Gladius team has received an Activation Award in SCF#23 in the amount of $45000 (in XLM). We have finished 100% of all the deliverables. For detailed list of all our deliverables, please check our sck tracker.

Please watch our DEMO video

Highlights:

From the previous SCF project, we developed a tokenomics model, 4 different  smart contracts, and what is most important, we have implemented ERC721 and ERC721Enumerable standard in Soroban! 

We also developed an engaging UI for sports clubs and students with no knowledge of web3 or crypto required to use. Clubs can send coins and NFTs to students with just a few clicks with our contracts handling the coin pool according to the clubs and their courses.

To pull this off we worked hard making a secure custodial wallets creation model where our platform takes full responsibility for wallet creation, private key encryption and signature provision when requested (using KMS). Wallet creation source code found here!

Our backend is powered by Firestore, allowing us to run Gladius serverless and integrate with Soroban using GCP Cloud Functions (source code)

Improvements based on feedback from SCF#27 voters 

To ensure great user adoption we have made a detailed UX Research and conducted user interviews together with professional UX Agency from Belgium (https://www.designday.be/ ). Based on received user feedback we’re created MVP design for student app. We're planning to continue collaboration with Designday and order a new professional design for admin app (currently using a simple Material UI template). See more details in our pitch desk.

We have improved the description of our deliverables based on the feedback received from SCF#27 voters. We broke them down into sub-projects and adjusted the budget 

Our team has a good relationship with several local and regional sports clubs and federations. We have a real club working with us and testing our app beta version. During SCF#23 pilot project we were working with 10 test users. All of them participated in a UX research conducted by the UX agency Designday and all UX research participants confirmed their excitement about receiving rewards in virtual currency (Gladius Coin) and NFTs (virtual badges and medals for their achievements).

The test athletes team lead belongs to club management and recently joined Gladius team as a game designer and junior developer

We have signed a letter of intent with our test sports club and now have ~50 potential users waiting for a Gladius go-live. 

We have also signed letters of intent also with other 6 clubs (200-300 potential users) with whom we want to work during SCF#29 project (see pitch deck  Slide 21 )

Potentially during first year we can reach up to 75 sports club through our partnership with local and regional sport federations and onboard thousands of students to Gladius (see pitch deck  Slide 22 )

Strong hierarchy in sports federations simplifies onboarding and adoption. We strongly believe in our success to make Gladius their main engagement platform (especially those who have not used any athletes engagement platform before).

Gladius aims to become a major actor in the Soroban and Stellar Ecosystem, being NFT-as-a-service protocol and offer our product not only for Sport Clubs, but for all types of Education Institutions. In order to achieve this, we see that the Roadmap will have.

1: Completed: SCF#23 MVP Phase(Q1 2024)

Thanks to the Activation Award (SCF#23) We have developed the Gladius MVP and launched early access to our first customers. Gladius core features are currently under review by key sport clubs and their students.

2. SCF#29 NFT Management and Pilot Testing Phase (Q3 2024)

Continuing on from the MVP, this SCF#29 focuses on enhancing Gladius's ability to semi-automatically create and manage NFT rewards and coins. During this phase we will onboard our additional pilot customers, composed of sports clubs or regional sports federations. Key developments and activities during this phase will include:

• NFT Creation and  Management Implementation: Develop and integrate a system that allows clubs to autonomously set rules for NFT issuance based on specific achievements and milestones, facilitating the automated updating and distribution of NFT rewards.
• Customizable Smart Contract Integration: Deploy advanced, customizable smart contracts capable of adjusting NFT properties dynamically, enriching user engagement and reward significance.
• Pilot Testing with Initial Customers: Engage pilot customers in testing of the platform's capabilities, collecting feedback to refine functionalities and user experience. This direct engagement will help in fine-tuning the system before wider deployment.
• Stellar Anchor Integrations: Stellar Anchor integrations for financial transactions, enabling efficient on/off ramps for digital asset conversions. Allowing parents to pay in Fiat currency and clubs to exchange coins earned by students into physical items.
• Integrate gamification in Gladius integrating Unity in and leveraging features of https://readyplayer.me/ (integrated via API)

3. Scalability and Expansion Phase (2025)

After refining our platform through pilot feedback, the focus will shift towards scaling the service to encompass a wider range of institutions, such as hobby clubs. This phase will ensure that the benefits of NFT-driven engagement are accessible to a broader educational and training sector. Efforts will be directed towards:

• Premium features: Here we want to build and start charging for the Gladius premium features. This includes custom smart contracts and more advanced club management tools.
• Broadening the User Base: Actively onboard diverse organisations to demonstrate the platform’s versatility and ability to handle various educational and training needs.
• Platform Infrastructure Enhancement: Upgrade the technological infrastructure to support an expanding user base and increasingly complex interactions, ensuring high performance and reliability.
• Development of Strategic Partnerships: Formulate partnerships with key players in educational technology to integrate supplementary tools and expand the ecosystem, thereby increasing the platform’s value and reach.

