Welcome to update 31. In this edition, Intersect committee and board elections are your chance to get directly involved! We have more information on the Annual Members’ Meetings, exciting releases from the governance tooling team, constitutional workshop updates, Community hub activities, Community tooling milestones, and more!

Intersect elections 2024 - applications now open

Intersect is a member-driven organization that empowers the community to shape Cardano’s future through its governing board and committees. Now is the perfect time to get involved, as applications are open for committee and board seat elections, closing on September 27, 2024.

Cardano community members have a unique opportunity to shape the blockchain's future through direct governance in these upcoming Intersect elections. This is an important moment for Cardano and essential to decentralization as Cardano governance transitions from volunteer-based to fully elected roles. Members can influence Cardano’s growth, innovation, and governance by participating.

You must be a full (paid) member to stand or vote. You can verify your membership status or apply using the links below:

• Committee seat application
• Board seat application

We are excited to announce that applications are already coming in and will be published daily as verified. You can find candidate bios here:

• Committee election candidates
• Board Seat election candidates

For membership details or questions, visit Intersect's knowledge base or join the Discord channel. If you can make a difference, don’t hesitate to apply or encourage others to participate! To find out more, visit this blog post.

Are you not already a member? Then join the movement!

Intersect is more than just a governance organization—it’s a movement where the Cardano community takes the lead. This is your chance to make an impact, and we can’t wait to see the incredible contributions you’ll bring to the table. Join Intersect here!

Intersect’s annual member meeting will now be a series of member summits

Intersect is a member-based organization for the Cardano ecosystem, putting members at the heart of Cardano’s future development. The member summits will allow community hubs to unite local members to discuss Cardano’s product roadmap and budget and how Intersect can continue supporting Cardano’s on-chain governance into 2025. The summits will also be a chance to look back at the positives and negatives of Intersect’s first year and how we can build a stronger organization together.

In addition, we’ll highlight members who have submitted nominations for the upcoming committee elections and governing board seats. Voting for these positions will be held in parallel with the annual meetings.

In addition to the in-person member summits, we’ll host a unique town hall covering the same content, including after-town halls and recognition for all the members and organizations who have contributed so much to Intersect and the Cardano ecosystem this year. More updates and information will follow over the coming days and weeks!

Become a key player in Cardano’s future with Intersect

Take an active role in the next generation of Cardano and be part of the community driving real change.

Learn more here: Membership tiers and benefits, and Join us here

This week's membership stats are as follows:

This week, we crossed the 1,000-member mark! This is an excellent achievement in under four months. We continue increasing individual and enterprise founding membership daily and are engaged in many discussions with Cardano ecosystem organizations keen to join Intersect.

Constitutional workshops 

As we approach the halfway point in the Constitutional consultation process, it’s a good time to reflect on the considerable effort and commitment shown by community hosts, attendees, and now elected delegates worldwide in developing the Cardano governance journey. See below for the impressive numbers that have racked up so far and the locations of workshops over the coming week.

We’ve brought together a wealth of resources and information on constitutional workshops on the Intersect knowledge base , you’ll find everything from a copy of the draft constitution to the full list of workshops, all the information workshop hosts and participants will need, and a regularly updated list of the elected delegates for the convention in December.

There is still plenty of time to get involved. Check the calendar to view all upcoming workshops and register to attend one near you.

Constitutional workshop - Bangalore, India

Last weekend, Nucast hosted an incredible Intersect Constitutional Workshop in Bangalore, India, with participation from EMURGO. Over 30 attendees joined to discuss various aspects of the constitution. It was an excellent opportunity to engage with individuals eager to make a meaningful impact while having tasty pizza. Let's Go Intersect!

Committees and Working Groups
Budget Committee Update
The Budget Committee dedicated three intensive days this week to refining the timeline and process for the upcoming Cardano budget. While further work is ongoing, they are pleased to share the proposed 2025 budget timeline, which includes significant milestones like the initial proposal submission period (August 1 - October 21, 2024) and the Cardano Summit presentation on October 23, 2024. This process is crucial for shaping Cardano’s future and encourages community participation.

For full details, visit the 2025 Budget Process Timeline.



Ledger Working Group (TWG) Update

The Ledger Technical Working Group (TWG) is continuing its regular bi-weekly meetings, typically scheduled for Mondays at the same time. These sessions are crucial for discussing and advancing the technical aspects of the ledger. The following meeting details for those interested can be found here: Ledger TWG Meeting.

Open source 

Open source committee pre-vote - vote now!

Today is the final day if you have registered to vote in the Open Source Committee (OSC) pre-election round but still need to cast your ballot. Don’t miss your chance to help shape the future of open source. If you have already registered but have not yet voted, vote now!

The open source committee (OSC) pre-election vote to fill four empty voting seats ends today! 

Key info:

• Friday, September 13, is the last day to vote!
• View the candidates here
• View Candidate Intros here
• Vote:  https://oscvote.smmn.app

For any help and support, please contact OSC at:

• oso@intersectmbo.org
• opensourcecommittee@intersectmbo.org 
• #open-source-committee(Intersect Discord)
• @TEX-OSO (Discord)
• @IntersectOSO (X)

The open source committee will also participate in Intersect’s committee general elections in October; four more seats will be elected. Applications are open. Submit your application here.

