Welcome to Intersect’s Development Update #79. This week, Board Elections hit a milestone with 20 candidate applications ahead of voting on September 15. Additionally, we are making progress with our Smart contract administration, with 23 proposals now live on-chain, while the first fully community-elected Constitutional Committee has been confirmed.

We also share updates on GovTool enhancements, Civics WG progress, open-source opportunities, upcoming events in India and Singapore, and our first Community Town Square, and more.

Candidate applications are now closed! Voting begins soon!

The application period for Intersect’s Board of Directors elections has officially closed, marking an exciting milestone in our community’s governance journey. We’re thrilled to share that 20 dedicated members have submitted their candidacy, each bringing unique experience and vision for the future of Intersect and the broader Cardano ecosystem.

Here are the candidates standing for election to the Intersect Board of Directors 2025:

1. Chaya Shlimowitz
2. Vaibhav Solanki
3. Kavinda Kariyapperuma
4. Edickson Aguilera
5. Damion Seedorf
6. Mercy Fordwoo
7. Edomiya Girmay
8. Adam Rusch
9. Hosky
10. Daniela Alves
11. Thiago Nunes
12. Decho Valev
13. Rand McHenry
14. Jonah Koch
15. Tevo Kask
16. Andrew Nishigaya
17. Andrew Aitken
18. Aurélien Rocher
19. Sheraz Ahmed
20. Patrick Sheridan
    

Over the next two weeks, the spotlight turns to the candidates. To help you learn more about their goals and ideas, we’re hosting four live X Spaces where candidates will answer questions and connect directly with the community. These sessions are an excellent opportunity to hear first-hand each candidate’s goals, ideas, and plans for strengthening Intersect’s work.

To vote, log in to the members’ dashboard. A step-by-step tutorial video is also available. Eligible members must have joined before September 15, 2025, and can verify their membership using a standard ID or a decentralized ID, via our partnership with Socious.

We have communicated with all candidates and advised them on how they can engage with you, our membership, and the broader community. We will be hosting a series of X Spaces over the coming two weeks, where you will have the opportunity to engage directly with the candidates and ask questions. You can find a complete list of the events here.

What happens next?

• Voting opens on Monday and will remain open for two weeks, giving every eligible member ample time to cast their vote.
  
  
• To make the process as smooth as possible, we’ve prepared a detailed blog post with step-by-step voting instructions, including guidance on completing the verification process..

Your participation is key to shaping Intersect’s direction. By taking part in the upcoming X Spaces and casting your vote, you help ensure that the board reflects the diversity and priorities of our global community.

Smart Contract deployment and proposal administration are still ongoing at Intersect this week. There are now 23 proposals live on-chain being administered through smart contracts.

As per our previous weekly development reports and feature articles, initially, all treasury funds specified in the withdrawal governance actions, where Intersect is the administrator, are deposited into a Treasury Reserve Smart Contract (TRC) and held on-chain.

You can view this TRC through blockchain explorers like the ones below;

• cexplorer beta
• Cardanoscan
• adastat 

Only a certain number of actions are permissible in a smart contract. These all utilize a standard metadata structure. In this metadata, you will see different events, such as ‘fund’ and ‘withdraw’, associated with the TRC and the vendor smart contracts that stem from it. These human-readable labels are designed to inform you about what’s happening.

If following directly on the chain is not your thing, there are two other tools currently available that render this information and parts of the metadata more visually.

• Smart Contract Administration Dashboard
• Cardano Treasury Explorer - https://cardanotreasury.fi

We are collaborating with all proposal vendors to finalize legal agreements and deploy smart contracts on-chain. However, the remaining proposals each involve elements beyond our direct administrative control. We continue to work closely with proposal vendors to minimize potential delivery issues that may arise from these.

You can read about smart contracts, as part of our administration, from the beginning of our Knowledge Base.

Constitutional Committee elections 2025

Cardano has reached a significant milestone with the first fully community-elected Constitutional Committee now in place. Seven members were chosen through a DRep-led vote, marking the transition from an interim committee (which included founding entities) to one governed entirely by the community.

This shift strengthens Cardano’s decentralization, ensures constitutional oversight of governance actions, and sets a precedent for transparent, accountable decision-making moving forward.

Read the full blog for details on the election process, who was selected, and why this matters for Cardano’s future: Constitutional Committee Elections 2025

Knowledge Base refresh: Working Groups

We’ve updated the Civics pages on the Intersect Knowledge Base to clearly display Civics-affiliated working groups, their purposes, meeting cadences, milestones, and progress. This is part of our transparency push and an open invitation for members to participate in governance workstreams: Find out more on the knowledge base page here. At the regular weekly meeting, Civics members discussed constitutional amendments, the upcoming October committee elections, and strategies to drive participation through effective communications.

The committee agreed to move forward with a Constitutional Amendments forum under Civics to scope the process, compare models, and coordinate contributors (unanimous). Members noted openness to resourcing tangible, facilitative amendment work tied to clear outcomes and avoiding duplication of admin functions.

For the upcoming committee elections, application questions were reviewed for clarity and accountability, with updates to follow.

On communications, Civics will host an X Space with outgoing and incoming CC members in the next one to two weeks. Members were asked to support scheduling/amplification and submit short bios for social content.

Working groups: Governance Health WG advanced KPI brainstorming on voter/delegator participation. Governance Education WG progressed M2 (Framework v1) with a focus on mapping education gaps and refreshing participants.

The CC Election WG entered hibernation after completing its mandate, with a lessons-learned workshop scheduled for September 29, 2025. More details and information about how to participate in the workshop will follow next week. 

You can reach out to us on X( @IntersectCIVIC)S for more information, comments, or feedback.

