Welcome to Intersect development update #57! This week, we cover the state of committee elections, more news on the budget committee, governance in Cardano, including the constitution, the latest updates on membership and community, and more. Read on to learn about Cardano’s progress toward a self-sustaining, self-governing blockchain for the world.

Intersect committee elections candidate registration has closed - next up Voting period!

Candidate registration for the committee elections 2025 April officially closed today at noon UTC, and we are happy to announce that a whopping 119 of you have applied to join one or more of our committees. We thank everyone and look forward to seeing some of you join our committees.

The official numbers are as follows: 

Voting opens April 16
Now that our candidates are standing, we strongly encourage all members to vote when the voting period arrives on April 16. Detailed instructions are available on the Intersect website!

Election timeline:

• Voting preparation & quality checks: April 12 – April 15
• Voting period: April 16 – May 7
• Results collated & reviewed: May 8 – May 11
• Election results announced: May 12

Candidate campaigning
Although we must maintain impartiality and cannot participate directly in individual candidates' campaigning, we encourage all candidates to engage with the membership in conversation about why they believe they are the best choice for the role.

If you're running for multiple committees, please take a moment to review our updated policy regarding dual nominations. Candidates elected or nominated to the ISC and another committee are encouraged to prioritize their seat on the ISC. This helps ensure precise and focused representation across all groups. You can find the complete guidance in our FAQ here.

Committee elections XSpaces

Voting kickoff - Join us at noon on Wednesday, April 16, for a very special X space to celebrate the beginning of the voting period. You can register here.

Candidate AMA - To facilitate candidates in their campaigns, we have set up a series of AMA X spaces where members can meet the candidates. This is an excellent opportunity to help form your opinions on who you’d like to join our committees. Join us at one of the following events:

April 21 - 7 pm UTC  -  AMA/Applicants Spotlight (Link)

April 23 - 11 am UTC - AMA/Applicants Spotlight (Link)

April 29 - 4 pm UTC - AMA/Applicants Spotlight (Link)

May 1 - 12 pm UTC - AMA/Applicants Spotlight (Link)

May 6 - 4 pm UTC - AMA/Applicants Spotlight (Link)

We’re looking forward to hearing more from the candidates and are excited to get the voting underway. Stay tuned for more information coming via our social channels.

Building a Budget Info Action

Throughout March and until April 24, the Cardano community can submit proposals supporting the 2025 product roadmap (and more) to be considered in the first round of Intersect’s facilitated Cardano Budget. After April 24, proposals are still welcome; however, they’ll be considered for the following Budget Info Action.

Whether you’re submitting a roadmap-aligned proposal, a committee initiative, or an open idea, everything can now be submitted via GovTool.

Stay in the loop

The Intersect knowledge base is regularly updated with incoming proposals, committee feedback, FAQs, and more. It's the best place to follow progress, so bookmark it here.

Proposals are now public in GovTool.

As of April 1, a new dashboard in GovTool displays all proposals submitted so far. This allows committees and community members to start reviewing, providing feedback, and preparing for the reconciliation events later this month and into early May.

There are currently over 100 proposals open for review:

• Core: 30
• Governance Support: 12
• Marketing and Innovation: 43
• Research: 8
• None of these: 12

You can view them on GovTool or see an overview here.

DReps can now signal support.

Stake-based weighting is now live in GovTool, enabling DReps to start signaling which proposals they support. This signaling will help shape the Budget Info Action before it moves on-chain.

DReps can connect their wallet, indicate which proposals they support or do not support, and leave comments to ask questions or provide feedback to proposers. These early signals help prioritize proposals that align with community and roadmap goals - and which proposals they’d like to see included in a Budget Info Action before it heads on-chain.

Vote now: Net Change Limit (NCL)

Cardano’s treasury - currently around 1.7 billion ada - has the potential to fuel long-term growth if used wisely. The Budget Committee’s Net Change Limit (NCL), inspired by sovereign wealth fund models, is now live on-chain.

The NCL is a key safeguard to ensure that spending is sustainable and aligned with ecosystem priorities. If you haven’t already, please review and vote on the NCL in GovTool to help move the process forward. Delegate or vote now!

