Intersect Development Update #54 - March 21
Welcome to Intersect development update #54. In this bumper edition, we cover the launch of committee election applications, updates from the budget and product committees, enterprise membership news, community events, Open Source, operational services, delivery assurance milestones, and the latest from the Govtool team. Grab a coffee, and let’s dive in.
Your voice, your vote: committee elections kick off
This Monday, March 24th, the Intersect committee elections get underway with the opening of the registration period, which will last until April 4th. This means members can put themselves forward as candidates and register to vote. Let’s take a moment to explore why we feel all members should participate, whether as candidates or as voters.
Committee elections: how to get involved
If you are passionate about Cardano’s mission and have expertise in a relevant area, consider running for a committee seat or participating in the voting process.
Key election dates ?? Applications open → March 24 – April 4 ?? Voting preparation and quality checks → April 7 – April 8 ?? Voting period → April 9 – April 23 ?? Results collated and reviewed → April 24 ?? Election results announced → April 30
? Important: To vote or run as a candidate, you must be an Intersect member before April 4.
Available committee seats
The following committees have open positions in the April elections:
Committee spotlights and election AMAs
In upcoming spotlight sessions and AMAs, you can interact directly with committee members, ask questions, and learn about their work. You can find a complete list of events by following the link.
Here’s How to apply
We encourage you to apply as a candidate if you have the expertise, passion, and availability! Ideal candidates should: ? Be committed to Cardano’s vision (empowering the powerless, banking the unbanked, and connecting the unconnected). ? Have domain-specific expertise in a relevant committee. ? Be available for up to 20 monthly hours (virtual meetings, chats, emails).
?? Steps to apply
1?? Download the application pack and watch the tutorial video
2??Log in to the Intersect member area
3??Navigate to the "Voting" section
4?? Select the committee you wish to apply for
5?? Submit your application before April 4
Intersect members are vital in electing committees, with elections held twice a year. Any individual or organization can join Intersect and vote—each member has one vote, regardless of ada holdings. While DReps and SPOs are responsible for voting on governance actions, it's unrealistic to expect them to master every detail. Intersect committees help bridge this gap by providing expert guidance and support, enabling more informed decision-making.
Each committee focuses on a specific area of governance, offering advice, assisting with governance proposals, fostering community discussions, and responding to inquiries—ensuring clarity and broad support for governance actions. For a detailed dive into Intersect committees and the rationale behind why all members should participate, check out this blog Understanding committees in Intersect.
For further information, please check out the committee election section on our knowledge base
The evolution of governance tooling will be integral to drive better outcomes on-chain, and that’s best recognized with the changes to the budget process. As part of the development for new tooling to support DReps with the budget process, the WeDeliver team, which maintains the Govtool pillar related to proposal discussion, is adding support for identifying DReps in the proposal comments and proposal polling, giving an early option to make the budget proposals public and collecting initial DRep sentiment.?
It is important to recognize the growing need for governance polling overall, as in all the sentiment checks before submitting a governance action on-chain. Until now, we have seen this need:
To define a standard for this, discussions have started in the governance tools working group (which meets every Wednesday) to create a CIP. This will allow any tool to handle these ‘governance polls’, storing the data in a distributed way.
Product committee
The Cardano product committee is progressing in its journey to facilitate the creation of a community-led 2030 Cardano vision. This is a unique opportunity for everyone in the community to set a path to shape Cardano's future.
Last Thursday, the first vision creation workshop was held with over 20 participants following the initial insights collected by the product committee Chair (Samuel Leathers) and Vice-Chair (Kyle Solomon) in Japan.
The product committee would like to encourage anyone to:
Constitutional committee - election process
Back in November 2024, a working group was kicked off to consider how Cardano could approach an election for the Constitutional Committee (CC), cognizant of the one-year term that the ICC is bound by. Following learnings from last year's first elections, the working group is proposing the following approach to selecting and then confirming on-chain, Cardano’s first fully elected CC.?
The Civics Committee has agreed to proceed with the working groups’ plans, and you can learn more below!
Who can sit on the Constitutional Council?
The short answer: any ada owner can run for the CC. However, the long answer emphasizes the need for experienced and qualified individuals and entities. To effectively contribute, candidates ideally posses:
Any ada-holder can apply, whether you're an individual, a consortium, or a legal entity.
The election process: transparency and community engagement
The election will be held? in a transparent and community-driven manner:
Registration period (Estimated May) - potential candidates will have a designated period to register their intent.
