Welcome to Intersect Development update number 53. In this update, we are excited to announce your opportunity to participate in the Committee elections, whether as a candidate or not. If not, add your voice to the choir and vote on those who choose to apply. We also have updates from the community hubs, an enterprise membership spotlight, news from Govtool, and more!

Shaping the future of Cardano: Intersect committee elections are here!

The April 2025 Intersect committee elections mark a crucial moment in Cardano's decentralized governance evolution. These elections enable ada holders to actively shape the blockchain’s future—whether by running for a seat on a committee or voting for key decision-makers.

The role of committees in Cardano's governance

As Cardano's governance model advances, delegated representatives (DReps) now hold final authority over funding decisions. However, Intersect committees remain integral to ensuring that development remains structured, transparent, and aligned with the community’s strategic goals.

Key updates:
✅ Committees focus on roadmap development & governance oversight.
✅ DReps now make final funding decisions for projects aligned with the roadmap.
✅ Committees no longer submit block budgets but help shape growth and governance roadmaps.
✅ New transparency mechanisms (including multi-signature smart contracts) enhance accountability in funding decisions.

Committee elections: how to get involved

If you are passionate about Cardano’s mission and have expertise in a relevant area, consider running for a committee seat or participating in the voting process.

🗳 Key election dates

📢 Pre-election communications → March 11 – March 21
📩 Applications open → March 24 – April 4
🔍 Voting preparation and quality checks → April 7 – April 8
🗳 Voting period → April 9 – April 23
📊 Results collated and reviewed → April 24
📢 Election results announced → April 30

⚠ Important: To vote or run as a candidate, you must be an Intersect member before April 4.

Available committee seats

The following committees have open positions in the April elections:

🔗 Learn more about each committee and how you can contribute by following Intersect on X (Twitter).

📅 Committee spotlights and election AMAs

Engage directly with committee members, ask questions, and understand their work in upcoming spotlight sessions and AMAs:

Committee spotlights:

• March 18, 2025 – 4 PM UTC (open source and membership & community)
• March 20, 2025 – 12 PM UTC (civics and budget)
• March 25, 2025 – 4 PM UTC
• March 27, 2025 – 12 PM UTC
• March 29, 2025 – 12 PM UTC
• April 1, 2025 – 4 PM UTC
• April 3, 2025 – 12 PM UTC
• April 4, 2025 – 6 PM UTC

Election AMAs (dates and times subject to change)

• April 9, 2025 – 6 PM UTC
• April 12, 2025 – 12 PM UTC
• April 15, 2025 – 5 PM UTC
• April 18, 2025 – 10 AM and 6 PM UTC
• April 22, 2025 – 5 PM UTC

We will communicate how you can participate in these events in the coming days through our social channels, so keep watching X and Discord to learn more.

Want to stand as a Candidate? Here’s How to apply

We encourage you to apply if you have the expertise, passion, and availability! Ideal candidates should:

✅ Be committed to Cardano’s vision (empowering the powerless, banking the unbanked, and connecting the unconnected).
✅ Have domain-specific expertise in a relevant committee.
✅ Be available for up to 20 monthly hours (virtual meetings, chats, emails).

📌 Steps to apply

1️⃣ Log in to the Intersect member area
2️⃣ Navigate to the "Voting" section
3️⃣ Select the committee you wish to apply for
4️⃣ Submit your application before April 4

📖 Check out the committee election section on our knowledge base
📥 Download the application pack for details. Have questions?

Reach out via:
💬 Intersect Discord
📧 committees@intersectmbo.org

Committee secretaries will onboard newly elected members with relevant documentation and guidance.

Budget Committee

On Friday, March 7, 2025, we officially launched the budget proposal intake form, which is now open to anyone interested in submitting a proposal for consideration. This form provides an opportunity for individuals and teams to propose budget allocations for various projects or initiatives.

Once submitted, all proposals will be compiled and presented to the community and DReps for their evaluation. DReps will then signal their approval across various community-submitted proposals.