April workshops: Orientation and proposal reviews

A series of orientation and proposal review workshops will run throughout April. These workshops are designed to support the community, DReps, and committees as they explore proposals, ask questions, and discuss how fund management and oversight should work.

Workshops will include:

• Non-binding up/downvotes on proposals
• Category-level discussions on scope and success metrics
• Insights from vendors and committees
• Identification of key follow-ups for reconciliation

The first workshops were held on April 10 and April 11. They covered various topics, from managing over- and under-spending to bridging gaps to the evolution of smart contract architecture. You can watch them all here.

There will be more budget workshops in the coming days, with the following sessions on Monday, 14, and Tuesday, 15, focusing on Marketing and Innovation proposals! Please RSVP here to attend any future workshops.

You can also subscribe to our Luma calendar to be notified of upcoming workshops and events!

DReps weekly meetings 

To support delegated representatives with the budget process, throughout April, we will continue our weekly meetings for DReps to support the budget process.

These sessions occur every Wednesday at 1 PM UTC and are an excellent opportunity to stay informed and ask questions. Lloyd and Lawrence will join us weekly to share updates and address budget-related queries. Don’t miss out—register here to join the conversation and stay involved!

Intersect Governance Working Group

The ISC established the Intersect Governance Working Group to support and enhance Intersect's governance framework. Its role is developing, refining, and recommending governance processes that ensure transparency, accountability, and effective collaboration between intersecting key stakeholders. While the group does not have decision-making authority, it plays a critical role in shaping governance best practices, aligning committee structures, and fostering strong organizational oversight.

The Intersect Governance Working Group will focus on four main areas:

1. Governance processes and alignment – assess and refine governance structures, roles, and workflows to ensure clarity, efficiency, and strategic alignment.
2. Committee composition and elections: Improve committee structures, ensure balanced representation, and refine election and nomination processes for committee and board elections.
3. Day-to-day governance support – provide recommendations to enhance operational governance, compliance, and structured decision-making.
4. Collaboration between key stakeholders: Strengthen coordination and communication between Intersect members, the ISC, Executive Team, and Board to enhance governance effectiveness.

The WG was launched in mid-March, and all meeting summaries and recordings are available on our knowledge base. If you want to work with us, join our Discord channel, check out the Intersect calendar, and attend a weekly meeting every Tuesday at 1 p.m. UTC.

Constitution

Work continues structuring and finalizing the Constitutional Committee election process. A significant part of this effort involves developing the new voting tool currently being built. We're approaching the first testing stage for some core features, which should commence soon.

We value transparency and want to ensure everyone feels informed. If you have questions regarding the election mechanics, timeline, or the voting tool itself, please take advantage of our open AMA sessions. These are for you to ask questions directly. Find the details and join here.

A detailed walkthrough of the CC election timeline was published this week. You can read it here.

Membership and community

Enterprise membership spotlight: WIMS

This week’s Enterprise Member Spotlight shines on WIMS-Cardano, a South Africa-based organization founded by Women In Move Solutions Pty Ltd. While rooted in women’s empowerment, WIMS is an inclusive, community-driven initiative focused on bridging the gender gap in blockchain and IT.

Through programs like Girls Education & IT Tertiary Support, Work Integrated Learning, and community treasury funds, WIMS empowers individuals through education, practical experience, and access to blockchain and AI services. As an Intersect Enterprise Member, WIMS is actively advancing decentralized governance, having hosted several CIP-1694 workshops and educational events. Their mission is clear: create a global movement where women and underrepresented communities thrive in blockchain through innovation, collaboration, and economic participation.

Join Our Focus Group on Intersect Badges! 

We’re excited to invite you to a special focus group to discuss the Intersect badge system! This 45-minute call will allow you to see the badges we’ve already released, get a sneak peek at upcoming ones, and share your feedback on how we can improve.

We’re eager to hear your thoughts on how the badges make you feel recognized, what you love, and what we can do better. Your input will help us create a badge system that celebrates our members and their contributions.

If you’re interested in joining, just sign up below! We’d love to have you involved.

