Grant Proposal: The Graph Community Expansion - India

Community Grant Applications
#1

Grant ID: 85zrkqheg

Summary:

This project aims to 10,000+ Developers across India and Build the Strongest Graph community & presence in the Indian Ecosystem. Our aim is to organize 8 In-Person Meet-ups, 4 In-Person Technical Workshops and 8 Webinars/Twitter Spaces within 2 Months (Overall 20 Events). Also, bringing together all the Indian Graph Advocates and Graph Developers, Enablers. These events will be conducted in 12 Major Cities across the nation and Target 50+ Universities & Colleges to assist in transition over Graph Protocol as well as Invite Graph Indexers, Curators, Delegators, Web3 Founders & Investors present in the ecosystem!

I have read and agree to the privacy policy:
true

If available, please enter a link to your project below:

Are you applying as a team or individual?:
Team

What type of grant are you pursuing?:
Long-term (continuous)

Please select the category your project best fits into:
Regional Community

Please select who you think will benefit from your project?:
Subgraph Developers, Curators, Delegators, Indexers, Other

How much funding are you looking for? (USD):
16000

Provide a breakdown of your requested funding:
Breakup per Event :-

For 100 Participants Tentative

Food & Beverages – 500 USD (5 USD per participant)

Freebies & Swags – 250 USD

Logistics & Operations (Volunteers Transport & Food, Venue) – 250 USD

Total – 1k USD per event

Overall -

Total No. of Meet-ups – 8
Expected Budget – 8k USD

Total No. of Technical Sessions – 4
Expected Budget – 4k USD

Total No. of Twitter Spaces, Webinars, AMAs - 8
Expected Budget – 2k USD

Design & Creatives – 1k USD
Standees, Posters – 1k USD

Budget Per Month – 8k USD

Total No. of Months – 2

Overall Budget – 16k USD

Have you applied for (or already received) funding from somewhere else?:
No

What’s your vision for how your project will impact The Graph and/or web3?:
To enhance growth of The Graph Foundation in Indian Ecosystem, Building the strongest community & bringing visibility in the most populated country of the world i.e in Indian Subcontinent, Rapidly increasing the Innovation using Graph in Web3 Technology with its global adoption and Building a more decentralized world for generations to come!

What can you share about any past work that is relevant to this grant?:
Pl have a look at the events organized in past -

Can you share any information about current/past web3 experience?:
I have been working in the Web3 space from past 3 years mostly focusing on Buidling Communities and Growth Marketing of various Web3 Projects as well as assisting them with their Business Development. Currently, I’m an Advocate in The Graph Protocol where I have been contribtuing in various roles to boost the ecosystem and been in this role for quite long sparked me to stat with this initiative of building the largest Graph community.

Why are you interested in contributing to The Graph and/or web3?:
As I’m the Graph Advocate and I strongly believe in the Use Cases of this protocol which is going to disrupt the Web3 space and build real life applications for benefiting the society. Data is need of the hour and Graph is the best Data Indexing & Querying Protocol present in the Web3 ecosystem worldwide, so I want to take this initiative for making it reach millions of developers across the globe, starting from the Indian region!




Primary Community Poll

Do you fundamentally support this grant application, knowing that the final scope and grant amount may differ from the requested proposal?
  • Yes
  • No

0 voters




Grant Committee Vote

Do you recommend this grant to the DAO?
  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

1 Like
#2

Greetings!

Thank you for taking the time to apply! As I read through the description and the goals of this grant, I had a few questions.

  1. For how long do you plan to implement all of the above?
  2. How will you estimate that 10,000 developers have joined The Graph?
  3. How will we as a DAO evaluate the effectiveness of these offline events, meetings, and online initiatives?
  4. Have you worked with other projects and received grants?
  5. What do you plan to talk about at the meetings and do you plan to use any platforms or platforms for online events?

Thank you!

#3

Hi,

First of all thanks a lot to spare your productive time for reviewing the grant application.

I’m happy to answer all the questions!

  1. This complete roadmap is planned for the runway of 2 months i.e 8 Weeks → 8 In-Person Meet-ups, (Each Friday Every Week), Every Alternate Week Technical Workshop (Total 4 Technical Workshop In-Person - Alternate Friday Afternoon) and 8 Online Sessions (1 Session every week - Every Saturday).

  2. Telegram Communities will be created region/university wise to track the numbers

  3. There will be a registration form over Luma for every event where we’ll collect data of the attendees that can be exported in csv file for DAO to evaluate, attendees will be sharing their feedbacks post event.

Also, For Technical Sessions, Each attendee will be building a tiny project to understand more about Graph which they’ll be adding over GitHub repo and tagging Graph over Social Media Handles.

  1. I have previously worked with CoinDCX, Covalent HQ for building & engaging their communities in the Indian region, also organized many events like Meet-ups, Sessions & Technical Workshops for them. Further building brand visibility and presence in the ecosystem. All the activities were fully supported by Covalent in monetary terms and developer support.