We strongly encourage everyone to take advantage of this opportunity and submit a proposal/s. Whether you have a new initiative in mind or a suggestion for funding, this form is the best way to consider your ideas.

If you encounter any issues or need assistance completing the form, please don’t hesitate to contact us at support@intersectmbo.org. We are here to help ensure your submission process is as smooth as possible.

Just a quick note! You can find below our community-proposed timelines that we're working towards together.   

Membership and community

At Intersect, we are committed to equipping our members with the tools and resources to engage actively in Cardano’s governance. A key part of this effort is our Knowledge Base—a growing repository of guides, FAQs, and governance insights designed to help members navigate Intersect’s ecosystem. Whether you're seeking information on committee roles, governance processes, or how to participate in upcoming elections, the Intersect Knowledge Base is your go-to resource. Explore it here: docs.intersectmbo.org.

💡Enterprise membership spotlight: Dquadrant

As an Enterprise Member of Intersect, Dquadrant continues to drive governance innovation, developer tooling, and scalability solutions within Cardano.

They are currently engaged in QA testing for the GovTool, with ongoing discussions for an extended contract to enhance governance mechanisms further. Their Autonomous Agent Testing framework is being refined for broader use, allowing DApps to test at scale without relying on testnet, accelerating mainnet readiness.

Dquadrant also integrates Hydra into the Kuber API, simplifying DApp scalability and lowering transaction costs. Meanwhile, KuberIDE remains a key training tool for Plutus/Haskell developers, particularly in Africa.

Looking ahead, they are exploring a Hydra and Midnight integration to enhance scalability and privacy, pushing the boundaries of efficient and secure blockchain applications.

Through these efforts, Dquadrant plays a crucial role in Cardano’s governance and technical evolution, strengthening developer access, governance tooling, and blockchain infrastructure.

Community hubs 

This week, our community hubs are hosting the following events:

Japan hub

• X space to be held on March 14 at 12:00 UTC. The link to join is here.

Africa hub, led by WADA

• A WADA hub internal meeting was held on March 13, with 15 attendees. The meeting covered in-depth discussions on navigating the Cardano budget process and exploring SingularityNET RFPs and insights on governance and funding opportunities. You can watch the recording here.

We’ll continue to update you on the progress of all our hubs, so stay tuned for more information.

Finally, our hub stats are as follows:

Exploring the paid open source model

Open-source software has become the backbone of modern technology, offering benefits like cost-effectiveness, community collaboration, and rapid innovation. However, unsupervised development, lack of guaranteed support, uncertain project longevity, and inconsistent quality have persisted. To address these issues within the Cardano ecosystem, Intersect has introduced the paid open source model (POSM), aiming to ensure sustainability, security, and continuous innovation in open-source projects.

Key components of the paid open source model

1. Code for Us Initiative: This program allows direct funding for feature development and bug fixes, aligning open-source projects with real-world user needs. It functions similarly to a bug bounty system but focuses on feature enhancements.
   
   
2. Maintainer Retainer Program: Providing long-term financial support to key contributors ensures continuous development and security for critical open-source libraries. This program is financed through the Cardano treasury using treasury withdrawal governance actions.
   
   
3. Open Source Office (OSO) and Open Source Committee (OSC) Services: These bodies offer resources such as security audits, community management, and governance consulting to support projects throughout their lifecycle. They operate based on member input, ensuring services align with community needs.
   
   
4. Incubation Program and Contribution Ladder: Designed to nurture new projects and contributors, this component provides mentorship, structured milestones, and community engagement. It helps maintain the quality and timeliness of deliverables while setting clear expectations for quality among developers.
   
   
5. Lifecycle and Budget Alignment: Integrating funding requests and project evaluations into Cardano’s decentralized governance process ensures transparency and accountability. This alignment supports commercial adoption, replenishes the treasury, and promotes long-term sustainability. 

You can learn more about this in our knowledgebase and check out the blogpost.

