Eren - Grant Reviewer Application

Governance Proposals Community Treasury - Grant Reviewer applications
1

1.) Preferred Display Name and Age (If you do not want to enter your age, enter that you are above 21 years of age, which is the minimum)

Name: Eren

Age: 35

Social Media Handles

Twitter: tekinsizeren - https://twitter.com/tekinsizeren

Discourse: Eren - Profile - Eren - govern.IOTA

Discord: ErenT#4741

Telegram: Eren_ta

2.) What motivates you to apply for this position?

As an early IOTA investor from 2017, I want to be a part of the future of IOTA and Shimmer communities by contributing the ecosystem the best way my professional experience would be useful of.

3.) What is your educational and professional background?

  • I am an Electrical and Electronics Engineer, graduated from university in 2010.
  • I have vast knowledge about end-to-end project management (including defining and overseeing technical specs, organization, funding and financials)

Web3/Crypto Background

  • Early IOTA investor
  • DAG Enthusiast
  • Algorithmic Trading in crypto markets

Professional Background

  • I have been working as a technical specialist/project manager in an investment bank for last 12 years. My job requires vast knowledge on technical issues, end-to-end project management and naturally handling the financials (credit applications, payments, budget, due diligence etc.) of the projects that I am affiliated with.
  • During my professional carreer, I have worked in various multi-million dollars worth infrastructure, superstructure and solar power plant projects.

4.) What experience do you have relevant to this position (grant reviewer, Project manager, etc.)? Please describe

As a seasoned investment bank employee, I have 10+ years of end-to-end project management experience. I know how pre-planning, planning, investment and application phases work. I am also quite familiar with budget reviews during the investment periods. In a nutshell, I humbly think that I have what it takes to be a grant reviewer in Shimmer ecosystem.

5.) Are you a software developer? If yes, please provide info on your skills and proof of the projects you already have built/worked on (Github, languages, certificates, etc.)

I do have some mediocre coding skills (C#) since I have been coding my own tradebots, but no, I wouldn’t call myself a software developer.

6.) Do you have affiliations that may cause a conflict of interest when reviewing applications? The community would like to know particularly if reviewers are involved with projects as a creator, on the board, or employed. Please list any projects or applications you have affiliations to.

I have no affiliations that may cause a conflict of interest.

I was a part of a project called “MergenChain” in the position of COO, but sadly the project has shut down permanently.

As you can see from my Twitter account, I have minted a native Shimmer token called “Horse Token” and distributed 2/3 of its max supply to the crypto enthusiasts. I am planning to buidl “Horse Token” to become store of value token, I am currently interviewing potential team members to help me achieve my goals by buidling.

*Note: This will in no way prevent you from being elected to the position. It is the opposite. We seek experienced reviewers that are specialists in different industries. The reviewers with affiliations will not be able to review grants within their category; however, they will be great resources and act as subject matter experts.

7.) Are you willing to sign a legally binding service provider contract and reveal and verify your identity through a KYC process with the legal entity of the Treasury Committee?

Note: KYC is required for this position. If you are unwilling to KYC and sign a service provider contract, you will not be accepted to the Shimmer Community Treasury.

Yes - Yes - I am willing to KYC and sign a service provider contract with the Shimmer Community Treasury.

8.) Can you commit 10 hours weekly on average to work as a grant reviewer for the Shimmer community over the next 12 months?

Yes - Yes - I am willing and able to commit 10 hrs a week to the Shimmer Community Treasury.

9.) If you are voted in the top 2 reviewers, you may have the option to join the Growth Committee and work with the TEA representatives. In this case, you may be required to work hours over the required 10 hrs per week. Are you able to commit to this if required?

Yes - Yes - I am willing and able to commit to the Growth Committee and the Shimmer Community Treasury if required.

10.) Are you willing to sign a service provider contract, including an NDA with the Tangle Ecosystem Association, and respect the Non-Disclosure Agreement if selected as a member of the Growth Committee? Breaking the Non-Disclosure Agreement may bring consequences financially and or legally.

Yes - Yes - I am willing to sign a service provider contract and Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). I absolutely will respect all binding effects within such agreement contracts.

11.) Provide any web links or supporting documentation you would like the community to see when assessing you for the Shimmer Community Treasury Grant Reviewer position.

Enter text and web link below.

In this short flood, you can observe my ideas about why IOTA has the best technology overall. https://twitter.com/tekinsizeren/status/1527411375760363536?t=1NUomWMa2hW7p9nawI2sjA&s=19

12.) What is your long-term vision of the Shimmer Community Treasury? How do you see the Community Treasury affecting the Shimmer & IOTA ecosystem, and what does the Shimmer & IOTA Ecosystem look to you in three years?

Shimmer Community Treasury is by far the best chance for Shimmer&IOTA ecosystem for obtaining a decent growth rate. In order to evolve and achieve our goals, we need to change the narrative by helping the community to build the optimal projects for crypto users in order to attract them and cause a multiplying effect. We all know that IOTA’s technology is going to be the best one in the cryptoverse when it comes to the crypto trilemma (scalability - security - decentralization). But we still have a hard task ahead of us: to show the world what we got.

If the Shimmer Community Treasury Team follows a well-planned strategy, I believe Shimmer&IOTA Ecosystem might be one of the main actors in the cryptoverse.

Do you support my application as Grant Reviewer?
  • Yes

0 voters

2

I have one question:
To make it easier for the community to understand what potential conflicts of interest a reviewer may have, and as not everyone may be familiar with the platform you have stated here, could you shortly describe what Horse Token is and in which sector it operates or plans to operate in the future?

3

Hey Phylo, thanks for the question. Let me give me some detailed information about Horse Token.

