It’s been another prolific month for Intersect, filled with strong community involvement. Roadmap updates, evolving plans, event announcements, and community tooling awards all fuel the progress in building the foundational structures to support the community's work in developing and maintaining the ecosystem and core protocol development.

The evolution hitherto has been breathtaking. Decentralized governance pushes the boundaries of possibility, representing a radiant beacon for the blockchain industry and showing the world a better way.

Let’s take a look at what’s been happening this past month.

In this edition

• Roadmap updates
• Developing Cardano continuity plans
• Ecosystem process development workshop
• February board meeting
• Community tooling and grants
• Committees and working groups
• Events in 2024
• Membership and community
• SanchoNet
• GovTool

Updates to our roadmap

The 2024 calendar includes historic milestones, key events, and community decision points. The main thrust is the development of minimum viable on-chain governance for Cardano. We’re excited to update our roadmap, increasing 2024's granularity and enabling our members and stakeholders to understand how the next 12 months will play out.

Notable additions to the roadmap include:

The Chang hard fork

The Chang upgrade is the culmination of many years of hard work, including all the community participation that continues to build pace on SanchoNet. The upgrade represents a significant step towards minimum viable on-chain governance as defined in CIP-1694. Once stake pools have successfully upgraded their nodes to support the new protocol and DApps and exchanges have integrated the new node, we can upgrade to a new ledger era. However, we need something new this time, as delegated representatives (DReps) must be onboarded. Following this, Cardano will have moved fully into the age of Voltaire, laying the on- and off-chain foundations for a self-sustaining blockchain and trailblazing the way forward for the industry.

The Annual Members Meeting

The first Annual Members Meeting (AMM) for Intersect will occur in October 2024, and we plan to make it a memorable one. The AMM is Intersect’s duty as a member-based organization. The inaugural event is planned to take place in Japan - a nation with strong and long-standing Cardano community involvement - with the option to participate virtually. Members will have the opportunity to review Intersect’s performance to date and also have the chance to review the Cardano budget that pays for Cardano continuity (see more on continuity below). Members can also participate in workshops and events covering the previous year's developments and review Intersect’s 2025 plans for approval. There is much more to come on the AMM, so watch this space!

Constitutional convention

The constitutional convention will take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where the global constitution workshops' selected delegates will convene to ratify a final version of the constitution before heading on-chain for confirmation. This collaborative decision-making process aims to not only influence the trajectory of Cardano, but also exemplify the practical execution of decentralized governance by collectively agreeing on the content of Cardano’s constitution. We’ll continue to update the roadmap as events and timings are added or changed, so keep an eye out for updates.

Intersect develops Cardano continuity plans

‘Continuity’ was first coined in 2023 to express the technical work required to keep the Cardano blockchain infrastructure running, including upgrades and necessary developments. At Intersect, through our delivery assurance function, we have created a joint plan across seven suppliers, delivering elements of 2024’s continuity. These seven suppliers are delivering multiple products and pieces of development work that will be familiar to the community, as they include the CIP-1694 governance technology, improvements in ledger memory storage, and peer-2-peer network management, to name a few. Over the coming weeks, Intersect will create the first Cardano product backlog defining these Continuity items and share this with the community for feedback.

Continuity work will be defined in the longer term through a community product backlog process and, with community consent, funded by the Cardano treasury with Intersect acting as the coordination body. Work started with an ecosystem process development workshop stewarded by the Intersect civics committee to discuss managing an ongoing Cardano product backlog.

We’re working on a deep dive into this important aspect of decentralized governance on Cardano, so watch out for further updates!

Intersect ecosystem process development workshop

We're thrilled to share the phenomenal outcome of the recent ecosystem process development workshop, which was held on February 19-20 at the PCubed offices in London.

Thanks to the dedicated participation of Intersect’s Civics Committee members, subject matter experts, representatives from IOG and the Cardano Foundation, and the expert facilitation of PCubed, the workshop proved incredibly productive. Together, we made significant progress in:

• developing ‘first pass’ processes for Intersect's governance mandates.
• charting a clear path for implementing new and effective systems that enable ecosystem collaboration.
• sharing invaluable insights and expertise from diverse perspectives.