Candidate assessment - The community will have multiple avenues to evaluate candidates. This includes:
Community voting (Estimated June) - Every ada owner will have the opportunity to cast their vote. The voting mechanism will be a stake-weighted ranked-choice system, similar to how the interim constitutional committee (ICC) elections were held.
Public results and auditing (Estimated early July) - To ensure transparency, all voting results will be publicly available for community review following a five-day audit period.
What happens after the votes are counted?
The work doesn't stop after the election. Elected CC members will begin a comprehensive training program to prepare them for their roles. The exact details of this training are still being finalized, but the goal is to equip the new committee with the necessary knowledge and skills to take their seats from September onward.
However, the final step in this process is the ratification of the new CC on-chain. This will be achieved through an ‘update committee’ governance action, where delegated representatives (DReps) and stake pool operators (SPOs) will vote to ratify the credentials of the newly elected committee members.
More detailed information regarding the election timeline, candidate registration, voting, and other relevant aspects will be shared throughout the process. Please stay tuned for future updates.
Membership and community
As part of our commitment to continuous improvement and member engagement, Intersect has begun conducting one-on-one conversations with enterprise members to gather valuable insights, understand their needs, and explore how we can better support their journey within the Cardano ecosystem. In addition to these sessions, we will soon be sharing a feedback form for our individual members, ensuring all voices across the membership spectrum have an opportunity to contribute to shaping Intersect’s direction and services.
As our membership continues to expand, here’s a look at our latest numbers:
??Enterprise membership spotlight: Composie
Composie is a subscription-based design service that offers unlimited design requests for a fixed monthly fee, aiming to enhance in-house teams' capabilities. Their services encompass content strategy, scheduling, community engagement, and trend monitoring, with a commitment to delivering high-quality designs within a few business days. Composie supports multiple brands and media channels, providing flexibility and scalability to meet diverse client needs.?
As an enterprise member of Intersect, Composie brings valuable expertise in design and creative services, contributing to the visual and strategic aspects of projects within the Cardano ecosystem. Its commitment to quality and efficiency aligns with Intersect's goals of fostering innovation and collaboration among members.
Community hubs?
This week, our community hubs are hosting the following events:
Africa hub, led by WADA
Sri Lanka hub, led by CoinCeylon
Open source - developer advocate experiences
Developer advocates at Intersect focus on attending events, facilitating events, connecting with the developer community, and, of course, code development. This week, as we begin to round out Q1 2025, it would only be appropriate to share some key highlights for the developer advocates regarding event attendance and community engagement. Developer advocate events March 2025
Alex Seregin:
March started early with the Cardano Builder Meetup on Week 10 in Hanoi, which took about 52 hours. Since I moved to Mui Ne, networking has been the name of the game. This place is famous for having the region's best climate, attracting diverse groups of people, from tourists and backpackers to retirees, spiritual seekers, and wanderers.?
The international community is also quite strong here, predominantly French and English-speaking. I met several native English speakers who make a living here teaching their language. I also connected with several Web2 freelancers and talked about Web3, the transition, challenges, and opportunities. The Cardano developer meetup helped to extend my network, enabling communication with new developers.
Additionally, I met several significant people outside of the crypto world. Peter is Belgian and married to a Vietnamese woman. He makes his living manufacturing furniture near Ho Chi Minh City. He introduced me to his nephew, Paul, who excitedly volunteered as co-founder and community manager for the Cardano Nomads Hub in Mui Ne.?
The Cardano Developer Meetup in Hanoi was a highly anticipated event. It provided a unique opportunity for attendees to network, learn, and share knowledge about the Cardano projects built by the Vietnamese developer community.
The event saw a respectable turnout, with a total of 30 attendees, including a representative of the Cardano Foundation.
Key Takeaways:
The meetup featured 4 speakers, who presented on various topics, including:
The Cardano Developer Meetup in Hanoi was a successful event that brought together a diverse group of attendees passionate about the Cardano ecosystem.
Many thanks to Ha Nguyen for the invitation and Kai for the presentation of their project!
Suganya Raju:
I had the opportunity to attend "EmpowerHER in Tech," a Women's Day celebration organized by Bitcoin Bay and FemT3ch at Highline Beta in Toronto. The event brought together a diverse group of professionals and enthusiasts to discuss career opportunities and trends in technology for women, with a focus on Blockchain and artificial Intelligence. It was an evening filled with insightful discussions, networking, and inspiration.
