2024 is a momentous year for the Cardano community. The community consultation on delivering minimum viable on-chain governance continues, and the work to drive consensus on the constitution is reached. Later in February, we expect to see the interim constitution released, including more detail on the consultation period throughout the year, empowering the community to shape Cardano's future through on-chain governance. Following the core Cardano Repos's move to Intersect, we now proudly oversee the protocol advancement, development, testing, and support initiatives - all driven by committees and working groups. Participating in such a focused and active moment in Cardano’s history is truly amazing.

In this edition

• Intersect Governance
• Open Source Program Office Update
• Intersect 2024 Roadmap
• Intersect Grants
• GovTool
• Events
• Intersect Team Meetup
• Membership and Community

Intersects Governance

Intersect Governance - Earlier this month, we shared an important update on Intersect’s structure, including introducing the Governing Board and Bylaws. Intersect’s initial Governing Board comprises five member seats. Three board members have been appointed to establish operations with representatives from seed funders and members’ Input Output Global and EMURGO and the COO as interim on the third seat. The third seat has been offered as an academic position at Wyoming University’s Blockchain Center of Excellence. The seed funder seats have a three-year term in consideration of funding given, while the academic seat will have a one-year tenure.The remaining two seats will be filled from Intersect’s membership, with elections to be held in the second half of 2024. Terms of these remaining seats are to be determined with the community as part of the election design.

You can read more about Intersect’s governance and how it operates on our knowledge base.

Committees - are formal bodies within Intersect, typically focused on a domain or function. They are composed of Intersect members and, where applicable, Intersect professional staff to drive efficiencies. They primarily recommend bodies that discuss and identify opportunities for improvements to Cardano’s development and governance landscape and collaborate in a distributed way.

We understand that currently, other than participating in our discord channel, there isn’t a single place for the community to discover and learn how to participate in committees and working groups, this is being worked on, so expect to see an update on this shortly. In the meantime, If you are interested in setting up a working group, you can complete this form.

Check out our knowledge base for more information about committees and working groups. If you missed it, you can download the . For other inquiries, don't hesitate to get in touch with the Membership and Community Committee: MCC@intersectmbo.org

Open Source Program Office (OSPO)

Earlier this month, the OPSO at Intersect published their latest roadmap, building on a major milestone in Cardano’s history - the core codebases migrating from Intersect member IOG to Intersect. Our OSPO manages Cardano’s open-source program and community and ensures that we engage with the open-source community transparently and effectively. The upcoming milestones mark pivotal developments in Intersect's trajectory:

Govtool and Cardaminal Transition:

The migration of Cardaminal assumes critical importance in cultivating a deeper partnership between TxPipe and Intersect. This move not only propels the continuous development of the project but also positions it as a crucial supporter of the Cardano Open Source initiative. The alignment of Govtool with Intersect's mission behind CIP-1694 and hosting the technology reinforces its commitment to enacting this vision.

Open Source Committee (OSC):

In collaboration with other committees at Intersect, this milestone empowers the OSC to formalize and garner consensus on its plan for conducting elections and managing succession. It ensures a seamless transition as the next iteration of voted seats assumes their roles within the OSC, upholding continuity and operational effectiveness.

The first draft of the open source strategy:

The initial open-source strategy is significant for both Intersect and the OSC. Through collaboration with the community, they articulate a strategic roadmap aimed at seamlessly integrating Cardano into the open-source landscape.

These milestones signify the initiation of Intersect's pursuit of its ultimate goal—continuing to advance Cardano as an open and collaborative platform.

Read more on the Intersect’s Open Source Program Office

Intersect Road map

No plan would be valuable without understanding the reason for undertaking the journey in the first place and the core milestones to reach the destination. The Cardano roadmap continues to evolve, and Intersect will continue communicating about any changes and highlighting important and incoming items to our members. Items to watch out for in the coming weeks and months are:

• Intersect Events (local and global)
• Interim Constitution published - Q1
• Interim Constitutional Committee announced - Q1
• The start of the consultation period for the constitution - Q1
• Constitution Global Workshop Series Q1-Q3
• Chang Hard Fork Q1-Q2

Intersect grants

A primary Intersect membership benefit is the ability to apply for grants. These grants are designed around achieving core elements of the Cardano roadmap. Members can view the grants via the Intersect Knowledge Base grants section.In recent updates to the grants, the deadline for the Education & Multimedia category for Cardano Governance has been extended to 5 February 2024. Additionally, the Open category will remain open throughout Q1 2024. There is no set amount for these awards, as it’d be preferable for applicants to specify the amount needed to implement their proposed solution, allowing for a broader range of creativity. However, to help applicants sense-check their proposal, the current maximums are 150,000 ADA for the Education category and 200,000 ADA for the Open Category.

Multiple proposals will likely be selected for these categories, so smaller proposals are equally beneficial. Proposals outside this range with valid reasoning will also be considered.

The grant categories

• DRep campaign platform - now closed
• Constitutional Committee portal - now closed
• Education: Cardano governance - Open to Feb 5th 2024
• Open category - Cardano governance - During Q1 2024
• Inclusion and accessibility - Cardano governance - upcoming 2024

GovTool

The SanchoNet GovTool has seen a steady increase in users testing governance features described in CIP-1694, with 194 wallets connected, 88 DReps registered, and 47 delegations with 275 votes recorded in just 25 days. The Voltaire GovTool, of which the SanchoNet GovTool is the testnet version, will enable ada holders to register to become a Delegated Representative (DRep), delegate voting power to DReps, and review and vote on governance actions.

The SanchoNet GovTool is open for beta testing now, and it's accessible from sanchogov.tools

Key guides:

• Here, you can learn more about what to test
• Here, you can get support on the key flows of the Sancho GovTool

Intersect Team Meetup

On the 15th of January and following the holiday period, the Intersect Team met in London for a week of workshops to plan the year. This was the first time the entire team met in person, and progress was made on the following:

The workshops covered the Intersect and Cardano roadmap for 2024 (Membership, Constitution, CIP1694, GovTools, Chang Hard Fork, Events, Education, Values, and more).

Introductions - This was the first time meeting IRL for many. In one of our sessions, we expanded on the values that are important to us as a team and also to how we support the membership to drive the future of Cardano. Trust, respect, accountability, teamwork, support, and decentralization emerged.

The team at Intersect comes from a broad range of backgrounds, with many of us having previous experience working on Cardano. Many members already know some of us from events and other contributions, but later in Q1, we’ll update the website to provide more transparency to the people behind the scenes. 

After a week of planning, the Intersect team is excited to progress decentralized governance and Cardano member agency.

Members and the community

Seeing our membership grow to more than 1,300 members this month is fantastic! We are focused on delivering and maintaining decentralized governance on Cardano and always want to hear from our members about their experiences and what they would like to see as member benefits. Here at the editorial end of the Intersect team, we would especially like to understand what cadence of newsletter would suit our membership most, so we’ve prepared a short poll for you to participate in, please let us know if you’d like to see a short more concise newsletter every week, a concise fortnightly update or an in-depth monthly update. We’ll share the results in our next update.

Click here to participate in the Poll

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, 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!

Join Discord Server

Join the TG Announcement channel

And as always, if you have any questions, ideas, or suggestions, please get in touch via email, Twitter, or LinkedIn.