Grant Proposal for Zk Av Club Community Support 2025

Community Grants Applications
1

Team

Applicant

Ryan Taylor (@ryan.taylor)

Team Members

Curriculum Design and Production

Advisors

Project Pitch

Empowering and amplifying creators in Web3 and DWeb communities with a unique new interactive, educational livestream series: Zk Av Club Foundry — Salon and Lab.

Financial Request: 60,000 USD

Previous Grants

Zero-Knowledge Audiovisual Club (Zk Av Club) was founded by Ryan Taylor with startup funding generously provided by the Zcash Foundation (ZF), which has supported us for two years as we built infrastructure while creating and delivering numerous cutting-edge productions and activities.

Ryan previously received one of the very first ZF grants which was for livestreaming Zcon1 and another for producing Zcon2. Thank you, ZF!

Additional Funding

We currently do not have additional funders but are planning to seek other opportunities to extend and sustain Zk Av Club and Foundry. We aim to attract support from aligned Web3 and DWeb communities to enhance the series’ scope, impact, and longevity.

Zcash will be featured alongside other peer-to-peer projects in Foundry sessions. It will be integrated into club activities, such as contests and community-driven initiatives, which will allow Zcash to provide value to many communities in a way that aligns with its privacy and decentralization ethos.

If awarded this grant, Zcash will remain integral throughout the duration of 18 sessions, ensuring its visibility and impact while maintaining transparency about our funding sources and their integration into our broader strategy.

Rest assured, this proposal is unique in its pricing; future similar proposals to other potential integration partners outside of the Zcash ecosystem will likely come at a higher cost compared to this proposal.

We wish to emphasize the value and importance of your early support of this revolutionary new series.

Funds received from ZCG are to be solely purposed toward Foundry production and operations.

Applicant Background

Zk Av Club is a convergence community at the intersection of decentralized open-source technologies, privacy, and realtime content creation — exploring audiovisual art and creativity through interactive community event engagements and activities.

We are excited to present this grant proposal in which we seek Zcash Community Grants (ZCG) to support startup costs for the first year of our new, one-of-kind livestream series, Foundry.

This grant could put Zcash at the fingertips of creators in Web3 and DWeb communities, reinforcing its leadership among privacy-preserving peer-to-peer technologies while supporting open source innovation through an integrated hands-on approach fueling creativity and spawning new educational activities.

Description of Problem or Opportunity

Opportunity to engage with and educate Web3 and DWeb builders and creators about Zcash and privacy-preserving technologies, fostering strong connections with adjacent communities.

This Zk Av Club Foundry grant proposal addresses the dual challenges of enhancing Zcash’s exposure within the decentralized web (DWeb) and Web3 communities while tackling skepticism around cryptocurrencies stemming from widespread scams and profit-driven shilling. The problem at hand is twofold:

  1. Limited Exposure and Understanding: Despite its advancements in privacy technology, Zcash has not penetrated deeply into the creative and tech communities of DWeb and Web3, where there is a significant opportunity for adoption due to shared values of privacy and decentralization.

  2. Skepticism and Misconceptions: The broader crypto landscape suffers from a tarnished reputation due to numerous scams and aggressive marketing tactics, which has led to a general wariness among potential users and creators towards blockchain projects, including privacy-focused ones like Zcash.

This grant proposal presents an opportunity to:

  • Increase Zcash’s visibility and engagement by integrating it into educational and interactive content creation programs, directly showcasing its utility and ethos to a community of creators who value privacy and decentralization.

  • Build trust and credibility by aligning Zcash with Zk Av Club’s mission of open-source collaboration and education, thereby countering negative perceptions associated with cryptocurrency through authentic, value-driven engagement rather than through traditional marketing approaches.

Through this initiative, Zcash can reestablish itself as a leader in privacy-preserving technologies, demonstrating practical applications and fostering a community of informed users and advocates within the creative movements of DWeb and Web3.

Proposed Solution

The proposed solution to enhance Zcash’s exposure in DWeb and Web3 communities and address the skepticism surrounding cryptocurrencies involves the production and operation of Zk Av Club Foundry — Salon and Lab, a unique livestream series focused on education, collaboration and community engagement.

  • Educational Outreach: The series will provide educational content aimed at demystifying and promoting the use of peer-to-peer privacy-preserving technologies like Zcash within a creative and technical context. By offering hands-on learning about decentralized technologies, it aims to increase understanding and acceptance.