  2. Meet-ups will be laser focused on the application of Graph Protocol in Web3, giving insights to community for building dapps using it.

Key focus areas will include -

  1. Transition from Web2 to Web3
  2. How to Build Dapps using Graph protocol
  3. How & Why to Shift to Graph from existing data indexing and querying protocols
  4. How to build a career in Web3
  5. Grant Opportunities offered by The Graph
  6. Tutorials for using GraphQL, Subgraphs and Graph Academy
  7. Exploring use cases of Graph in Web3 space

Online Events Registrations will be through Luma as to collect data and insights, Zoom will be used to organize online sessions.

I hope I have clarified all your queries and I strongly believe that it is going to be one of a kind project to be executed building the largest Web3 community from the Indian region over Graph Protocol.

Looking forward to DAO’s support for making Graph India Expansion, a grand success!!!

Thanks
Warm Regards
Agrim Nagrani
Graph Advocate

2 Likes
#4

Hey @agrimn,

Thank you for your answers to the questions asked by Doxe.

I have a number of follow-up questions.

  1. Looking at the timeline here, I think it would be very hard to pull off a project this size in two months. Would you be open to moving the timeframe to a later time?

  2. There are no costs included for renting a venue, would you host these events at universities? Do you already have permission to do this?

  3. How will you reach 10000 developers without a marketing budget? How will developers know these events are happening, and be incentivized to join?

  4. Is the 10000+ number for end of Q1 or end of Q2?

Thank you for your answers!

2 Likes
#5

Hello Agrim,

Thanks a ton for your detailed application and responses! I’d like to emphasize what @Colson said that while I think this application has a lot of potential, the timeline seems to be very short. I think there would likely be a benefit to spreading out the events a bit for a few reasons:

  • Avoid burnout for you and any other folks coordinating these events
  • Ensure you have the appropriate amount of time to host these events successfully
  • Allow participants of the in-person trainings more time to plan for attendance to one of the additional online and/or technical sessions.

Lastly, you mentioned a target of 10,000 developers. In addition to Colson’s question about that figure, I also wanted to see if you can provide clarification on the math there. To preface this, I’ll say I may just be misreading your application, but it seems to me you’ve written that there would 20 events and an expected attendance of 100 devs per event, which would add up to 2k developers. So I’m wondering where the other 8k developers would be onboarded.

Thanks again for applying. Looking forward to your responses.

#6

Hi @Colson ,

I’m very excited to see such enthusiasm and interest in the proposal!

Definitely, I’ll respond to all your queries.

  1. Sure, We can increase the number of weeks but I would suggest doing at least 1 Offline Event Every Week. Reason behind this is to maintain a series of events and make it in the form of a Graph Tour of India, this is really going to create value for the community as well as a streamlined schedule will help attendees plan their attendance in events.

  2. As I have been doing events for Web3 projects for quite a long time, I have built a network across all the major universities (Engineering, Management, STEM…) and good relations with the clubs & chapters present there, so we can smoothly organize an event without any venue cost.

Also, there are many co-working spaces. open cafes which can be rented out in given budget to conduct these events.

  1. This is the beauty of community building and management as on how to organize events without a marketing budget. I have been building Go To Community strategies and have paved a way out to make sure that we are reaching to the maximum audience without spending on marketing. I have built direct contacts with local communities on Pan India level, so we’ll be partnering with them to promote the events.

Also, Event will be promoted across all the universities present in the city where the event is going to take place. Registration form will be shared in which there will be a link to join over Telegram, WhatsApp to make them part of the community.

Developers will be provided with Food & Beverage, Graph Swags while they attend the event.

They will also be assisted to apply for developer grants to build projects using Graph Protocol.

  1. This number of 10,000+ is for end of Q2 but we’ll be on-boarding at least 3000+ by the end of this project.

I can definitely assure you that this is going to be the largest & most fascinating Web3 meet-up tour that has been ever planned & happened in India and will grab the global attention of Web3 ecosystem!!!

Thanks
Warm Regards
Agrim Nagrani
Graph Advocate

2 Likes
#7

Hi @Mr.1776,

Thanks for your wonderful suggestion, I will increase the time frame for the project but as also replied to @Colson that it would be better to organize at least 1 Offline Meet-up every week to ensure that we are organizing it on consistent basis and maintain a flow for the Meet-up Tour Series so that attendees can plan their attendance accordingly.

I’ll be working Full Time for the coming 3 months spending 9 - 10 Hours on a Daily basis i.e for the complete duration of this project, From Strategy → Execution → Feedbacks & Review!

Sure, We’ll plan a roadmap so that participants of In-person training can get ample time to attend other Technical Sessions.

So basically, 2k participants will be directly attending the event and rest the of them will be becoming part of the community through Telegram Regional/University groups. This way we’ll be able to build a larger community in a cost effective way. Attendees of the event will do word of mouth for us and this way more and more developers will come to know about The Graph Protocol and it’s community.

We’ll also be conducting various Social Media Engagement Task during the events to maximize the reach.

