As we head into the last month of Q1, to say Intersect is a hive of activity is an understatement. In this week's update, the open source and parameter committees post updates, a new community hub category opens for grant applications, SanchoNet undergoes significant stress testing, the Intersect board meet, and the first round of education grant winners is confirmed. So, without further ado, let’s dive into these topics in more detail.

Committee Updates

The open-source committee (OSC) - published the first draft of the Open Source Strategy and its associated framework for community review. The intention is to achieve community consent to finalize the draft by the end of March. The draft strategy is around 60% finalized, with around 40% still developing with the community over the next few weeks. Once complete, the community will have formulated an actionable open-source strategy for Cardano, another significant step toward decentralized governance and community-based development and consent.

Follow the links to learn more about the drafting process for the open source strategy, the draft strategy document, and make sure to check out the OSC's knowledge base to learn how you can participate.

The parameter committee (PC) - is a subcommittee of the Technical Steering committee that ensures the Cardano protocol parameters are set based on sound technical awareness and best practices. This subcommittee includes four working groups:

• Economic Parameters Advisory Group
• Network Parameters Advisory Group
• Technical Parameters Advisory Group
• Governance Parameters Advisory Group

The committee meets every three weeks (see meeting notes) to discuss all protocol parameters, providing technical advice and recommendations based on updated parameter settings. They also consider community-raised Parameter Committee Proposals (PCPs) to update parameters.

Work is ongoing on PCP-002, and the committee reports that they have already selected PCP-003, which will be worked on following the completion of PCP-002. All proposals not selected this time are deferred, allowing the authors to refine them for resubmission later. You can read more about the PCP process here.

If you want to learn more about the Parameter Committee, including how to participate, please check out the committee’s knowledge base.

Community Tooling

A new grant category has opened for Community Hubs. Intersect seeks passionate and organized members of the Cardano community to step up and establish community hubs within their geographical location to help build, develop, educate, and enable local communities to contribute to governance actions on Cardano. If you are interested, please apply here.

Education and Multimedia Grants Summary - The membership and community committee has signed off on five educational and multimedia grant awards, with successful applicants being informed, subject to contracts being finalized, the following projects have been awarded grants:

• Mike Hornan and Summon Association: supporting Mike Hornan’s "Cardano Governance in a Nutshell" series of infographics, videos, and workshops to enhance understanding of Cardano governance for ada holders.
• Mellod Designs, Inc: producing concise 5-minute videos hosted by Lloyd and Melanie Duhon to explain Cardano governance, distributed across social platforms and minted as NFTs on the Cardano blockchain.
• Daniela Alves and Maria Carmo: creating tutorials and educational materials, with monthly online meetings focused on clarifying Cardano governance for the Portuguese-speaking community.
• MAV100 & selfdriven: collaborating to engage young people in Cardano governance through open-source educational multimedia content and workshops.
• Lucas Macchiavelli: expanding Cardano governance understanding in the English and Spanish-speaking community through multimedia resources like infographics, threads, and tutorials.

These initiatives aim to enhance understanding and participation in Cardano governance through accessible and engaging multimedia content tailored to the diverse Cardano communities and beyond. Please visit our knowledge base for further information on community tooling and other grant opportunities.

SanchoNet Update

SanchoNet is about introducing the Cardano community to governance features from CIP-1694 in a controlled testnet environment. SanchoNet reports the first week following the recent reset to install Cardano node 8.8.0-pre. SanchoNet successfully navigates a community stress test

Testnets are a valuable and essential component for producing a stable environment for mainnet release. When there are new updates to the testnet, it’s important to understand the throughput limits of the new release. Thanks to Mike Hornan of Able Pool SPO, who arranged and coordinated a community-driven synchronized stress test on SanchoNet, we know the latest SanchoNet release can manage many thousands of governance actions concurrently.

Mike called upon the community to spam the SanchoNet network with thousands of governance actions in a coordinated attack to find the limits of the current build. Digital Fortress lead stake pool operator Rick McCracken shared a video of the moment he began spamming the network. The numbers speak for themselves!

We are delighted to report that despite thousands of concurrent governance actions being put through the network, SanchoNet remained online and stable. This is fantastic news for decentralized governance and is another stone firmly placed in the path toward Voltaire. Congratulations to us all and especially to those who took part!

Cardano pioneering entity Emurgo releases a blog post detailing the importance of SanchoNet for the progress of the testnet thus far, highlighting the values of decentralized governance and the process layers that ensure the Cardano mainnet remains completely stable. Read the article here.

GovTool Update

Our product team is happy to report that Govtool has integrated with the latest SanchoNet node release. The SanchoNet Govtool development team is also working on a platform for reporting Govtool stats that is easier to access and those participating to achieve better data to help further refine governance processes. In the meantime, we’ll continue to report GovTool stats weekly.

The GovTool development team is also calling for members to join a governance tool working group to help brainstorm ideas and create recommendations for development. If you’d like to participate, please complete this form. The team also produced a short orientation deck for information before joining the group.

Intersect Board Meeting

The Intersect board met on February 29. You can view the meeting minutes (and all past meetings) and learn more about Intersect’s internal governance here.

Membership and Community

ICYMI Essential Cardano 360 - Intersect was featured on February's Essential Cardano 360, where our team members discussed the Cardano continuity plans, updates to Intersect’s open grants, GovTool, highlighted areas of the Cardano roadmap, and much more. Click the image below to watch!

ICYMI Intersect Town Hall — We discussed community events, community tooling awards and developments, and other important topics in our last town hall, but don’t worry if you missed it, you can view the deck and check out the recording by clicking the image below!

And if you’d like to participate in the next town hall on March 26, 2024, at 16:00 UTC, please register here. We’d love to see you there!

Membership Benefits - In collaboration with the Membership & Community Committee, we have some exciting news bubbling under the surface; we will soon be able to share more about Member benefits, including tiered membership levels. Watch this space in the coming weeks.

Wrapping up this week's update, let's stay committed to our vision of a truly self-sufficient Cardano ecosystem! If you’d like to participate in any of the above subjects, join Intersect today.

We’re always interested in hearing more from you about any of the subjects important to you, such as Cardano’s governance. If you have any questions, ideas, or suggestions, please get in touch via email, Twitter, or LinkedIn.