  • Integration with Zcash: Zcash will be an integral component of the series, featured in sessions, contests, workshops, and used for communication and as an incentive for engagement. This direct application showcases Zcash’s utility and aligns it with community values of privacy and openness.

  • Community Building: By engaging creators and developers in activities that resonate with their creative and technical interests, Foundry fosters a community inclusive of Zcash. It provides a platform for creators to collaborate, share ideas, and use Zcash in practical settings, thus building trust and reducing skepticism through firsthand experience rather than through traditional marketing.

  • Brand Visibility: Through consistent branding and mentions during the livestreams, social media, and other promotional materials, Zcash’s presence is made prominent yet organically integrated into the community activities.

  • Cross-Community Engagement: This initiative will attract participants from diverse but related ecosystems, offering Zcash a chance to expand its influence and demonstrate its technology’s interoperability and value across different blockchain and decentralized platforms.

  • Thought Leadership: By supporting and being part of this educational and collaborative project, Zcash positions itself at the forefront of privacy technology within these communities, fostering thought leadership through action rather than just rhetoric.

This approach not only increases Zcash’s visibility but also counters the narrative of crypto scams by associating Zcash with genuine, value-driven community efforts. The solution leverages creativity, education, and community interaction to establish Zcash as an integral part of the decentralized tech landscape, thereby reducing skepticism through demonstrated utility and community adoption.

Solution Format

Livestream Series:

  • Quantity: 18 bi-weekly live streams over the course of one year.

  • Duration: Each session will be in the area of 60 to 90 minutes and may go longer.

  • Content: Sessions will focus on different aspects of community content curation and creation, including but not limited to platforms, applications, messaging, governance, payments, and collaborative content strategies within DWeb and Web3 environments.

Video Content Distribution:

  • Long-format videos: Each session will be lightly-edited and uploaded to various video-on-demand (VOD) platforms, decentralized and otherwise, to ensure accessibility and archival resilience.

  • Segmentation: Key segments from each session will be prerecorded and made available separately, allowing for targeted viewing and sharing.

Content Clips:

  • Short-form videos: Multiple short clips will be produced from each session, capturing highlights, educational snippets, or engaging moments and published on appropriate VOD distribution platforms.

  • Purpose: These clips are designed for social media sharing, to engage with a broader audience, increase visibility, and encourage participation in future sessions.

Brand Integration:

  • On-Air Segments: Each session will feature a 15-second segment dedicated to Zcash, ensuring consistent brand exposure.

  • Visual Branding: The Zcash logo will be prominently displayed in the intro scene of every live broadcast, reinforcing brand identity.

Community Engagement:

  • Contests and Challenges: Activities where participants can use Zcash, promoting its practical application within the community.

  • Prizes: Use of Zcash for incentivizing participants, aligning the cryptocurrency with community achievements.

Educational and Collaborative Workshops:

  • Interactive Sessions: Live Q&A, hands-on demonstrations, and collaborative projects focusing on the integration of Zcash with creative and tech endeavors.

Blog Posts:

  • Frequency: At least one blog post per session, summarizing insights, key takeaways, and additional resources related to the session content.

  • Purpose: To extend the educational value of the livestreams, providing written content for reference, further discussion, and to enhance sustained online educational support.

The deliverables aim to not only provide educational content but also foster a community around Zcash, enhancing its presence and utility within the Web3 and DWeb creative spaces through regular, engaging and educational interactions.

Technical Approach

Approaches, Components, Workflows, and Methodology for Zk Av Club Foundry — Salon and Lab

1. Project Approach

  • Educational Focus: The agenda includes practical sessions like clipping livestreams, live translation, and using FOSS tools for virtual event production, all designed to educate on decentralized tech and privacy.

  • Community-Driven: Encourage community participation in events where the focus is on exiting centralized platforms, and in collaborative content creation sessions.

  • Privacy-First: Leverage platforms like Free2z, Brave and Jitsi which align with privacy values and utilize Zcash for financial transactions or incentives during sessions.

2. Components

Streaming and Hosting Platforms: Utilizing a different platform for each program to test and showcase various streaming solutions.

Content Creation Tools:

  • Introduce apps like OBS, yt-dlp, and KDenlive for video manipulation, encouraging open-source software usage.

  • Use tech like IPFS and Destiny for decentralized storage and peer-to-peer file sharing.

Audience and Community Engagement:

  • Interactive sessions for community curation, where the audience can influence content or participate in live creation.

  • Use of decentralized communication tools like Matrix with bridges to other popular chat platforms for widespread open community discussions.

