videos: LandWorks, DAO Grants

5th month:

  • Arabic / MENA Discord channel: 4 activities, participation from streamer (Lebanon)
  • Streams: Fourth stream (Lebanon)
  • Media buy ins: 1 article
  • Educational videos: Overview of DCL Communities, Emotes

6th month:

  • Arabic Discord channel: 4 activities, invitation to festival, interaction with DJs and organizers
  • Events: Festival
  • Media buy ins: 1 podcast + 1 video report (on the festival)
  • Educational Videos: 1-hour tour

Reporting:

We will post monthly forum entries reporting on the suggested roadmap above. We are using a fundless wallet to make it easier to track funds.

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

1 Like
2

Easy Yes my friend! I really like how you took the proposal originally to the forum to receive feedback from the community. I saw you made the changes and really hope this passes! Really like your team dynamics, and see huge potential in attracting quality users into Decentraland. Job well done!

3 Likes
3

Thank you frisky! We dearly appreciate your feedback and support, and thanks for making our proposal better :))

1 Like
4

Yes for me

@Ammaro and the Taxir team have been taking the time to get involved with the Decentraland Community as well as to compile enough information about our platform so that he may transcribe it into Arabic, I would love to see this pass because i feel like it would be a good move for exposer in Arabic Countries.

2 Likes
5

Thanks Sinful! We enjoyed learning about Decentraland and being part of the community over the past few months :slight_smile: Your support is dearly appreciated :beers:

1 Like
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Voting YES:

Ammaro, Moustafa, and the Taxir team came to the CBD server about three months ago. They have been inquisitive and eager to learn. They have attended tours lead by myself and the rest of the ABC Decentraland Tours team to observe how we do things.

They have sought comments and criticisms to their proposal so that they might improve it and resubmit it. Decentraland is a truly global asset. As such we need native speakers to present it to different parts of the world. The Taxir team has been working and continues to work hard to produce content and experiences that reaches people who speak Arabic.

They have a realistic timeline, an experienced team, and examples of the quality of work that has been and will be produced.

3 Likes
7

I’m voting NO because although I have seen some of the videos produced and the quality is nice, I’m not sure this merits 30k for 6 months… what happens when the 6 months is over, another 30K? I also think we could do without the media buy ins, or they could be more cost effective. I don’t see a benefit in paying 8K to teach two streamers about blockchain and decentraland. If the amount was smaller and just included the educational videos I would be more inclined to support it.

3 Likes
8

hey cheddar, the 30k are divided into 6 projects, we are paying 8k to 2 professional well known streamers with 100+k follower, we OFFER them blockchain and decentraland training, if they wanted, we dont interfere with the stream, we let them do their job. we see the media buy ins as an added value, with the low cost and a high reach among the youth ,the projects won’t need any follow up efforts after 6 months, unless if we wanted a discord moderator for the arabic channel, and i dont think that is necessary, cause in this 6 months we will be creating a community that will help each others, thank you for taking the time to let us know what you think and feel :heart:

3 Likes
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Dearly Appreciated AwedJob! And thank you for all the support and guidance your provided through the last three months, it helped us a lot. We will always be a part of the community :raised_hands:

1 Like
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Hi Cheddar! Thank you so much for your detailed and just feedback. Please allow me to address a few points you brought up.

What happens after the 6 month? And to add to that, what happens if we don’t get the grant? Taxir will continue its current level of involvement, Moustafa will continue to be the only Arabic reporter in The DCL Report, and we will do what we can at our capacity to be around. Decentraland is our metaverse of choice after we thoroughly researched many leading metaverse platforms. This grant is a one-time-off to provide a corner stone for the Arab community in DCL to build on, and it will make our work easier having all the media and educational resources to use while onboarding new users and builders.

We might apply later for much much smaller grants for offline events and major metaverse events (e.g. MENA X DCL Metaverse Festival), but the current grant covers all the media and education requirements that we will need long term speaking, so we won’t be applying for that again, and our voluntary work will cover our long term involvement.

We will definitively consider your remarks regarding media buy in and streamers spending, we realize they are big ticket items, and we are open to reduce them if the grant ended up being revised.

Thank you again for your feedback and for the time you took to go through our proposal :beers:

2 Likes
11

Grant looks well thought out and, imo respectful in the amount of funds being requested! Love seeing more and more onramps from and for communities from all over the world!

1 Like
12

Thank you for your vote and feedback Matimio, your support is dearly appreciated!

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Decentraland’s MENA Community Outreach Plan (DEI)

This proposal is now in status: REJECTED.

Voting Results:

  • Yes 44% 1,391,543 VP (40 votes)
  • No 56% 1,764,665 VP (33 votes)