At first, I have created it as a meme token, just to see how native tokens on Shimmer network operate. Later on, I have decided to distribute it among the volunteers, just out of curiosity.

One thing led to another, and for now 1000+ people has Horse Tokens in their Shimmer Firefly addresses.

As an investment banker who happens to be an engineer, I have always been interested in crypto concept. Hence, I decided to build something I have always wanted: A store of value token, which aims to keep the investors’ funds safe by protecting them from excessive volatility caused by overleveraged synthetic assets, rugpulls, malicious CEX owners etc. How would I accomplish all that? Well, I have studied both financial and crypto theories over the years and I know what their weak sides are. So, I have created a team.

We (my team) are currently working on simulations of our brand new financial theory. If all goes according to plan, we will publish the paper of our work within this year.

I am funding Horse token myself and will not need any outsource funding. I am even rejecting potential investors in order to keep this one independent.

p.s. It is obvious that I won’t be chosen as a grant viewer. I hope winning candidates will serve the community the best way they can.

Good luck and goodspeed :slight_smile:

4

I asked our Grant reviewer candidates if they would agree to take part in this challenge on 19 November with this message sent out to everyone:

Hey, I want to challenge all potential Committee members with a little task.

I want to present you with a grant application and give you one week to come up with an opinion about this application based on the information provided to you. Please put anything that comes to your mind in your response to this message, and if possible, come up with an initial opinion if you would support funding this Proposal.

You may want to use the evaluation matrix developed for the Treasury committee: Shimmer Community Treasury Grant Committee - Version 2

The Proposal is a copy of an original proposal submitted to another Ecosystem Grant program.

I have chosen two types of applications, one that is a bit more developer oriented for the reviewers with experience in software projects and one that is more community/event focussed for the others.

Every Proposal is presented in 3 different versions. I have changed some parameters in every version, so your competitors may be presented with the same Proposal with some small but important changes to the original version.

I hope you agree to this little challenge. It may be interesting for the community to see how different candidates approach this task and to which conclusions they come regarding the grant proposal.

I will DM every candidate with the same text you got here and send them their challenge privately. I hope we can keep this private until the challenge is finished in one week.

Next Sunday, at 11 am CET, I will post the information about the challenge in reply to your application post and will include the response you sent me via DM in this post.

This will, in my opinion, be the fairest process to give everyone the same conditions without revealing a challenge that a competitor has to solve or making answers public that others could consider in their own approach to the problem. So everything will stay with me, and I am the only one who knows who gets which challenge and who replies what until the reveal.

I try to make sure that applicants who are part of the same project do not get the same grant challenge, so they cannot support each other.

Please reply within 24 hours if you agree to this challenge, and I will send you the Proposal.

Thanks again for offering your skills to the community. I hope you find this a fair approach to give the community some better insights.

This is the publication of @Eren ‘s participation in the Grant reviewers’ Test challenge. More details about the challenge can be found in this post

6

Eren Grant Review

Proposal: Shimmer - Hackathon Proposal 1(Unchanged Version 90.000 USD)

Hey Phylo. Here is my evaluation of the proposal that you have sent:

No, I won’t approve the spending for this proposal.

Why? My reasoning goes as following:

According to Shimmer Community Treasury Grant Commitee - Version 2, the main funding objectives are:

  • To increase the utility of the Shimmer network and attract new builders.
  • To promote Shimmer and make it more visible and attractive in the DLT space.
  • To enable projects to establish successful and profitable business models on Shimmer.

Altough the proposition looks like the project might increase the utility of the Shimmer network and attract new builders, the problem is main target group of the hackathon is university students and high school seniors. Shimmer, as its current state, needs senior developers and seasoned business owners or people with large connection circles in order to obtain a multiplying effect. Also, attracting university and/or high school students tend to have smaller networks, it is highly unlikely for them to increase visibility and bring more economical benefit into the network. And finally, even though there are some examples of university students creating successful business models, the chances are low for college students to develop a sustainable business model on the Shimmer network and guarantee some kind of investment/capital inflow. In a nutshell, even though this kind of projects are important for the future, it is not what the network needs today.

Also, according to the guiding principles, " 2. A proposal that segregates individuals, organizations, or communities based on sex, race, color, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation."

As you can see, this proposal’s target group is students from the UK only; hence the proposal favors citizens of a country. Also it is kind of not logical to have a in-person hackathon in current market conditions which not only limits the possible participation of highly skilled people, but also creates unnecessary expenses which should be used in a more efficient manner. For instance, it would be more favourable if this hackathon was to be held online and open to all people around the world.

Also the applicant haven’t provided following information which are needed for grant proposal:

  • Full legal name,
  • Binance Chain USDT address
  • Number of Team Members
  • Details per member
  • Legal Status
  • Has the Team / the Project previously received funding from another grant-giving program? If yes, please provide details.
  • Has the Team / the Project currently applied at other grant-giving programs? If yes, please provide details.

Social media handles and Git Repositories for the team members are not provided aswell.

Also, milestones, execution details and funding options of the proposal are extremely vague.

Scoring of the proposal:

Relevance to the Shimmer/IOTA Ecosystem : 3/4

Plan and Funding Model : 2/4

Execution: 3/4

Verifiability and Quality of the Team: 3/4

Overall Quality & Originality of the Idea: 2/4

Total: 13/20

Required funding allocation to the project is 90.000 USD. According to the Shimmer Grant Reviewing Rules, Tier 3 (Funding budget 50.000 - 200.000 USD) - required score is minimum 15 of 20

All things considered, the proposal is not fit for grant approval.

Cheers,

Eren.

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