Target of 10,000 will be achieved by end the of Q2. I’m aiming to build an active & engaging community of 3,000+ developers, Web3 Enablers, Founders by the end of this project.

I’m sure that once we roll out this project, everyone in the community will see astonishing results and achievements as we’ll directly be bringing out the untapped potential present in the Indian Ecosystem!

Thanks
Warm Regards
Agrim Nagrani
Graph Advocate

1 Like
#8

Thanks for the quick reply @agrimn. That all makes sense and sounds good to me :+1:

The only other question I have is, while reviewing the LinkedIn event links you shared in your application I noticed that the majority of the events were in partnership with Covalent, which is a competitor of The Graph.

While I think there could be value in having someone that is well versed in both protocols that can speak knowledgeably about the pros and cons of each (and all the ways The Graph is better :wink: ), I do also worry about a “conflict of interest” if you are still hosting events promoting Covalent. Could you maybe talk a bit about how you see the relationship between the two protocols and how you would manage the competitive tension there if you were awarded with this grant?

Thanks again!

#9

Hi @Mr.1776 ,

I’m happy that I could serve all your queries.

Thanks for raising this point!

Previously, Covalent used to organize In-person Events on Pan India Level but now they have stopped doing that so there won’t be a conflict of interest.

Rather, Its going to be more beneficial as I can give a clear overview to audience for the Pros & Cons of The Graph as compared to rest of the protocols existing in the ecosystem.

So, I strongly believe there will be no competitive tension as well as I will also try to partner with L1 chains and Web3 projects which can make use of Graph Protocol to make them our community/ecosystem partner while assisting them to build their Dapps using Graph Protocol.

I can reassure you that this project is going to serve as an Web3 Industry benchmark as to How everyone should plan to grow the communities as well as engage the audience while bringing brand visibility in the complete Web3 ecosystem!!!

Thanks
Warm Regards
Agrim Nagrani
Graph Advocate

#10

Copy that, thanks for the response! :+1:

#11

Hello @Colson @doxe01.eth I think this proposal should be on voting period now
He had a presentation this week Tuesday

#12

Thanks for your grant proposal, it is a great idea to have a well-designed The Graph tour like you have planned. But I have some comments regarding the length of your program.

I would suggest moving from a 2-months to at least a 6- months program.
The program as it is designed today it’s unrealistic: we need to focus also on quality and strive for excellence. And in addition, we do not have the desire to burnout people with such a stretched calendar of events.

Below some comments that I propose to adjust this grant proposal:

Total No. of Meet-ups – 8
Expected Budget – 8k USD

  • Notes: meetups are a fantastic way to network, but it is requested a lot of activity prior the event, but mostly after the event, where people that you have met will need support and guidance. Having an event one week after another won’t allow your team to focus on all the post actions needed.
  • Suggestion: move meetups with a 3-weeks cadence, provide a rough agenda. Will you have some speakers?

Total No. of Technical Sessions – 4

  • Notes: I would like to understand the program of these technical sessions, as this is one of the core part of this grant, together with the meetups.
  • Suggestion: include the agenda of the four technical sessions, and include a CV of the persons who will deliver the sessions.

Total No. of Twitter Spaces, Webinars, AMAs - 8
Expected Budget – 2k USD

  • Notes: hosting a weekly Twitter space is time consuming and it is not needed to be done weekly in my opinion, and it is not clear what will be the main topics of these spaces.
  • Suggestion: move Twitter space with a 2-weeks cadence, reduce the budget since 2K is way too high.
3 Likes
#13

I would like to support the expansion of the Graph community in India, I really think it has a great potential! The proposal itself is very ambitious, as @pdiomede said, kind of unrealistic and also quite expensive to be honest. I would propose to decrease the scope a little bit, provide clearer roadmap and milestones and present new budget request. I would be happy to change my vote to YES if that happens. :slight_smile:

1 Like
#14

Thank you for your proposal.

Paolo’s feedback reflects my own thoughts on this proposal and is the reason why I am voting “No”. Attempting to accomplish multiple tasks within a limited timeframe may compromise the proposal’s overall quality, which is crucial to its success.

#15

The majority decision of the Grant Committee concludes to not recommend this proposal for DAO funding. Please recognize that this is not a statement on the proposal itself, but rather an aggregated reflection by committee members taking into account a number of factors, such as alignment to The Graph and web3 ecosystem, budget available to support grants and prioritization relative to other proposed grants.

Below you find brief feedback brought up within the committee to not recommend DAO funding that may help you to submit successful grant applications in the future:

Alas, at this stage, the goals that this grant has set for itself are quite unrealistic. Trying to accomplish multiple objectives within a limited time period can compromise the overall quality of the proposal, which is critical to its success.

The grant committee may be interested in supporting this grant in the future, if expectations are taken into consideration. About suggestions, it is to reduce the scope a little bit, provide clearer roadmap and milestones and present new budget request. You can read more about it in the forum.

We believe that this feedback can help you in your growth and encourage you to continue your active participation in the Graph community. We appreciate your engagement.

Sincerely,
Graph AdvocatesDAO