The Core team comprises two full-time experts, Alexey and David, who have collaborated for five years and have an even longer history of acquaintance. Together with their team and partner organisations, they have successfully developed numerous data-driven products. Their most recent project involves co-developing an analytical crowd movements product for Telia Company, the largest telecom company in the Nordics and Baltics (https://business.teliacompany.com/crowd-insights). The Core team will receive support from blockchain experts at PaltaLabs (Esteban and his team).

The team has successfully developed a Proof of Concept (PoC) for the Gladius product, onboarded an initial pilot customer, and engaged several top testers who are currently experiencing an early-stage prototype of the product. Collectively, they are progressing towards the development of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to address genuine customer needs.

Alexey Sirotkin, Co-Founder & Product Owner

His career journey includes over 7 years at Telia, where he has worked as a Cloud Engineer,  Data Engineer, Data Analyst, Data Scientist and different Scrum roles. He's skilled in cloud engineering, data engineering, data mining, in-database analytics, GEO-spatial analysis and other areas including project management and product development.  In addition Alexey was working 9 years as Senior DevOps engineer managing local, regional and global IP call centres in local and international companies. 

Alexey is a Visiting Lecturer at EUAS.eu, a certified mountain guide at a local tourism company, and a certified martial arts coach in one of Estonian martial arts clubs, winner of multiple international martial arts championships. 

Alexey is a technology enthusiast, passionate about learning and self-development, teaching and training. He is always searching for new innovative methods of training and teaching applying his deep knowledge in technology and many years of guiding, teaching and coaching.
Linkedin

David Crompton,  Co-Founder & Full-Stack Developer,
David Crompton is a full-stack data scientist and developer, experienced blockchain enthusiast. He thrives in turning analytical ideas into real products and enjoys challenges that fuel his entrepreneurial spirit. With a preference for collaborative environments, he's driven to create value for customers.

David's experience includes leading the crowd insights data team at Telia Company since March 2019. 

His academic background includes a PhD in Electronic System Engineering & Biochemistry and a BS in Molecular Medicine and Biochemistry from the University of Essex. Additionally, he has completed nanodegrees in Self Driving Car Engineering and Artificial Intelligence from Udacity.

David has contributed to several publications related to spectroscopic studies, low-frequency dynamics, big data, and nanostructured materials.

David is an expert in different applied scientific areas effectively combining his wide technological skill set with deep academical experience in System Engineering & Biochemistry.
LInkedin 

Ankit Gupta, Front-end Software Engineer,

Ankit has joined the Gladius team during SCF#23 development phase. He has developed a front-end for Gladius with very high quality (see our sck tracker for more details) 

• ●  6+ years of experience in developing web applications.
• ●  Extensive experience in developing and enhancing responsive web applications using ReactJS, Redux,
  Bootstrap, ES10, Typescript, HTML, CSS, and Ajax programming.
• ●  Well experienced in delivering rich B2B and B2C member experiences using cutting-edge frontend
  technologies such as React JS, Next JS, Node JS.
• ●  Strong experience working on software projects in all stages of the software life cycle from requirements
  gathering, design, development, testing, and deployment (go-live) to maintenance.
• ●  Core experience in UI, JavaScript Frameworks/Libraries, Requirement Analysis, Integration, SCM (Git) &
  SDLC (Agile Development).
• ●  Worked as a part of a globally distributed team and interacted with architects, designers, and leading a small
  engineering team.
• ●  Strong experience in adding processes/workflows to manage product development on various project
  management tools like JIRA, Azure VSTS, and like so..
• ●  Hands-on experience in Azure in deploying web apps using Azure VSTS.
• ●  Experienced in Backend development using NodeJS and its corresponding frameworks such as Express.
• ●  Experience in working with REST APIs creation/integration.
• ●  Strong algorithmic and debugging skills.

LinkedIn Github 

Andrei Kisseljov, Junior Game Develop and Certified Martial Arts Coach

Andrei is a lead coach in Golden Lotus Club (Estonia, Tallinn) certified by the Estonian National Sports Committee. He is coaching fencers, fighters and sports athletes on a daily basis.

Andrei has recently qualified as a Junior Game Developer, made a few Unity prototypes and actively participated in recent projects and hackathons organised by GameDev Estonia. 

Andrei will work on integrating Unity with Gladius platform and implementing GameFI functions and contracts.

Please watch our DEMO video
 

Gladius is a dynamic platform tailored to boost engagement and motivation within sports clubs and educational institutions by leveraging digital rewards. This motivational app integrates gamification, allowing organisations to implement a digital loyalty program where members earn points, level up, and receive digital tokens or badges that reflect their participation and achievements.

