Description

After the initial feedback on the 1. version of the grant, we made changes to reflect the feedback. EkoLance www.ekolance.io is a training and recruitment platform that helps professionals start working in web3. It has two core functions: * Cohort-based Training Programs to train professionals to work in specific web3 professions such as content creators, community managers, blockchain developers * Recruitment function, where companies can select from the talent pool and hire ### Free training programs for people from emerging countries EkoLance focuses on educational inclusion for people from emerging economies. We offer our training programs for free to people from emerging countries (currently from Africa and Southeast Asia), who otherwise cannot afford blockchain education. We connect them to employers with whom they would otherwise not have any touchpoints. This is how we foster educational and financial inclusion. We have educated more than 650 people in the past 6 months and 30% of them were hired directly after our training. More than 2000 people have subscribed for training and recruitment with us. Currently in our talent pool we have: * 250+ Solidity Developers * 700+ Content Creators * 550+ Community Managers ### Strong Partnerships in the Web3 Space EkoLance currently has 8 sourcing partners with a total community of over 20.000 people from which we regularly get talented professionals to subscribe to our training programs. We partner with universities, Blockchain, and Tech Hubs, which promote our training programs and services to their members. ### We cooperate with corporates, who train and recruit from our talent pool We invite blockchain professionals to train our talents, so they have the most up-to-date and practical training experience possible. Companies, which have participated in our training programmes are: Ankr, Blockdaemon, Blocksize Capital, Pillar Foundation, HER DAO, Metagamehub DAO, ReCheck, AuditOne, Quantstamp, Basenode.io, YieldGuildGames, Luna Vision, BeInCrypto. Companies, which have recruited from our talent pool are: Quantstamp, Micobo, ReCheck, O2k.tech, Getonboard.gg. ### Benefits for Decentraland With Ekolance in Decentraland, we will have the first training and recruitment center in the Metaverse, bringing together companies and talents from all sectors to the Metaverse. This center will offer innovative opportunities for talents to get trained to work for Web3 companies and become part of the communities as well as for companies to recruit the right talent for them. This will provide proper and retentive user engagement via true utilities which are constantly pushed via weekly initiatives such as educational trainings, events, quests, job matching, socializing and more taking place on top of the LANDs. Decentraland community members also benefit from direct access to talents, who are familiar with Decentraland and are trained to work in the Metaverse apart from the user and adoption growth this provides. Since most of the trainees will have zero to little experience with web3 before this, it will serve as a major boost for adoption and to onboard the masses to Decentraland and thus foster mainstream adoption. Furthermore, it will allow Decentraland to position itself as the entry point and “home” for everyone’s Metaverse journey and strongly place itself at the center of metaverse adoption via a strong focus on education - something that is often neglected in the web3 space.