Governance tooling

GovTool — The latest GovTool update introduces several new features and improvements. Notable additions include image tag support for DRep registration and editing, ada handle integration for improved identity recognition, and enhanced data formatting for the DRep directory. Additionally, GovTool is now available on the Cardano preprod network, expanding its accessibility for testing and development. Ongoing efforts are focused on enhancing API access and integrating co-sponsor functionality to improve proposal collaboration.

Collaboration continues to be a key strength of GovTool's development. In addition to the contributions from Byron, DQuadrant, Lido Nation, and We Deliver, the team is actively working with other tool builders, including GovernanceSpace and the IO formal methods team, to improve data accessibility, protocol parameter validation (IO test tool available here), and overall user experience. Plans are underway to make GovTool data more accessible to third-party tools while addressing metadata display inconsistencies through improved standards and documentation.

Looking ahead, users can expect the release of a moderation tool for the off-chain discussions of the proposals on the preview network, which will enhance proposal discussion management. Additionally, efforts are ongoing to improve support for protocol parameter changes, committee updates, and hard fork governance actions to ensure comprehensive coverage of governance processes. A dedicated session will address co-sponsor integration challenges and explore solutions for automating data provision for GovernanceSpace.

With their deep community roots, the GovernanceSpace team has successfully leveraged GovTool’s backend to power off-chain proposals — a great example of how open-source collaboration drives innovation in the ecosystem.

Governance in numbers

As we press ahead following Plomin, follow the progress of governance actions on-chain here every week. Since Friday, March 7, 2025: 

• We've advanced from epoch 544 to epoch 545
• Unique delegators increased by 3581 (136,180-> 139,761)
• The total number of vote delegations increased by 4278 (151,394 -> 155,672)
• Total DRep votes increased by 101 (1518 -> 1619)
• The total number of DRep registrations increased by 20 (1158 -> 1178)
• DReps who have attached metadata increased by 5 (708 -> 713)

To learn how to start using Cardano GovTool, explore GovTool documentation. Here, you'll find everything from step-by-step guides to detailed explanations of its features.

On the Intersect Discord server, you can connect to the core maintainers of governance tools via the new request and new help & support channels under Core Governance Tools in Discord. 

Governance tools working group

This week's session covered the latest GovTool updates, including image tag support for DRep registration, ADA handle integration, improved data formatting, and availability of GovTool on the Cardano preprod network. Discussions focused on co-sponsor integration challenges, metadata validation issues, and enhancing API data accessibility. Key action points include scheduling a dedicated call to address co-sponsor integration complexities, filing a GitHub issue for metadata display concerns, and exploring automated data provision for GovernanceSpace. The moderation tool for off-chain discussion of proposals is nearing completion and will soon be available on the preview network.

GovTool is fully open source and maintained by Intersect members. The working group continues to invite community members to participate in discussions and feature development for the Cardano GovTool. All feedback is welcome (see guide on feedback), and ongoing conversations are held in the  wg-governance-tools Discord channel, where new feature ideas are regularly triaged and implemented.

Important member resources

• Do you want to catch up with the latest happenings with the Cardano budget, constitution, and hard forks? This page is for you!
• Intersect knowledge base - Our knowledge base, which is frequently updated, provides granular detail on our internal governance structure, committees and working groups, funding opportunities, and other topics.
• Intersect website - the latest news, roadmap, and more.
• GovTool - take part in testing governance actions on the SanchoNet testnet.
• Intersect events calendar - keep up-to-date with all events Intersect hosts, such as working group and committee meetings, X spaces, and more.
• Support - Please always use your membership email address and contact Intersect for support with any application errors, login issues, or questions without answers.
• Social: Join our lively community and interact with committees, working groups, and other members on Discord. We are also continually active on Twitter (X) and LinkedIn, so follow us there to stay updated on our latest news and insights.
• Are you interested in joining the team? We’re looking for a Finance Lead and Social Media and Content manager. Read more and apply today!

Well, that’s it for this week's update. Thanks for reading! 

Finally, we’d like to hear more from you about subjects important to you, such as Cardano’s governance. Your ideas and suggestions are crucial to us. If you have any questions, ideas, or suggestions, please get in touch via email, X, or LinkedIn.