The energy and collaborative spirit at the event were truly inspiring, and we're confident that the outcomes will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of how we all interact and operate within Intersect. From building an understanding of key ecosystem roles, to defining high-level roadmap goals for the ‘in the trenches’ work of maintaining issues and bugs in code bases, effective processes will drive everything that makes Intersect function as a community-empowering member-based organization. Those participating in the workshop will help shape a clearer path for everyone to get things done in the Cardano ecosystem.

Intersect governance board meeting

The governing board will convene monthly throughout 2024. The Intersect board met on February 29, covering many topics raised during the internal Intersect team workshop. We'll share the meeting minutes when available. You can check out more on Intersect’s internal governance, including previous meeting minutes, here.

In addition, a new advisory board working group has been formed through a community-led initiative. This important group is committed to fostering effective internal governance through strategic oversight - ensuring Intersect remains inclusive and community-driven. In its first meeting earlier this month, a chairman and secretary were nominated to steer the group forward. The working group has already defined and approved its charter, including the mission, scope, roadmap, and more. If you're interested to learn more, their charter is publicly available here.

Intersect community tooling & funding opportunities

In an exciting development, new funding opportunities are on the horizon, with eight additional categories opening up over the coming weeks. Categories will cover expanding community governance tooling, simple routes to fund local member-meetups, localization, and more. To read more to see where you can contribute, head over to our grants section on our Knowledge Base.

Looking back at grants that have closed or been awarded, fourteen contracts for the core technology of the Cardano network have now been signed, paid, and are currently delivering. This first cohort aims to build out Cardano’s 1694 governance technology, update the core technology, and facilitate greater integrations. For example, the Wallet Connector Upgrade CIP, which includes wallet integrations and governance functionality, establishing metadata standards, and Cardano Ballot voting analysis for the temperature check on CIP-1694.

All of our cohort 2 grants have also now been awarded. This covers the proposal discussion forum awarded to WeDeliver, the Constitutional Committee Portal awarded to Bloxico, and the DRep campaign platform awarded to LidoNation. We will keep you updated on their progress over the coming months.

Five awards for the education and multimedia category are pending Membership and Community Committee (MCC) review. We’ll announce the successful candidates in the coming days, so watch out for an update shortly.

Intersect committees

Following the release of the committee section, in our knowledge, the committees have taken the opportunity to update on their progress.

• The Open Source Committee (OSC) published their latest minutes in their dedicated committee area.
• On February 1, The Parameters Committee published its latest minutes from the meeting held.
• Click here if you want to propose any parameter changes to Cardano or request a technical recommendation from the Parameter Committee
• The Membership and Community Committee (MCC) continues to meet frequently - we’ll share the minutes when available.
• Lastly, The Technical Steering Committee (TSC) held its first hard-fork working group session.

Over the coming weeks, Intersect’s knowledge base will continue to evolve and expand, surfacing the latest minutes, outcomes, and recommendations across all operational committees.

The OSC enacts its first policy - The new policy on open source governance provides best practices that projects can use to self-organize while maintaining an escalation path to the TSC as needed. It’s also designed to enable smooth communication between those contributing to open source projects, and the projects’ maintainers. A pilot test of the policy will be conducted with the network team to make room for improvement before implementation. You can read up on the policy here. Additionally, you can view theOSC knowledge basefor all things OSC, including the latest minutes.

The Open Source Program Office (OSPO)

Cardano open source strategy - The OSPO steers Cardano's open source strategy. Cardano’s open source approach serves to incubate faster development and community involvement. It allows for greater innovation through collaboration with the broader ecosystem and ensures Cardano’s open source software is maintained and fit for purpose.

A series of pilot testing initiatives focusing on legal compliance, collaboration, inclusivity within the ecosystem, and diversity are being organized through the open source office. These pilot programs aim to glean valuable insights and refine processes based on feedback. This will be the test case to validate the strategy and its execution. Through this pilot, we will validate the proof of concept that Cardano is open source and contribute to developing a dynamic and ever-evolving open source framework. If you’d like to learn more about how you can participate, please make sure to join the OSC-feedback channel on our Discord.

OSC publishes updates to their roadmap

The open source committee (OSC) recently published an update to their Q1 & Q2 2024 roadmap to include timings around the formation of the open source strategy and the OSPO’s first open source pilots.

