New Vlog Tweet! Please like/comment/retweet 🙏🐣

https://twitter.com/simonsallstrom/status/1595894301124427781?s=46&t=inCmfRXsgK1L4FAqyEAiQw

Join Simon as he is attending the first Twitter space to talk about DirectEd and the DirectEd Lions Collection! Sunday 11th, 6pm UTC

https://twitter.com/DietWaterGUY/status/1601302189892567040?s=20&t=VOq2h9dl11P9Dub6jswm5Q

DirectEd Lions (Warrior) sneak peek!

These NFTs will be given to donors as tokens of appreciation and will unlock access to the scholar's progress page. The donor NFTs will make up the DirectEd Lions NFT Collection!

Stay tuned as we will be dropping samples from the Heroes, Kings and Queen tiers of the DirectEd Lions collection 🥳

Vlog #11 released!

In this episode of the vlog series we get hear more thoughts following the Kagumo High visit as well as joining Simon in some of the behind the scenes of being a charity startup CEO!

https://youtu.be/jdV4yLULn6E

Vlog #12 up!

Listen in on an interesting discussion where we get to hear some thoughts about the importance of moral education and how corruption manifests 👏

📜 February Newsletter 📜

COTI Sponsorship: Djed Scholars 👨‍🎓
We are happy to announce that COTI Group has sponsored the pilot course and first scholarship cohort at Kagumo High; a high-performing high school in Nyeri county, Kenya.

This has enabled us to develop and deliver what is, to the best of our knowledge, the world’s first 📱 mobile-phone-based introduction to Python using Harvard University's CS50 open-source content 📕

Students who performed well in this course will be admitted to the 12-week long intensive DirectEd coding bootcamp as Djed Scholars.

Introductory Coding Course Success!
Our first remote mobile-first coding course was a resounding success, with around 60 students participating and a retention rate of over 70% 🤓 !

This is a significant improvement compared to existing Massive Open Online Courses (#MOOC) with retention rates in the single digits!

Our next step is to partner with more high schools to offer a second round of the intro course. This will enable us give more students this life-changing opportunity!

Join the DirectEd team!
We are currently looking for a Chief #Marketing Officer 🤗 and an #Accounting Assistant 🕵️‍♂️ to join our team.

If you are passionate about marketing or accounting and want to make a difference, we would love to hear from you.

Please visit our Job board for more information on how to apply. https://directed.notion.site/Job-board-3a6585f2175a456bb4f3d1149cfddba2

📢 ANNOUNCEMENT & RAFFLE GIVEAWAY📢
DirectEd Lions 🦁 Litepaper is finally out! Learn about our vision, the fantasy world of Noli and much more!

The fundraiser mint takes place between April 21st-30th, save the date 🤫🤫

You can now also have a look at the beta release of our donation dApp portal 👀

❓How does the giveaway work?

1. Like❤️ & retweet♻️ this Twitter thread 👆🧵
2. Tag two Twitter friends in the comments of the thread 💬
3. DM the @directeddev account with the word "Lion" 🦁

🏆Prizes?
- 50 $Djed (USD)
- 2x Lion Warriors
- 1x GPS Adventure pass
- 1x Easter Egg from the Web3UserGroup Easter collection

How can I learn more about DirectEd and engage?

📖 You get the condensed version through this master thread

📚 For a longer read, check out our whitepaper

🎞 And here is if you just want a 5-minute video

⛓ For everything else, use our Linktree

Our March 2023 newsletter📜

DirectEd lions 🦁 fundraiser April 21st-April 30th 🗓

We're excited to announce that the Litepaper for the
DirectEd Lions Collection is finally out!🥳

The Lion collection is divided into four tiers, each symbolizing varying degrees of support. For each tier, we express our gratitude🙏🏼 to our
donors in unique ways❤️

Please read and share your thoughts about the
DirectEd Lions Litepaper🙏🏼 https://directeddev.gitbook.io/lions-lite-paper/

The fundraiser will be ran through our new donation portal ,https://app.directed.dev/ !