Date & Time: Apr 17, 2025- 11:00 UTC+1 | Duration: 45 minutes: -  Register Here

Cardano after-hours event in Paris

Last night’s Cardano After Hours event at Le Comptoir Général brought together around 100 attendees throughout the evening, offering a relaxed and vibrant atmosphere from 7 to 11 PM. Held as a side event during Paris Blockchain Week, it drew a strong crowd despite the packed schedule - out of over 400 sign-ups, a steady stream of community members, builders, and curious newcomers came through to connect, unwind, and chat all things Cardano in an iconic Parisian setting.



Community hubs

Exciting news from our Japan Hub this week! Yuta and Yuri have officially handed over Hub Manager responsibilities to Akyo, who has been unanimously recommended by the Japan Hub Council — with strong support from both Yuta and Yuri themselves! Akyo has already been playing a key role in managing many of the hub’s operations, and we’re thrilled to see him step into this new leadership position. We want to thank both Yuta and Yuri for their invaluable contributions to the Japan hub and hope you’ll continue supporting Japan Hub as it enters this next chapter!

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

Japan hub

Our Japan hub holds a Budget Proposal Review event on April 11 from 12 to 13:30 UTC. This event will gather Japanese community members to provide feedback through GovTool on proposals submitted as part of the Cardano budget process. To view the invite, click here.

Africa hub, led by WADA

A WADA hub meeting was held on April 10 with 15 attendees. The event centered on the upcoming Intersect Committee elections, highlighting the African community’s involvement and support strategy. It also updated attendees on the budget process and its associated timelines. You can watch the recording here.

Open source 

Without further delay, we are happy to share the results from the State of Developer Experience survey conducted by our Developer Advocates. The State of Developer Experience Survey for Cardano aimed to understand the' challenges, motivations, and aspirations of developers and contributors within the Cardano ecosystem. The survey gathered insights from 52 participants, representing diverse experience levels, educational backgrounds, and language proficiencies. Review the survey results here.

This week, we spotlight Storm Partners because of their consistent contributions to growing Web3 ecosystems in Europe and beyond. As a full-service blockchain consultancy, they’ve supported numerous legal, marketing, and ecosystem development projects, making them a natural ally for Intersect’s decentralized governance and open-source advancement mission.

Their support for governance education and legal clarity aligns with Intersect’s focus on building a more accessible and structured pathway for members navigating Cardano’s evolving governance landscape. Highlighting Storm Partners helps showcase how enterprise members can bring real-world expertise to support the ecosystem’s growth and maturity.
Check out the recording here.

Governance tooling

This week, GovTool development focused on refining the budget proposal submission experience and resolving critical issues reported by users. Enhancements included increased character limits, removing personal data collection, and improved metadata validation—especially for the DRep directory. The teams clarified how users can edit and delete proposals via the interface and are addressing formatting problems in markdown submissions, such as the loss of line breaks. A fix for metadata download issues is currently under review.

Feedback gathered through the in-app feedback button continues to guide prioritization. In parallel, the teams are preparing improved backend documentation and supporting API integration for external tools, which now have access to the budget proposal data.

Governance in numbers

As we press ahead following Plomin, follow the progress of governance actions on-chain here every week. Since Friday, April 4, 2025: 

• We've advanced from epoch 549 to epoch 551
• Unique delegators increased by 3186 (148,983 -> 152,169)
• The total number of vote delegations increased by 3930 (167,579 -> 171,509)
• Total DRep votes increased by 90 (2038 -> 2128)
• The total number of DRep registrations increased by 12 (1202 -> 1214)
• DReps who have attached metadata increased by 10 (742 -> 752)

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

The Governance Tools Working Group discussed budget proposals and immediate fixes, such as increasing the 2500-character limitation to 15000. It also emphasized user feedback, proposal process usability, and governance system transparency. Participants raised concerns about DRep centralization and design inconsistencies across GovTool components.

The team agreed to consolidate design efforts through a unified design system and to explore metrics like DRep voting weight concentration. Suggestions to address broader governance topics, including Layer 2 experimentation and clearer budgeting categories, were well received. A Miro-based GovTool feature matrix will be created to coordinate priorities moving forward, and deeper governance topics will be escalated to the product committee.

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 frequently updated knowledge base 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.

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.