The platform addresses the challenge of lacklustre engagement in traditional settings, where conventional reward systems often fail to resonate due to their static nature. Gladius enhances this dynamic by offering a real-time, interactive rewards environment that not only motivates members but also fosters a sense of community and belonging through visible recognition of achievements.

Furthermore, Gladius simplifies the creation and management of digital awards such as utility NFTs, enabling clubs to easily customise rewards tied to specific activities or achievements without needing technical expertise. With features like automatic Gladius coin earnings for event attendance and trigger-based NFT minting when certain milestones are reached, the platform ensures that accomplishments are timely recognized, thereby enhancing member engagement and offering a novel way for kids to connect with their sports or hobbies in the digital realm.

• [D1] Developing SEP-24 in Gladius
  • Brief description: Integrate EURC Deposits and Withdrawals  with SEP-24. Implementation of the KYC API following SEP12. Script so the EURC off ramp can be implemented in the club admin app. Script so the EURC on ramp can be implemented in the parental app.
  • How to measure completion: Parents will be able to do on and offramps with https://mykobo.co/ . Payments in the app will be done with EURC. Sport Clubs will be able to do off ramps with Mykobo directly to their bank accounts. Scrips will be publicly available in our GitHub.
  • Estimated date of completion: September 1st 2024 (4 weeks of work)
  • Budget: 15,000 USD (includes PaltaLabs development and integration support)

• [D2] Indexer Implementation 
  • Brief description: Definition on what information will be gathered (NFT Transfers, Coins held by each users, Gladius Coins transactions and other). Analyze  Zephyr and SubQuery. Implement Zephyr VM or SubQuery Indexer to get the required information,
    Creation of an indexer script that will logs all NFTs created for each student, records timestamps and transaction amounts of Gladius coins transferred and distributed to users. 
  • How to measure completion: Script will be available on Github. 
  • Estimated date of completion: September 1st 2024 (4 weeks after D2)
  • Budget: 15,000 USD (includes PaltaLabs development and integration support)

• [D3] Improvements of NFT contract 
  • Brief Description: Improvement from the current ERC721 Enumerable NFT to a Burnable type of NFT. Also we will add Redeemable and not redeemable types of NFT. 
  • How to measure completion: Each customer (example sports club) can create their own NFT collection and set different parameters to NFT items, like redeemable / not redeemable. Code will be open source in our Github.
  • Estimated date of completion: September 12th 2024 (2 weeks)
  • Budget: 5,000 USD (includes PaltaLabs development and integration support)

• [D4] Club admin app - https://admin.gladiusclub.com 
  • Brief description: 
    • Improve desktop app UX, develop the mobile app, enhance branding. 
    • Develop UI to allow set up automated reward distributions, and create unique NFT collections using advanced AI tools. 
    • Integrate latest NFT functions 
    • Migrate Club Admin app to Mainnet

• How to measure completion: Club can setup rules on the automation of NFT and Gladius coin distribution; Club can generate a collection of NFTs. Either based on thematic prompts, uploaded images such as logos. Or a combination of both; NFTs are pinned to pinata and ipfs node before minting. All working in Mainnet.

• Estimated date of completion: September 1st, 2024
• Budget: 10,000 USD to Gladius team + 8,000 to UX agency

• [D6] Student app (from MVP to GameFi) https://app.gladiusclub.com/ 
  • Brief Description: 
    • incorporate a gamification engine like Unity to enable interactive 3D Soroban NFTs 
    • customizable avatars through integration with https://readyplayer.me/ 
    • Students will be able to engage with learning paths, complete tasks, and interact with a 3D Soroban NFT Dashboard.
    • Migrate Club Admin app to mainnet

• How to measure completion: Completion will be assessed through the successful integration of the gamification engine and avatar system, functional user interactions with the NFT dashboard, and the ability to conduct transactions within the NFT marketplace. User feedback and usability testing will also serve as crucial indicators of system readiness and effectiveness. All working in Mainnet.

• Estimated date of completion: September 31st, 2024 
• Budget: 10,000 USD to Gladius team + 5,000 USD to GameDev Agency

• [D7] Back-end improvements
  • Brief Description:
    • Integrate indexer [developed in D2] in back-end
    • Integrate new Gladius contracts [developed in D3] (redeemable and burnable NFTs)
    • Migrate admin app back-end to Soroban Mainnet
    • Adjust data model to latest changes in Gladius smart contracts 
  • How to measure completion: 
    • SEP-24 [D1], indexer[D2], new NFT contracts[D3] - all up and running in back-end  
    • Unity engine is integrated with back-end [front-end developed in D6]
  • Estimated date of completion: October 15th, 2024
  • Budget: 7,000 USD to Gladius team