Tech internship partners! 🤝🏼
We have secured our first two tech partners! These partners will take on a team of top graduates
🧑🏼‍🎓 from the DirectEd Bootcamp, providing support as they work on a real-world
project over a 6-month period🔥

The first tech firm is Snapbrillia, a startup working a wide suite of products ranging. They will offer a 6-month mentorship program for top
graduates of our 12-week MERN stack bootcamp! https://twitter.com/DirectEdDev/status/1643609830160998401?s=20

The second tech firm is @tallyxyz, a world-leading DAO tooling🔧 startup!

Donation Portal and New Intro Video🎥 Release

Discover all there is to know about DirectEd at our
donation portal, including the problems we tackle, our solution, associated costs, and expected impact.

Additionally, we invite you to check out our newly released video introduction, featuring footage from Kagumo High🏫 and testimonials from successful graduates of our
first coding course💻

Donors using Cardano can now donate to our
$ada handle $directeddev via the donation portal.

For those who wish to donate using credit cards💳 or other #cryptocurrencies, we ask for your patience until the fundraising campaign starts on April 21st.

MOU with Mang’U High 🏫
We are thrilled to announce that our Kenya lead Moses Kahure has signed an MOU with Mang’u High School👏🏼, ranked 3rd in the 2020 KCSE examinations as our 2nd pilot school partner🤝🏼

Web3 user group partnership 🎊
We are excited to partner with the Web3 User Group, an association committed to providing a safe and fun
forum to learn about Web3.
Join our newly created joint discord here https://discord.gg/ftV7jeM5Sw

Next up in April
Our CEO @SimonSallstrom has been invited to speak
on a panel at one of the world's largest blockchain events, NFT.NYC. The panel is held on the Legal & Finance stage on
Thursday April 13 at 5:20 pm EDT⏲

Introductory Coding Course 2 🔥
We are thrilled to announce that, following a highly successful information session
with Mang’U High School students and parents, we will be offering a second iteration of our mobile-first📱 Intro to #coding course.

Joining DirectEd!
We are currently looking for a working professional software engineer🧑🏼‍💻 to mentor our top students during their tech internship, as well as a dynamic and creative🎨 leader to assist with our marketing and fundraising efforts.

Additionally, we are seeking someone with accounting🔢 experience, eager to grow with the organization🏢 and take on more responsibility as our programme scales. Please visit https://directed.notion.site/Job-board-3a6585f2175a456bb4f3d1149cfddba2 for more information on how to apply!

📢 DirectEd Lions Legacy NFT Art Collection fundraiser mint START this Saturday, April 29th! 📢

25 pieces are released at 7pm UTC/ 3pm EDT/ 12pm PST over at https://app.directed.dev/scholarship-pool, accepting
accepting $ADA/ $ETH/ $SOL or credit card 💳

Read the litepaper here: https://bit.ly/3oRcqPI

❓What's the connection between the scholarship pools and the minting of these NFTs?
🅰️ Minting = donating to a specific Lions scholarship pool!
——————————————————————————-
🏫 each pool crowdfunds scholarships for graduates of the school
🦁 only 5 Lion Heroes and 2 Lion Royals are released for each school
🎓 funds in the pool finance both scholarships (laptops, internet, tutorials) and other expenses

What does it mean to be one of 20 Lion Hero NFT Holders?
It means you fund the scholarship of one student for the DirectEd Coding bootcamp this summer.

But you also gain...
✅ ability to edit the “Minted for” NFT metadata field (dedicate the donation to someone?)
✅ access to the student-created ✍🏼 Hero story
✅ access to the bootcamp content 📚+ live soft-skills masterclasses by industry pros (value $300+)

What about the Lion Royal🫅🤴 tier?
This means you now fund TWO scholarships! And in addition to all other perks…

📨 invitation to an exclusive Donor's Dinner 🍽 held in the halls of an Oxford College🕯
🪧 a nameplate of recognition in the school
❔Will you be one of the 8?