During the networking sessions, I took the opportunity to talk about Cardano. One recurring theme I noticed was that many people still view Cardano primarily as an investment vehicle rather than a platform for innovation. Some attendees expressed concerns that Cardano is "too slow" to make an impact. I used this chance to address these misconceptions by explaining Cardano's unique approach to scalability and sustainability and its focus on real-world use cases. I emphasized its potential as a platform for building decentralized applications (DApps) and its commitment to academic rigor through peer-reviewed research.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Ashley Wright, the founder of FemT3ch, an organization dedicated to educating people about blockchain and crypto in Canada. I proposed collaborating with FemT3ch by contributing a brief session on Cardano to their presentations.
Another evening highlight was meeting Florent Thévenin, the founder of Blockchain North, Canada's only advertising partner focused on blockchain solutions. We discussed hosting an Intersect MBO OSO office hours session to outline Cardano's roadmap for growth and adoption over the next few years.
This event reinforced how critical it is to engage with communities shaping technology's future while challenging misconceptions about Cardano. Because of this networking, I introduced two individuals to Intersect, who are now proud members of the organization.
In addition to these connections, I have been actively engaging with industry outreach officers at local colleges to discuss potential collaborations. These experiences made me realize the power of personal connections in driving adoption and fostering a deeper understanding of Cardano's vision and capabilities.
You can learn more about the developer advocates in our knowledgebase, and reach them in Discord.
Operational services
This section will include weekly updates from the operational services team on proposals, grants, and delivery assurance.?
The budget proposal form is live! Click here to submit your proposal. Supportive information and instructions on completing the form are now available on the Knowledge Base. We'll keep this information up-to-date as we move forward and welcome your feedback and questions. Please email [email protected].
2024 grants
Cardano Curation has completed its 2024 Grant to create 10 short-form educational, engaging, and entertaining videos. You can find all of their videos on their X space: https://x.com/Cardanocuration
Delivery assurance
The following work has recently been completed across several projects.
Supplier: Bloxico
Supplier: Byron
Supplier: DQuadrant
Supplier: WeDeliver
You can find further information here: 2025 Delivery assurance contract updates | Intersect - Knowledge Base
Governance tooling
GovTool - The latest GovTool update introduces a few small improvements and fixes. Full release logs are available on 2.0.16 and 2.0.17. Key items include a fix for the wrong CIP-129 script-based DRep prefix, a fix for re-voting with the same option but a different rationale, and, most importantly, static assets optimization and an nginx config update, which significantly improved loading time thanks to the community feedback.
Collaboration continues to be a key strength of GovTool's development. In addition to the contributions from WeDeliver, Byron, Lido Nation, and DQuadrant, with oversight from the Governance Tools Working Group. The team is actively working with other tool builders, including GovernanceSpace, Co-sponsor, and others.
Users can expect the release of a budget discussion section and moderation tool for the off-chain discussions of the proposals on the preview network, which will enhance proposal discussion management. Additionally, efforts are ongoing to improve support for protocol parameter changes, committee updates, and hard fork governance action types to ensure comprehensive coverage of governance processes. A dedicated session will address co-sponsor integration challenges and explore solutions for automating data provision for GovernanceSpace.
With their deep community roots, the GovernanceSpace team has successfully leveraged GovTool’s backend to power off-chain proposals and is also using GovTool DRep registration flow—a great example of how open-source collaboration drives innovation in the ecosystem.
Governance in numbers
As we press ahead following Plomin, follow the progress of governance actions on-chain here every week. Since Friday, March 14, 2025:?
To learn how to start using Cardano GovTool, explore GovTool documentation. Here, you'll find everything from step-by-step guides to detailed explanations of its features.
On the Intersect Discord server, you can connect to the core maintainers of governance tools via the new request and new help & support channels under Core Governance Tools in Discord.?
Governance tools working group
This week's discussions focused on streamlining the 2025 budget proposal process and improving governance tooling. The team aligned on using GovTool in the short term to manage budget proposals, with functionality for submission, editing, and viewing, while exploring API integration to enhance accessibility. Efforts are underway to define a standardized governance polling process to ensure consistency across tools and improve long-term efficiency. The team also emphasized the need for a sustainable solution to manage proposal display and direct voting, with plans to build on existing frameworks and community-driven tools to accelerate progress.
GovTool is fully open source and maintained by Intersect members. The working group continues to invite community members to participate in discussions and feature development for the Cardano GovTool. All feedback is welcome (see guide on feedback), and ongoing conversations are held in the? wg-governance-tools Discord channel, where new feature ideas are regularly triaged and implemented.
Important member resources
Well, that’s it for this week's update. Thanks for reading!?