Small Grant: Enhancing Data Ownership through DeCast's Sia Extension

Grants Approved
1

Project Name: Decast.Live’s Sia Extension

Name of the organization or individual submitting the proposal: Leren Leren Unipesoal / Aman Bishnoi

Describe your project:

Decast is a decentralized platform empowering users to seamlessly create, stream, and post-process events while maintaining complete control over their data. The platform offers the flexibility to store event recordings in diverse locations such as Azure containers, S3 buckets, or direct exports to user devices. Emphasizing user data ownership, the project is set to host a comprehensive testnet-rendered node and leverage the Sia network for robust data storage.

To further enhance user control, DeCast is developing a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox, simplifying the secure upload of call record data. Additionally, the platform will feature a crucial functionality allowing users to upload data to specific nodes using credentials through APIs, ensuring a seamless and secure data management experience.

How does the projected outcome serve the Foundation’s mission of user-owned data?

The projected outcome aligns with the Foundation’s mission by empowering users to have full control over their event data. By leveraging decentralized technologies like Sia and providing a user-friendly browser extension, Decast ensures that individuals can securely manage, store, and export their event recordings without compromising their data ownership.
Data access can also be managed using NFT-gated content security which can be shared or transferred to other wallets for secure ownership.

Grant Specifics

Amount of money requested and justification with a reasonable breakdown of expenses:

Total Grant Amount: $8000

  • Implementation of Sia network integration: $2500 for direct storage of recordings
  • Browser extension development (Chrome and Firefox): $2500
  • Testing and Quality Assurance: $800
  • Documentation, user guides: $1200
  • research on testnet-rendered node (not development-ready but possibly a POC if funds remain, else a follow-up grant will be requested): $1000

Goals of the Small Grant:

  1. Integrate Sia network functionality for secure and decentralized data storage.
  2. Develop browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox to simplify data upload.
  3. Ensure a seamless and user-friendly experience for event creation, streaming, and post-processing.
  4. Provide options for exporting data to Azure containers, S3 buckets, or local devices.
  5. Successfully build POC for a testnet-rendered node for Decast.

Timeline-
Here is the overview with note about the 3 month timeline being a maximum:

Month 1:

  • Extension architecture and infrastructure setup
  • Start building Chrome extension
  • Initial integration work with Sia

Month 2:

  • Complete Chrome extension
  • Build Firefox extension
  • Finalize extensions and publish
  • Sia integration and testing

Month 3:

  • User testing
  • Wrap up testing and development
  • Submit final grant report

Note: The 3 months is the maximum estimated time for completion, but we will attempt to finish before this timeline if possible. This overview provides the general milestones we hope to achieve in that period.

Potential Risks:

  1. Technical challenges in implementing Sia network integration.
  2. Browser compatibility issues during extension development.
  3. Ensuring data security and privacy throughout the platform.

Development Information

Will all of your project’s code be open-source?

Yes, all code related to the Decast project will be open-source. We will be providing code repos to developers to deploy nodes and support networks. Application code will also be public for reviews and contributions.

Link where code will be accessible for review:

Do you agree to submit monthly progress reports?

Yes, we commit to submitting monthly progress reports on the forum.

Contact Info

Email:

shivam@getboarded.com, amanb1145@gmail.com

Any other preferred contact methods:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aman-j-bishnoi/

2

Thanks for your proposal! The committee should be able to review this grant during their next meeting on February 6th, 2024. We’ll reach out with an update after that meeting.

1 Like
3

Hello Steve, I trust you’re doing well. Could you please provide an update on the proposal?
Thank you.

4

Hey there! Our committee met yesterday and was able to review your grant. We’ll have our responses posted tomorrow.

1 Like
5

Hi Steve,

Thank you for letting me know. I appreciate the update and look forward to hearing the committee’s feedback.

Best regards,
Aman

6

Thanks again for submitting your proposal to the Sia Foundation Grants Program! We’re also happy to see you come over to the Grants Program from our latest hackathon.

The committee is currently not approving this grant, and would like to see the following changes:

  • Remove the $2,000 expense for progress report preparation. Please refer to the Progress Report Guidelines(About the Grants category - #8) we’ve established. I think you’ll find that they are fairly simply and won’t require more than a few minutes of your time each month.
  • Small Grant requests don’t require the detailed timelines of their Standard or Large siblings, but we’d still like to see some idea of timeline for the project.

Because these are not significant changes, we’ll leave this in the Proposed section of the forum for now. Thanks!

1 Like
7

Dear Steve,

Thank you for the thoughtful feedback on our grant proposal. We are aligned with the Sia Foundation’s mission of enabling user-owned data and appreciate you taking the time to help strengthen our application.

In response to your suggestions:

  • We have removed the $2000 expense allocated for progress report preparation. As you pointed out, the established guidelines seem quite reasonable and we do not foresee needing extensive effort or funding to comply.

  • Here is an updated high-level timeline we envision over the 3 month grant period (maximum time for completion):

Month 1:

  • Extension infrastructure setup and design
  • Start Chrome extension development
  • Initial Sia integration

Month 2:

  • Complete Chrome extension
  • Build Firefox extension
  • Finalize and publish extensions
  • Sia integration and testing

Month 3:

  • User testing
  • Wrap up development
  • Submit final grant report

Please note that while 3 months is the maximum estimated timeline, we will attempt to complete the project faster if possible.

Please let me know if you would like any additional detail or adjustments to this timeline.

With these changes, our revised grant amount is $8000, allocated as:

Implementation of Sia network integration: $2500 for storage of recordings
Browser extension development (Chrome and Firefox): $2500
Testing and Quality Assurance: $800
Documentation, user guides and Monthly progress report preparation: $1200
research on testnet-rendered node (not development-ready but possibly a POC if funds remain, else a follow-up grant will be requested): $1000

We appreciate the Sia Foundation’s guidance in strengthening our proposal and furthering our shared goals. If any additional information would aid review, we welcome continued conversation. We look forward to productive collaboration and next steps with the Foundation.

Best regards,
Aman

8

Thanks for the updates to your proposal, and for addressing the committee’s concerns!

Progress report creation is not something that should ever be included in budgetary requests. We appreciate you removing the progress report line item and $2,000 amount, but progress reports are now itemized under a different bullet point. Despite the budget request for that line item not changing, please remove “progress report creation” from any section of the budget.

It may seem like a small change, but it’s important that we be deliberate with the specific things the committee approves. Thanks again!

9

Dear Steve,

Thank you again for the feedback on our proposal. We have updated it further based on your most recent guidance:

  • We have removed “Progress report creation” from the timeline and budget sections.

  • Here is the timeline:

Month 1:

  • Extension infrastructure setup and design
  • Start Chrome extension development
  • Initial Sia integration

Month 2:

  • Complete Chrome extension
  • Build Firefox extension
  • Finalize and publish extensions
  • Sia integration and testing

Month 3:

  • User testing
  • Wrap up development
  • Submit final grant report

Note: The 3 months is the maximum estimated time for completion, but we will attempt to finish before this timeline if possible. This overview provides the general milestones we hope to achieve in that period

The revised budget breakdown is now:

Implementation of Sia network integration: $2500
Browser extension development (Chrome and Firefox): $2500
Testing and Quality Assurance: $800
Documentation and user guides: $1200
Research on testnet-rendered node: $1000

Please let me know if any additional adjustments are needed.

Best regards,

Aman

10

Thanks for providing the requested edits to your proposal. I’m happy to relay that the committee has approved this grant!

We’ll reach out to your provided email address to begin onboarding. It can take a couple of weeks to get new grantees set up, so please feel free to adjust your timelines accordingly.