Help us spread the word
Like/comment/retweet the first tweet in this thread. Thank you ❤️
https://twitter.com/DirectEdDev/status/1651688719470960640

Best wishes,
DirectEd team

Dear DirectEd Lions supporters,

You are hereby invited to participate in the DirectEd Bootcamp 2023 Opening Ceremony

When? Tomorrow Monday May 15th, 5:00 am UTC

Location: Zoom (link is on the token-gated page https://app.directed.dev/donors-portal/events)

📜 April & May 2023 Newsletter 📜

14 Access Scholarships funded 💰
Read the heartwarming letter to the DirectEd donor community from Angela here: https://twitter.com/DirectEdDev/status/1656373544693972992?s=20

🎊DirectEd Bootcamp Launch Day 🎉
We held an in-person launch day of the DirectEd bootcamp at YALI East Africa at Kenyatta University with Chief of Party Dr George Kosimbei gracing the event with his presence. https://twitter.com/directeddev/status/1663926322098319360?s=46&t=7qeW1p3kfSxYwiu1nrDAwQ

💵 “Why NFTs Will Revolutionise Charitable Giving” in New York 🏬
Our CEO Simon Sällström participated in a panel discussion at NFT.NYC - one of the largest blockchain conferences in the world. Watch the recording (from 9:30): http://youtu.be/ndaUhZoZrpc

🏫 Bootcamp Workshops for Donors
DirectEd Lions holders (donors) are welcome to join our students for some excellent workshops throughout June and July, such as “How to Ace Interviews” with Jessica Pointing (internships at Google, Goldman Sachs, NASA and more). More info on the Donors portal event page (NFT must be in the wallet) https://app.directed.dev/donors-portal/events

Check out the full newsletter!
https://directed.notion.site/April-May-2023-Newsletter-7bee516d95454f0cbe8b04e7b1fd04f0?pvs=4

Share the LinkedIn post
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/directed-dev_kenya-nfts-internships-activity-7074107792696987648-TYRQ?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Best,
Simon Sällström
CEO

Dear #DirectEdLions, we are excited to invite you to join our students for next week's soft skills workshops💪

"Achieving your Goals" with Alicia Pollard on Tuesday July 18 at 1 pm - 2 pm UTC

"Atomic Habits" with Bart Jaworski on Thursday July 20, 1 pm - 2 pm UTC

Head over to https://app.directed.dev/donors-portal/events (token gated) for link!

See you there! 😇

June - July 2023 Newsletter
Blink and you’ll miss it. Here’s DirectEd’s summer update! Follow this link to read this in your browser (with pictures)!

In this newsletter
1. DirectEd Bootcamp Completed
2. “How to Ace Interviews” masterclass with Jessica Pointing
3. DirectEd Workshops from June and July
4. Ethiopia Partnerships & Pilot
5. Project Catalyst Grant Proposals
6. Next Up in August and September

DirectEd Bootcamp Completed
Over the past 12 weeks, our incredible students have successfully completed more than 10 projects! From meme-generators and tic-tac-toe games to web browser extensions and social media platforms. Out of the initial 42 students who entered the bootcamp, 16 have passed all 5 oral module and can now proudly call themselves full-stack web developers!

For their final project, students had to independently define a problem and then build a full web application solving this problem. Listen to the students presenting their work here or check out the code from all submissions here!

“How To Ace Interviews” Masterclass Invitation
In addition to the coding curriculum, our students have participated in a number of workshops to further prepare them for success. Nicholas Hrynuik held a series of workshops on the development lifecycle, covering code reviews, product specifications and more, Bart Jaworski held a workshop about "Atomic Habits" to help students build routines and Alicia Pollard spoke about “Values, Goals and Dopamine" just to mention a few.

On Friday August 4th, we have invited Jessica Pointing for masterclass on How to Ace Interviews. Jessica is currently a PhD candidate in Quantum computing at the University of Oxford and has previously studied at Harvard, MIT and Stanford. She has internship experience from Google, McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, and NASA.