Distribution Channels:

  • Content will be distributed across multiple platforms, including federated ones like Peertube, to reach various audiences while emphasizing privacy and decentralization.

3. Workflows

Pre-Production:

  • Plan sessions around major events like ZconVi and Protocol Berg v2 to leverage community interest and participation.

  • Select platforms and tools that support the session’s theme, ensuring they uphold privacy standards.

  • Record Salon and Lab segments that benefit from prerecording.

Production:

  1. Each session begins with our hosts introducing topics to be covered.

  2. This is where Zcash would get mentions, before the Foundry intro graphics which could also include the Zcash logo.

  3. Then we move into the Salon portion of Foundry. A podcast-style conversation with relevent guests followed by a live Q+A, sometimes with the guest and sometimes only within the club.

  4. Jump into the Lab — featuring practical demonstrations or collaborative activities — clip editing, live localization/translation, restreaming, DIY web radio or storytelling for beginners. Between each Lab segment there will be a live Q+A period, plus time for comments and feedback.

Post-Production:

  • Edit and distribute content with an emphasis on sustaining educational value, ensuring clips are shareable on social media for broader reach.

Engagement & Follow-Up:

  • Post-session blog posts, guides, discussions and surveys to continue the conversation and gather feedback.

4. Methodology

  • Experiential Learning: Focus on live, interactive sessions where participants can try out software or collaborate on content in real-time.

  • Interdisciplinary Blend: Combine technology education with creative arts, showing applications in real-world scenarios like audio engineering or live event production.

  • Iterative and Adaptive: The agenda’s flexibility allows for incorporating new tools or adapting based on community feedback and tech advancements.

  • Open Source and DWeb Integration: Emphasize the use of open-source tools and decentralized web principles, demonstrating their practical use and encouraging adoption.

Workflow

  1. Pre-Planning & Tool Selection

  2. Community Engagement Strategy

  3. Session Preparation

  4. Live Session

  5. Real-Time Collaboration

  6. Post-Production & Distribution

  7. Community Feedback

  8. Content Adaptation for Upcoming Sessions

This framework ensures that the Foundry series remains relevant, educational, and aligned with the ethos of privacy and decentralization, while allowing for the integration and promotion of Zcash within this creative and tech-focused community.

Collaboration and Upstream Dependencies

Streaming Platforms: Session hosting platform will change with each new program. Collaboration with dev team of a hosting platform is favorable but not necessary. After each program, constructive feedback may be provided to platform development team.

Software & Tech:

  • Engage with developers of open-source tools for valuable experiential user feedback and support.

  • Creative integrations with and uses of Zcash might benefit from technical collaboration with Zcash developers.

Expert Guests:

  • Collaborate with specialists from Web3, DWeb, privacy, and creative sectors in Salon and Lab segments for entertaining and educational content.

Community Engagement:

  • Work with adjacent communities like Ethereum, IPFS, Internet Archive for broader reach.

  • Attract and collaborate with successful builders and artists for more growth.

Support Services:

  • Legal advice for compliance.

  • Community management for participant engagement.

  • Technical support for consistent deliverables and platform stability.

Funding:

  • Plan for potential co-funding or sponsorships to extend project reach beyond the initial grant.

Execution Risks

  • Technical Issues: Reliability and compatibility problems with decentralized platforms and tools.

  • Engagement: Difficulty in maintaining audience interest and adapting to tech changes.

  • Legal: Unexpected regulatory changes.

  • Funding: Financial instability if additional funding isn’t secured or if economic conditions worsen.

  • Cybersecurity: Attacks on systems belonging to the community or individuals therein.

  • Public Sentiment: Negative views on cryptocurrencies or privacy could affect project perception.

  • Adoption Resistance: Cultural or social barriers to embracing decentralized technologies.

  • Ryan is a SPoF (single point of failure)

Unintended Consequences

  • No unintended consequences have been identified.

Evaluation Plan

Since Foundry does not track user data, Zcash’s return on investment (ROI) will be evaluated using qualitative metrics, such as:

  • Audience Feedback: Post-session surveys or feedback forms on content quality, relevance, and presenter effectiveness. Comments and testimonials from participants.

  • Content Impact: Case studies or stories of participants who have implemented learned skills in their projects. Community posts or forums discussing the application of Foundry knowledge.

  • Community Health: Sentiment analysis of community discussions or social media posts regarding Foundry. Level of community collaboration or projects initiated post-session.

  • Educational Value: Self-reported learning outcomes from attendees. Feedback on the clarity and usefulness of educational content.

