Welcome to Intersect’s Development Update #80. This week, voting officially opens for the 2025 Board of Directors elections, with 20 candidates standing. We also share updates on upcoming committee elections, the Civics Committee’s new amendments workstream, and the expanded CIP-149 grant. On the delivery side, vendors continue to onboard to smart contracts, with new features being added to the Administration Dashboard. Plus, GovTool v2.0.35.3 goes live, we spotlight Byron Network in our enterprise membership feature, and Intersect prepares for Codex 2025 in Hyderabad and TOKEN2049 in Singapore.

Your participation remains essential in shaping the future of Cardano governance. Let’s dive into the details!

The election period for Intersect’s Board of Directors elections has officially started. 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.

How to vote?
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.

Why your participation matters now more than ever

Intersect empowers a distributed network of builders and contributors to share in the belief that every voice holds value and that building together is stronger. This principle isn't just our mission statement; it's the foundation of everything we're building together.

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.

Upcoming Committee Elections

Following the board elections in late September, we’ll move directly into the second half of Election Season 2025, as October brings an even more transformative milestone: elections for all Intersect committees, with elected members filling every single committee seat.

These committees have an important advisory role. They provide technical advice and guidance, scrutinize budgets, oversee security, make recommendations for ecosystem growth, and help to ensure Cardano remains at the forefront of blockchain innovation. From the Technical Steering Committee, which guides core development, to the Membership and Community Committee, which shapes our collective experience, every committee directly impacts your Cardano journey.

Applications open on Monday, October 1, and close on Wednesday, October 15. Voting will open on Friday, October 17, and close on Wednesday, October 29, with results announced on  Monday, November 3. More details here

Delivery is underway on the majority of proposals that Intersect is administering on behalf of the Cardano community. 

We’re constantly iterating our administration dashboard, and the most recent updates now index evidence metadata submitted by vendors, making it even easier to see progress and what delivery teams are reporting. 

You can check this out by visiting the dashboard here. Sneak peek of what it looks like below;

Cardano Builder DAO - Milestone 2 Evidence Submission, available via the Administration Dashboard

Following up on last week's progress, we continue to collaborate with all proposal vendors to finalize legal agreements and deploy smart contracts on-chain. However, as mentioned last week, 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.

Throughout the development cycle and early use, the Delivery Assurance team has already started compiling a list of potential future smart contract features. Together with vendors and the broader community, these are to be explored and investigated for feasibility before committing to a backlog for development. 

We invite the community to participate in this discussion and contribute to the ideation. Whether you are using and interacting with smart contracts as a vendor, building your own administration, or tracking the delivery of a proposal, we would like you to contribute to the process. Add and share new ideas or comment on existing ones to help establish their use cases and benefits. 

Our backlog of ideas is open and available via this GitHub repository: https://github.com/IntersectMBO/budget-management/issues 

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

The Civics Committee has approved a new Constitutional Amendments workstream, adopting a five-step framework and formalizing last week’s forum into a working group. This will provide a fair and transparent way for the community to propose and discuss changes, using lightweight tooling, clear maintainers, and an iterative section-by-section approach to keep the constitution evolving.

The committee also agreed to broaden the scope of the proposed Optional CIP-149 DRep compensation grant. Instead of focusing solely on wallets, it now encompasses wallet providers, governance tools, and SDKs, reflecting how delegation transactions are processed across the entire stack. Next steps are to finalize application details and selection criteria, with Intersect managing the PO/KYB and contracting process.

Continuing with our commitment to more visible communications, there's plenty to look out for on our X (Twitter) channel. Members are submitting short bios to introduce themselves across social channels, and a series of Civics-hosted X Spaces is scheduled for 8, 15, 22, and 29 October to keep the conversation open as the amendments WG gets underway and the CIP-149 grant goes live.

To stay informed, follow us on @intersectCIVICS. If you have any feedback or questions, please don't hesitate to contact us. We'd love to hear from you.

Intersect TownHall - New Date and Time!

Important: Please note our next Intersect Town Hall is now scheduled for September 24th (moved from the 25th) and will be live-streamed on YouTube. So, if you’ve set aside some time for the old time, please make sure to reschedule!

This session will feature essential updates from the Intersect team, covering:

• Budget process
• Board Elections
• Codex 2025
• TOKEN2049 Singapore
  …and more 

Watch live here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcxzJdbAjiA

Intersect is heading to Hyderabad this weekend for Codex 2025. One of the largest hackathons in India/APAC kicks off this weekend, Sept 20–21! Codex 2025 will unite builders, developers, and innovators in a hybrid event designed to onboard 3,000+ new developers into the Cardano ecosystem. With 300 already registered, momentum is strong!

There will be over $10,000 USD in prizes given away at the event, as well as a Vespr Wallet airdrop, and much more, including an Intersect basketball challenge! Hoop your way to unlock Intersect Membership rewards!

Powered by Cardano and hosted by Nucast (an Intersect Enterprise Founding Member), Codex 2025 shines a spotlight on India’s growing leadership in blockchain adoption. Representing Intersect, we’ll have Abhik Nag, our Community Manager, and Udai Solanki, an Open Source Developer Advocate.

Don’t miss this opportunity to be part of Cardano’s future - Register here for India Codex 2025!

Intersect is heading to TOKEN2049 Singapore 2025. We’ll be part of the Cardano Booth, showcasing the strength of the ecosystem with an incredible lineup of builders, partners, and community members. TOKEN2049 will bring together over 25,000 decision-makers from across Web3, and Cardano will be right at the center of it. You’ll find us at the Level 5 Expo Hall | Booths: Cardano – PB5-70, PB5-71, PB5-76, PB5-77.

What’s happening at the booth:

• A Snek claw machine with exclusive prizes
• Live demos & presentations from Cardano builders
• A space to connect with partners, investors & the global community

Catch Jack Briggs, Executive Director (interim), presentation at the Cardano Booth on 1st October, 14:30 – 14:50 (SGT). We’ll also be livestreaming the entire event on Intersect’s YouTube channel for our global community.

Side Events you won’t want to miss, The Cardano Happy Hour, organized by Rare Evo & Muay Thai Workout at Token 2049, which Storm Partners will host

Enterprise membership spotlight: Byron Network

Byron Network is building a suite of multi-chain DeFi applications on Cardano, including a mobile wallet, decentralized exchange (DEX), staking tools, and cross-chain bridges. They aim to make DeFi more accessible by blending advanced features, such as limit orders and stop-loss tools—typically found on centralized exchanges—with the transparency and security of blockchain technology.

With their DEX already live on testnet and a mainnet launch planned, Byron Network is focused on simplifying the user experience while still equipping advanced traders with sophisticated tools. The project ultimately seeks to lower barriers to entry and drive broader adoption of decentralized finance.

GovTool development updates
GovTool v2.0.35.3 has been released to mainnet with several user experience upgrades. The CIP-105/129 DRep directory now runs faster and includes full pagination, making it easier to navigate the growing list of registered representatives. The live voting section also saw a significant update, with a completely redesigned search function that delivers quicker, outcome-like browsing. Clearer filters are now always visible, making it easier for users to track and adjust their search parameters.

Governance Tools Working Group

The group explored introducing multi-vote transactions, which would allow DReps to submit multiple votes simultaneously, thereby reducing costs and expediting high-volume events, such as budget cycles. Early ideas include a “shopping cart” model for batching, storing rationales on IPFS, and ensuring a clear on-chain display. Technical considerations such as transaction size limits, Hydra integration, and API support were also discussed as part of this potential high-impact feature.

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.