When? Friday, August 4th, 2-3 pm UTC / 10-11 am EST
Where? https://lu-se.zoom.us/j/66085258419

First DirectEd Donor Dinner
In June, Simon had the pleasure to welcome one of our super-donors, Coleen Chase, to the first-ever DirectEd Donor’s Dinner* held in the halls of Hertford College, Oxford. Her generous donation funded Access Scholarships for two students, Grace and Virginia, giving them laptops and WiFi for the DirectEd Bootcamp. Both Coleen and the two students received an art piece (NFT) to symbolise the bond. The art piece they received represents Queen Izbebraj of Airode [https://bit.ly/DColeen](https://t.co/H2PwjtIDKo).

Ethiopia Partnerships & Pilot
Our Ethiopia lead Fasika Belay has worked diligently and have managed to secure partnerships with 6 high schools across Addis Ababa. She also held information sessions with the students to explain the details of our Ethiopia pilot programme that will commence in August.

Project Catalyst Grant Proposals
Project Catalyst is one of the largest decentralised innovation grant funds in the world. Following our completed proposal from Fund 8, we are submitting 4 grant proposals:

1. Generalised Pooling-Crowdfunding smart contract and audit
2. Decentralised Uber for tutors
3. Atala prism credentials for coding bootcamps and employers in Africa
4. NMKR: dynamic progress bar, editable metadata and dynamically updated impact NFTs

If you are a Cardano community member holding ADA, then please remember to register to vote in in Project Catalyst Fund 10 before August 18th. Once voting opens on August 30th, please vote for DirectEd’s four proposals!


Next up: August and September
Public Testnet Alpha
We are now welcoming our community to participate in the public testnet alpha testing. To participate, navigate to https://testnet.directed.dev/ and sign up. You can read more about what it means to participate here.

DirectEd Graduation Ceremony
In August, all students will be invited to partake in a graduation ceremony at Kenyatta University. We have invited a number of prominent guests including Shahaf Bar-Geffen, CEO of COTI and sponsor of the Djed Scholars from Kagumo High.

Graduate Programme Start
We are proud to announce that we now have 3 tech firm internship partners for 12 of our students! Throughout August, students will be preparing and participating in coding tests and interviews with these companies before starting starting their 6-month-long internship journey in September.

Ethiopia Intro Courses
In August and September, we will be launching the first Intro Courses with our 6 partner schools in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Students will thereafter participate in a adapted version of the DirectEd Bootcamp which we piloted in Kenya earlier this year.

GitCoin grant round
DirectEd will participate in the next GitCoin grants 18. To help vote for us, please first get a GitCoin passport (a way to ensure you are an individual). Once voting begins on August 15th, you will be able to vote for DirectEd here.

Past Newsletters here

We've accomplished a lot but this is just the beginning. I'm glad to see you be part of this journey!

- Simon

DirectEd Bootcamp Kenya 2023 Graduation Ceremony is TOMORROW (Aug 16)!🎊

You can join us online from 7.30 am UTC onwards when some students present their projects 💾

This is followed by keynote speeches by our CEO, Simon Sällström, and Shahaf Bar-Geffen (CEO of COTI)

We will put up the Zoom link on our https://linktr.ee/directeddevelopment 1 hour before it starts!

"DirectEd saved me."
- Elizabeth Gitau, DirectEd Scholar Kenya 2023

These words echo the transformative impact we're making in Africa 🦁

We are today launching our crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for Access Scholarships to needy high-potential students in Ethiopia, equipping them with laptops and internet and thereby enabling them to participate in our free life-changing coding bootcamps.

⏰ When? Sep 30th
📍 Where? https://bit.ly/DirectEdPools

Save the date!

What have we achieved in our first 18 months?
1️⃣ 150+ Kenyan and Ethiopia students basic training in coding and blockchain
2️⃣ 40 students a life-changing opportunity through our intensive 3-month-long coding bootcamp
3️⃣ 12 students paid internships with Western tech firms!