  • Innovation and Creativity: Novel uses or integrations of Zcash or other technologies showcased by participants. Creative outputs from the community inspired by Foundry sessions.

  • Inclusivity: Diversity of participants in terms of background, skill level, and location.

  • Partnership Success: Quality of collaborations with guest speakers or other organizations. Feedback from partners on their experience with the Foundry initiative.

  • Privacy and Security: Reports or feedback on how well privacy and security practices are adopted by the community.

  • Brand Perception: Changes in perception of Zcash or decentralized technologies among the Foundry audience.

  • Sustainability: Comments or indicators on the project’s long-term viability and community support.

By sharing these metrics, the community can gain insight into Foundry’s reach, engagement, and educational impact, fostering transparency and encouraging community-driven growth and improvement.

BUDGET

Hardware/Software total budget: 12,000 USD

The allocation of hardware and software funds is designed to enhance the quality and interactivity of the Foundry series while maintaining cost-effectiveness for our global community. Instead of a single large investment, the funds will be strategically distributed among the production team members, between each program/milestone.

This approach allows for:

  • Incremental Equipment Purchases: Enabling each team to acquire or upgrade equipment as needed for each program, ensuring we use the latest technology without a prohibitive initial cost.

  • Flexibility in Production Quality: Different sessions might require different equipment setups, allowing customization based on the topic or guest speaker’s needs, thus optimizing resource use.

  • Minimalist Integration: Rather than developing extensive new systems, we will focus on integrating existing open-source solutions or leveraging plugins that support Zcash, ensuring security and privacy at minimal additional cost.

  • Focus on Open Source: Where possible, the team will utilize open-source software to keep expenses down while promoting the ethos of open collaboration within the Web3 community. Funds will support necessary proprietary tools where open-source solutions fall short.

  • Shared Resources: A portion of the budget will cover shared subscriptions or memberships to technical support services, where the team can troubleshoot issues collectively, benefiting from pooled expertise and reducing individual costs.

This strategic distribution of funds ensures that:

  • Quality is Improved: Each program can benefit from the latest technology or upgrades as they become available or necessary.

  • Costs are Managed: By spreading out purchases and leveraging community resources, we keep the overall budget reasonable, making the project sustainable and inclusive.

  • Innovation is Encouraged: Team members are encouraged to experiment with new tools for each session, fostering innovation and keeping the content fresh and engaging.

Services total budget: 8,000 USD

A community prize pool will serve to decentralize and replace traditional “cloud” services. This will be held and paid-out in ZEC.

By establishing a community prize pool, we aim to decentralize the creation, storage and distribution of content away from centralized cloud services. This move aligns with the ethos of Web3 and DWeb, promoting data sovereignty and reducing reliance on potentially vulnerable or privacy-invasive centralized infrastructures.

We believe that a community-driven approach can lead to more innovative solutions tailored to specific needs that might not be addressed by generic cloud services. Contributors can focus on creating or adapting technologies that directly benefit the community’s unique activities, like specialized streaming protocols or niche content delivery networks.

By moving away from traditional cloud services, the community not only educates its members about the benefits of decentralized systems but also shifts cultural norms towards embracing open-source, community-controlled technologies. This can have broader implications for how digital services are perceived and utilized in the future.

The community funding pool is essential for:

  • Rewarding Contributors: Recognizing efforts in enhancing livestreaming, file sharing, and storage solutions critical for our events.

  • Infrastructure Growth: Ensuring reliable, accessible technology for global participation.

  • Community Engagement: Incentivizing innovation and fostering ownership among members.

  • Educational Impact: Highlighting Zcash’s practical uses within educational and creative contexts.

  • Sustainability: Supporting the project’s long-term viability by encouraging community reinvestment.

This initiative will not only bolster our technical capabilities but also promote Zcash’s adoption and credibility within the Web3 and DWeb communities.

Compensation total budget: 40,000 USD

The compensation budget for Foundry production is crucial for ensuring the production quality, community engagement, and educational integrity of the series. Here’s how the funds will be utilized:

1. Roles and Responsibilities

Curriculum Design and Production: Aura Brito, Robmar Enoe, Roosevelt Gordones, Ryan Taylor

The team will be responsible for designing educational and other audiovisual content, managing live sessions, curating guest speakers, and handling post-production for videos. Their payment is structured to be disbursed upon the completion of each program module, incentivizing high-quality output and timely delivery. This approach ensures accountability and aligns compensation with tangible results.