Intersect Open Source: opportunities now open

Open source is buzzing—don’t miss these three ways to get involved:

1) Project interest form for a maintainer retainer
Bring up to two paid community maintainers into your project to help with maintenance, community building, triage, docs, and more.
Submit Interest / Program Details

2) Project support services
Need vendor support? Apply for sponsored services. Select what you need from the menu in the form and let us know your scope.
Service Form / Service Menu

3) Intersect incubation program: Gain mentorship, neutral governance support, and assistance in growing an open-source community around your project.
Apply to Incubation / Program Details

Learning opportunities:
Open Source Cowboy Podcast Episodes:

1. Episode 4: Silona Bonewald: How to build durable OSPOs, measure community health, and fund open source responsibly.
2. Episode 5: Pat Sheridan: Shipping open source in product orgs, governance that scales, and why developer experience wins.
3. Episode 6: Andrew Aiken: Enterprise adoption playbook, services vs. products, and sustainable OSS business models.
4. Episode 7:  Christian Grobmeier: Lessons from “Log4J,”, data security, establishing a maintainer mindset, and pragmatic paths to project maturity.

It’s Official, we have a Haskell learning Resource Live on the Developer Portal:

• Onboarding Guide: Onboarding Guide for Haskell Learners | Cardano Developer Portal
• Functional programming: Functional Programming in Haskell | Cardano Developer Portal
• Advanced Functional Programming: Advanced Functional Programming in Haskell | Cardano Developer Portal
  

Intersect will be at the 3rd Annual India Codex 2025 Hackathon in Hyderabad on September 20–21.

This hybrid event is set to bring together over 3,000 new developers into the Cardano ecosystem, and with more than 300 already registered, momentum is building rapidly.

Powered by Cardano and hosted by Nucast (an Intersect Enterprise Founding Member), Codex 2025 highlights India’s growing leadership in blockchain adoption.

Representing Intersect on the ground will be Abhik Nag, Community Manager, alongside Udai Solanki, Open Source Developer Advocate.

Register now: indiacodex.com

Intersect at TOKEN2049 Singapore 2025

TOKEN2049 Singapore will bring together 25,000+ decision-makers to connect, exchange ideas, network, and shape the industry on 1–2 October 2025.

You can catch Jack Briggs, Executive Director (interim), and Abhik Nag, Community Manager, at the Cardano booth — where we’ll also be livestreaming the entire event on Intersect’s YouTube channel for our global community.

Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks. We’re looking forward to meeting many of you in person — see you in Singapore!

First Community Town Square

Intersect will host its first-ever Community Town Square on September 23 at 12:30 pm UTC. This open Zoom forum is designed as a space for members to:

• Raise questions on the current agenda
• Discuss governance and the budget process
• A lot more.

The one-hour session will begin with short updates, followed by a structured community Q&A.

This initiative underscores Intersect’s commitment to transparency, inclusion, and meaningful participation in shaping the future of Cardano. With intense interest already building, the Town Square is expected to become a recurring platform for open dialogue and collaboration.

Register in advance for this meeting.

Our next Intersect Town Hall will take place on September 25 and will be live-streamed on YouTube.

The session will feature key updates from the Intersect team, including:

• Budget process
• Board Elections
• Clayverse
• TOKEN2049 Singapore
• …and more

The livestream link will be published next week.

Town Halls are a cornerstone of Intersect’s communication, providing members with regular updates, context, and clarity on ongoing initiatives, while creating space for dialogue with the broader community.

Enterprise membership spotlight: Catalyst Africa Townhall

Catalyst Africa, one of Intersect’s Enterprise Members, is a pan-African initiative operating across six nations with a mission to drive blockchain education, awareness, and adoption. With a growing community of over 200 active blockchain enthusiasts, the organization hosts bi-weekly Town Halls and meetups, alongside workshops and webinars that focus on building knowledge and capacity within the ecosystem.

Their projects, including DelFi Africa, Internet Adoption, and blockchain surveys, reflect a commitment to both grassroots engagement and exploring real-world use cases. While visibility of developer output and production-level deployments is still emerging, Catalyst Africa’s consistent focus on transparency, inclusion, and financial empowerment aligns closely with Cardano’s values. For Intersect, this presents opportunities to collaborate on hackathons, developer grants, and open-source contributions, while also learning from their community-driven model of cross-border growth and participation.

GovTool development updates
Significant enhancements went live on the GovTool preview this week. The DRep Directory now has improved pagination and responsiveness, making it easier to browse and locate representatives. The live voting section also received a significant upgrade, introducing a new search experience aligned with the “Outcomes” pillar vision. Together, these updates create a faster and more intuitive interface, reducing friction when navigating governance actions during voting phases.

Governance Tools WG progress

deep dive on multisig wallet support with the Mesh team, reviewing the open-source Mesh Multisig Platform, its features, and API documentation. The discussion focused on use cases such as SPO coordination, on-chain governance, and CC interactions, while mapping potential integrations to existing CIPs (146, 1854, 106). Emphasis was placed on enhancing submission capabilities and lowering integration barriers to expand GovTool’s extensibility and strengthen the broader Cardano governance ecosystem.

Following the recent Info Action approval and pending Treasury Withdrawal, an off-chain proposal has been submitted for feedback. Comments are welcome in the GovTool forum or on the X tag @cardano_govtool.

That’s it for this week’s update. Thank you for reading. To learn more about Intersect’s work, explore our Knowledge Base, which provides detailed information on governance structures, committees, and funding. Additionally, visit the Intersect website for the latest news, updates, and roadmap information.

Join the conversation on Discord, and follow us on Twitter (X) and LinkedIn to engage with fellow members, working groups, and the broader community.

Your voice helps shape the future of Cardano governance.