…all with $ada on-chain scholarships, enabling any donor to independently verify where their funds have gone!

What's next?
Continuing on our successful Kenyan bootcamp pilot, we’re now expanding to Ethiopia

But without a laptop and money to pay for 📶 internet, many of our most talented students won’t be able to partake in the bootcamp…

How can you make an impact?🤝
You can transform a student’s life by contributing to one of several Access Scholarship crowdfunding pools 🧑‍🎓 when we start our campaign on September 30th.

Save the date! 📅
Link: https://bit.ly/DirectEdPools

The DirectEd Lions Collections
As a symbol of our appreciation, we give each one of our donors a unique digital art piece from one of our 🦁 collections!

These not only prove your donation but they also unlock access 🔓 to our Donor Portal!

But there’s more to the two #DirectEdLions collections…

DirectEd Lions - Warriors 🪖
This is a 2000-piece collection consisting of warriors from the ancient Noli universe…

⭐️ 20 unique classes
👑 6 ancient kingdoms
💪 5 traits with random scores
... and in the future, a student-built game using these digital avatars❗️

DirectEd Lions - Legacy 👑
This is a premium 130-piece collection dedicated to our super-donors with perks including…

✅ student-written lore for each unique piece ✍️
✅ exclusive donor dinners 🍽 hosted in Oxford
✅ donor nameplates in our partner schools

You can read more about the collection and our mission here: https://bit.ly/DirectEdLitepaper

Join us as we make progress towards a world in which any student is given the opportunity to realise their full potential, regardless of their draw in the lottery of life

Sincerely yours,
Simon Sällström

📜 DirectEd Newsletter August - September 📜

1. 🇪🇹 programme launch & #DirectEdLions Crowdfunding campaign!

Following the MOU with Kotebe University of Education in Dec last year, our first Intro Course was held in August with a second one soon to begin in October! https://x.com/DirectEdDev/status/1710286029859504312?s=20

In November, the first bootcamp in Ethiopia will start ✨ But many of our brightest students don't have the resources to participate in our tuition-free BootCamp... That's why we launched the DirectEd Lions Fundraiser once again https://x.com/DirectEdDev/status/1703849298088071180?s=20

2. 🎓 Our inaugural cohort of DirectEd Scholars graduated on August 16th at Kenyatta University! 🎉

Many distinguished speakers were invited to inspire our students, including our benefactor, Shahaf Bar-Geffen, who spoke about the possibilities of technology and the internet
https://x.com/DirectEdDev/status/1700167174541779416?s=20

3. Application portal demo is out! It is the first web application enabling a holder of an Atala PRISM 2.0 credential to safely share their credentials with a web app.

So what?
This means any Ethiopian high school graduate is now able to directly apply to our programme with their high school grades, massively reducing our verification costs. Video: https://youtu.be/cj5I46EaMm8

5. The first-ever DirectEd Donor plate! Thank you AKYO (https://twitter.com/AKYO_POOL)!

Together, we are realising the untapped potential of the next generation of African tech leadership 🙌

https://x.com/DirectEdDev/status/1704442855735853548?s=20

6. 🌐 We're making history!
To the best of our knowledge, we are the first charity in the world to commit to managing all our financial operations on a public blockchain! https://x.com/DirectEdDev/status/1704544463656190277?s=20 🚀

7. DirectEd at the Cardano Summit.
We are proud to share that CEO Simon Sällström will be having a masterclass at the Cardano Summit Dubai main stage event on the topic “Blockchain for Development”. You don’t want to miss this!

DirectEd has also been nominated in the “Blockchain for Good” category. Please support us https://x.com/DirectEdDev/status/1709906653896663310?s=20

Next up❓
In late October, the second Intro Course will be held in 🇪🇹 . Then, on November 12th, our #DirectEdLions crowdfunding campaign ends and the first Ethiopian bootcamp commences!

Be sure you subscribe to our email list so you don’t miss any latest news https://bit.ly/DirectEd-News

Best,
Simon Sällström
CEO