Working groups

In other news, we’re delighted to report that the Wallets Working Group (WWG) has announced that the first outcome of their initiative has been delivered to the CPS-10 | Wallet Connector repository. The WWG’s mission is to further the development of Cardano’s wallet ecosystem by providing a place for wallet stakeholders to share insights and work towards solving existing and future problems, you can read more about this working group here, including how to apply to participate.

Intersect Events - TEAMZ WEB3 / AI SUMMIT 2024

Intersect will attend the Teamz web3 and AI summit at the Toranomon Hills Forum in Tokyo on April 13~14, 2024. This event is one of the world's largest and most influential in the Japanese Web3 industry. This year, the main themes will focus on applying blockchain technology to AI and will bring together industry pioneers and experts to stimulate discussions and knowledge sharing. Intersect will collaborate with local member organizations and present the latest developments on the main stage.

We’d love to see you there, and we’ve obtained a special discount for our members.If you’d like to attend, please go to https://en.web3.teamz.co.jp and use the code INTERSECT2024 at checkout.

Also, if you happen to be in Japan on the 16th of March, then take note that Intersect members @adamKDean and @yuta_cryptox are hosting a dedicated governance and Intersect workshop in Tokyo! You can register your interest here if you’d like to participate.

Community and membership

It’s fantastic to see our membership growing month on month, and it’s great to see so many of you joining our Discord, with just under 500 members actively shaping the future of governance on Cardano. Working groups and committees operate from our Discord, so this is an essential place to visit and participate in. There, you can directly engage with the processes of decentralized governance and help shape the recommendations put forward to the Cardano community.

Intersect's February town hall

We dived deeper into community events, community tooling awards and developments, and other important topics in our February town hall. You can find a copy of the town hall deck here, and don’t worry if you missed it, you can find a recording here.

Register here if you’d like to participate in the next town hall on March 26 at 16:00 UTC

Intersect on Essential Cardano 360

In other news, Intersect featured on February's Essential Cardano 360. Team members discussed our Cardano continuity plans and what they do at Intersect, and highlighted areas of the Cardano roadmap that excite them! Watch here.

Community events

With community-led events occurring across the globe, there are multiple opportunities to collaborate and celebrate together. This month, we’ve seen community events in Portugal and the US.

Community meetup - Portugal - February 2024

CIP-1694 workshop - Indianapolis USA - organized by Intersect and civics committee member Adam Rusch - February 2024

We’re always interested to learn more about any community events you are planning or have had, so please feel free to reach out to us and we’ll make sure to include them in our updates.

SanchoNet update

This month, SanchoNet upgraded to the latest Cardano node release 8.8.0-pre, during which there was some maintenance downtime. The decision around the timing of the update was made by SanchoNet user consensus, and we’re happy to report healthy growth and continued use following the testnet reset. SanchoNet is about introducing the Cardano community to governance features from CIP-1694 in a controlled testnet environment. You can read more about SanchoNet here.

Cexplorer SanchoNet release

In other SanchoNet news, we are excited to share that one of the largest and oldest Cardano block explorers, cexplorer.io, has been released onto SanchoNET, enabling easily accessible granular analysis of governance actions on SanchoNET. If you've never used cexplorer, this video by NOVA Pool gives a great overview.

GovTool update

Following the SanchoNet reset, the GovTool was inaccessible as our product teams worked on upgrading the SanchoNet GovTool to incorporate the latest node update with the newest version of DBSync. The GovTool is now up and running and open for further testing of governance features as described in CIP-1694. Check out the latest update in this deck.

Well, that’s it for this update. Thank you for taking the time to read, we hope you enjoyed the update as much as we enjoyed putting it together for you, and remember to participate in the poll and the events!

Don’t forget! Join Intersect’s Discord and Telegram channels Intersect’s Discord Server and Telegram Announcement channel are open for all members to join! Intersect’s Discord allows all members to meet, network, and bootstrap conversations. Many working groups have already been formed to determine the priorities for Intersect in the future. Join now! And as always, if you have any questions, ideas, or suggestions, please get in touch via email, Twitter, or LinkedIn.