The open-source cowboys of Intersect will attend the Open Source Summit Europe in Vienna, Austria, from September 16 to 18, 2024. Come and see us to learn more about everything open source!

Community hubs

Our new Clay Nation (Portugal) community hub launched last week and shared their thoughts on their new hub with us: “We're excited to announce that Clay Nation is launching the Europe Intersect Hub, bringing together the vibrant Cardano community across the continent. Clay Nation plans to bring its creative spirit and community-driven ethos to the hub, fostering unique engagement opportunities for those involved. The hub will be a way for members to connect, share ideas, and build meaningful relationships”.

This week, our community hubs have been busy attending numerous events around the world:

LATAM community hub

Our Intersect MBO community hub manager in Brazil, Otávio Lima, has been at NFT.Brasil this week, September 12-13, as a gold sponsor. Otávio participated in a panel and delivered a keynote discussion on Intersect and Cardano!

The LATAM hub Colombia launch event is also being held on September 14. For more information, click here.

Japan Community Hub

The Japan hub attended the Tech for Impact Summit on September 10, hosted by Socious and attended by Charles Hoskinson. They were a community partner and had an Intersect booth. If you want to look at the booth, please click here.

Some other events our Japan hub has attended and will attend this week are:

• Tokyo Tech Lecture from Charles Hoskinson on September 11
• Tokushima meetup on September 12 with 33 attendees
• Hajimarinochi meetup on September 13

WADA Community Hub

 WADA Town Hall on September 13 at 16:00 UTC

• The link to attend is here

East Africa Hub (Kenya) Launch Event on September 14 at 09:00 UTC

• The invitation to attend is here

Our community hubs' excellent work is evident in the growing number of Individual members and associates, driven by the impactful events they deliver. Some statistics about the events and members are shown below: 

Governance tooling
We’re excited to announce the launch of Cardano GovTool, which is now live on the Cardano mainnet. This groundbreaking tool is a key step toward decentralized governance, aligning with the framework of CIP-1694.

The Cardano GovTool is an open-source project. Four main contributors collaborated to develop and maintain GovTool: Byron Network, DQuadrant, Bloxico, and WeDeliver. These maintainers ensure the tool's ongoing functionality and welcome open-source contributions from the wider Cardano community.

Current stats on-chain:

• DRep Registrations: 406
• Unique Delegators: 4,399
• Vote Delegations: 4,811
• DRep Votes +71

Explore the GovTool documentation for guides, wallet compatibility, and more. Get involved and help shape Cardano’s future!

DRep pioneer program

We’d like to take this opportunity to commend the DRep leaders for their exceptional dedication to the program. Their efforts in addressing participant questions and clarifying the content have been crucial to its success.

The program has delivered 40 workshops, engaging over 400 participants globally. Of these, 25% were in-person, with the rest online. The workshops, held in eight languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Czech, Indonesian, Japanese) across 12 countries, reflect the program’s commitment to inclusivity and equipping communities worldwide for their new DRep governance roles.

Visit the DRep Pioneer knowledgebase to learn more about the program, including upcoming events and how to get involved.

DRep Survey - Calling members opinions on Dreps!

The five-minute multiple-choice survey is still open, and we encourage your participation. This survey aims to gain insights into the community’s perspectives, explore DReps' backgrounds and motivations, understand who they represent, and identify potential barriers to becoming a DRep. Your input would be greatly appreciated! Take the Survey here - Survey Link

Community grants

Last week to apply to for the ‘Governance action outcomes’ grant!
This grant is to build a new feature for Cardano GovTool: governance action outcomes. It remains open until September 23! CIP-1694 introduced on-chain governance, allowing ADA holders to submit governance actions directly on Cardano’s mainnet, transforming Cardano’s decision-making. Intersect supports CIP-1694 with tools like Cardano GovTool and the Constitution Committee (CC) portal. This grant funds the creation of a governance action outcomes section in Cardano GovTool. Successful applicants may become core maintainers with a related contract. For more information and to apply, click here.

Grant recent milestones:

• Vespr upgraded its wallet to support Conway ledger functionalities and CIP-95 wallet-connector standard - More info
• Daniela Alves and Maria Carmo from GovChainLab hosted a meet-up on decentralized governance with 30+ attendees in Curitiba. More info
• Programmer Assist completed the integration of a Translation Management System to aid in localizing GovTool and other platforms. More info

For a detailed breakdown, visit the grants page

Delivery assurance

The August 2024 Continuity Milestone Report is now live. It offers a comprehensive update on the progress of key milestones across all Cardano Continuity projects. This detailed report highlights significant achievements, tracks ongoing initiatives, and provides a transparent overview of development efforts. Whether you're a stakeholder or community member, this is your opportunity to stay informed about critical project developments.

For the full breakdown of the progress and what's coming next, you can view the report here: August 2024 Milestone Report. Stay connected with our work!

This week’s reminders

Don’t forget the committee elections. If you want to apply for a committee seat,  the deadline for upgrading your membership is September 27. For participating in annual meetings and election voting, you have until September 30 to upgrade your membership. You can learn more about the committee elections and watch the recent engagement events on our knowledge base, and you can view and ask questions on the Q&A channel on Discord.

  

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

And finally, we’re interested in hearing 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.