Proof of Mentorship Protocol POMP

This project combines a browser-based frontend to allow community members to find potential mentors within the community based on specific skills they are interested in improving.

The platform is gated by a dynamic NFT the member will use to proof their membership to the community.

First, the member will receive a code from the admins to be able to mint their dynamic POMP NFT. The POMP NFT is minted with blank metadata which will then be customized by the owner based on their current skills and openness to mentor other community members. Second, the member can customize the skills they have based on a preset list shared by the community admins with POMP. These skills will appear as unverified initially, until a member vouches the other person has them after a 1:1 session. The skills will be verified through the interactions new members have with each other.

Third, Members looking for a mentor are set to go! By using the Graph, we will index the metadata from the dynamic NFTs and enable users to filter through other members profiles based on the skills they are looking to be mentored on and on the willingness of others to be mentors. Potential mentors who meet the selected criteria will be displayed to the user along with the complete set of skills linked to that NFT.

Fourth, Connect! The member can choose a mentor from the selection displayed and set up a 1:1 video/voice mentorship session with them. The interest of mentorship will be recorded. During the session, both members will be asked to record the session, this will allow them to come back and review if needed, but will also enable them to rate the mentorship they gave/received and the skills the person they interacted with has.

Five: Rate!

After completing the session, members will be asked to upload their recordings to Livepeer, which will mint them a Proof of Mentorship NFT, signaling they have completed the session they had signed up for. The more mentorships people give/receive, the more POMs they’ll receive to validate their skills and contributions to the community. These POMs will also enable them to rate the mentorship they had in a private way using Semaphore to avoid retaliation in case the feedback is negative. The POMPs minted after the mentorship will recognize these two members a part of a group an enable the rating of the interaction in a private form.

Six: Grow

Members skills and rating will be updated in the NFT following 5 interactions, to ensure the privacy of the raters. Ratings will be encrypted when aggregated and then pushed at one time. Help your community develop and gain recognition in your community!

First, the member will receive a code from the admins to be able to mint their dynamic POMP NFT.

• Open Zeppelin: We use the Open Zeppelin libraries and standards to mint our dynamic NFTs.
• Cartesi: We are using Cartesi to reduce the gas costs that would otherwise be required to register every single update to the dynamic NFTs users hold on the mainnet. Instead, all of these changes take place in the Cartesi Machine and are only updated in batch at a later time.
• Worldcoin: By asking users to provide a proof of personhood when they sign up, we are taking the first step towards securing the platform against bot attacks along with the code requested from the community admins. Proof of Mentorship enables community members to connect with others who can be instrumental in their professional development. Mentors can go on and create life long relations or relationships. Members who have logged in through Worldcoin can be identified as more reliable and will never be challenged on the basis of being bots trying to game the system.
• Web3Auth: We use Web3Auth to create a more inclusive onboarding platform for newcomers to web3 by enabling them to mint their POMP NFT directly through social login. Our goal is to improve a newcomers entryway into web3. For that reason we want people who are new to communities to be able to find mentors that will steer them through the process. We have built a frictionless UX to make sure that people who are most familiar with web2 apps can continue to enjoy the seamlessness of said interactions, making the use of a web3 product light. By using Web3Auth we can build an inclusive app to onboard community members who are new to web3, do not own a wallet and benefit the most from mentorship opportunities. This is specially relevant to regions like Latam where Whatsapp and Facebook have a very strong adoption.
• WalletConnect: We use WalletConnect to create a frictionless log-in process into our platform regardless of your location with over 100 wallets. By enabling such a wide number of wallets to log-in to our platform, we ensure that the platform is useful to communities all over the globe and with users in multiple regions and at multiple stages of their web3 journey.
• Metamask: We have incorporated Metamask to provide an additional sign in method for users.

Second, the member can customize the skills they have based on a preset list shared by the community admins with POMP.

• IPFS: We are using IPFS to save the metadata of our dynamic NFTs that will later enable the query functionality required to match mentees with mentors. Each time a user updates their skills, a new URI will be created and updated to the IPFS file. We are using a JSON file in order to store large amounts of data, which we expect as continues updates to the dynamic NFTs take place.

Third, Members looking for a mentor are set to go!

• The Graph: We have created a new subgraph that queries the dynamic NFTs associated to our smart contracts. The Subgraph is integrated to our front-end and looks like a simple filtering feature for users to easily identify the mentors who have the skills they are looking to receive mentorship in.

Fourth, Connect! The member can choose a mentor from the selection displayed and set up a 1:1 video/voice mentorship session with them.

• Livepeer: We use Livepeer for users to 1) replay the mentorship sessions they have had, and for our protocol to 1) validate that the mentorships took place, 2) trigger the ability for members to rate the mentorship, 3) verify that members are not gaming the system by auditing the video files.

Five: Rate!

After completing the session, members will be asked to upload their recordings to Livepeer, which will mint them a Proof of Mentorship NFT, signaling they have completed the session they had signed up for.

• Semaphore: POMP uses Semaphore Proofs to signal anonymously with zero knowledge proofs, the rating members give each other after a mentorship took place. We use Semaphore since it allows for: 1) POMP to identify that the person belongs to the group who took part in the mentorship, 2) The person has only rated the other members in the group once.

After completing a mentorship session members are asked to rate their experience and validate the skills their mentor/mentee displayed. To enable members to freely express themselves and rate their mentors negatively, if merited, all feedback provided by members is recorded as signals that cannot be linked back to the member issuing it. We are using Semaphore to preserve a members anonymity when submitting feedback. The Semaphore protocol is triggered with the minting of Proof of Mentorship NFTs. These NFTs identify those involved in the mentorship session as members of a group, allowing them to rate their counterpart. The signals emitted with Semaphore are grouped and only applied as an update to the NFT skills after a minimum threshold has been reached.

Six: Grow

Members skills and rating will be updated in the NFT following 5 interactions, to ensure the privacy of the raters. Ratings will be encrypted when aggregated and then pushed at one time. Help your community develop and gain recognition in your community!

• Optimism: Proof of Mentorship allows for DAOs and Communities to know who their members are based on their skills, while allowing members to preserve the sovereignty over their data. With the data listed in the metadata DAO’s be able to offer greater value to their community members and more growth opportunities.
• Polygon: Best UX: Our goal is for people that are not very knowledgeable on web3 are able to interact with our platform and find others to help mentor them along the way. For this reason we have focused in creating a UX and logic for the product that is similar in its simplicity to other web2 Apps but enables users to maintain the ownership of their data, serves web3 communities, and provides privacy solutions to incentivize a healthy environment. Prize Pool: Our smart-contract was deployed on Polygon’s Mumbai network.