Advisors: Dan Wolande, John Bruhling, and Zk Squirrel

Advisor contributions are voluntary, reducing direct costs while still leveraging their expertise. They may produce supporting content and receive compensation from the community prize pool. This not only manages the budget but also enhances community involvement.

2. Strategic Importance

Engagement and Education: The team’s expertise directly contributes to the educational content’s effectiveness, making complex concepts and technologies accessible and engaging for a broad audience.

Community Building: Compensation ensures that there is dedicated staff to nurture community interactions, which are pivotal for the cultural shift towards embracing and using decentralized technologies.

Quality Assurance: Paying for professional input guarantees that each session is well-prepared, executed, and followed up with appropriate educational materials, maintaining high standards that reflect positively on Zcash’s association with the project.

3. Financial Structure

The structure of paying upon completion aligns with performance outcomes, ensuring that funds are used efficiently for actual production and not speculative planning.

4. Budget Allocation

The $40,000 allocated for compensation reflects the scale of the project, the number of sessions, and the need for skilled professionals to maintain the project’s ambitious scope and quality standards over the year.

This compensation plan is not merely an expense but an investment in the human capital necessary to bring the vision of Zk Av Club Foundry — Salon and Lab to life. It ensures that the project delivers on its promise of education, community engagement, and the promotion of open-source privacy technologies, with Zcash at its core.

Schedule and Milestones

Start-up funding: 15,000 USD

For infrastructure, equipment and design of Foundry brand assets in order to set up the foundational elements for the Zk Av Club Foundry — Salon and Lab series.

Infrastructure and Production Equipment: Purchase or upgrade necessary hardware and online services.

Branding, Design and Pre-production: Finalize the visual identity, including logos, motion graphics, session banners, and promotional materials.

Milestones

Milestone 1

Estimated Date of Completion: April 11, 2025

USD Value of Payout: 15,000 USD

Deliverables

Program 01 - Remote Event Collaboration: Complete the inaugural program focusing on tools for collaborating with remote events.

  • Sessions hosted on Free2z.

  • A total of 6 Foundry sessions are distributed and archived.

  • Educational Materials: Post-session blog post, interview and/or tutorial segments, clips and a feedback survey post-event.

Milestone 2

Estimated Date of Completion: July 18, 2025

USD Value of Payout: 15,000 USD

Deliverables

Program 02 - Community Content Curation: Focus on how communities can curate content collaboratively and how to create new from old, readily available (free!) content.

  • Session host platform: TBD

  • A total of 12 Foundry sessions are distributed and archived.

  • Educational Materials: Post-session blog post, interview and/or tutorial segments, clips and a feedback survey post-event.

Milestone 3

Estimated Date of Completion: October 24, 2025

USD Value of Payout: 15,000 USD

Deliverables

Program 03 - Collaborative Content Creation: Session will dive into the process of creating content collaboratively.

  • Session host platform: TBD

  • A total of 18 Foundry sessions are distributed and archived.

  • Educational Materials: Post-session blog post, interview and/or tutorial segments, clips and a feedback survey post-event.

Total proposed USD value of grant: 60,000 USD

How was the project timeline determined?

Based on the planned bi-weekly sessions over a year, aligning with community events and thematic rotations, while keeping deliverables within the scope of 2025.

How did you learn about Zcash Community Grants?

Previous involvement within the Zcash ecosystem.

Addendum

:zcash: Thank you @ZCG for the opportunity to apply for this community support!

We are the network. We are the media. :zap: :shield:

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Wow, a great proposal! Lots of work ahead: teaching, spreading, creating and covering events.

An honor to be part of the team, and to be able to contribute to the growth of Zcash.

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WEAR
WEAR1507×1024 197 KB

This proposal fills me with pride and invites me to work with dedication…
Let’s give the best of each one of us and take the ZKAV Club to the top of the podium…
We are a team of professionals and committed to take Zcash to another level!!!
ZKAV F

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I support this grant for the Zcash Community. I really appreciate the depth of knowledge and connection the ZkAv Club brings to the table. A true all-star team. I’m excited to bridge :world_map: as many decentralized technologies as possible to not only the Zcash community, but also the world. We all have something to learn and there is no better place to learn it. :star2:

If you’re a tech nerd like me, ZkAv club is highly recommended.

Good luck yall!

:shield: :zebra: :student:

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Do you want to know more?

Do some research on Zk Av Club in our announce thread in this very forum!

For recent news, this is a good place to start :arrow_heading_down:

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ZK AV Club is a project that has helped and created alliances with several projects with which it collaborates constantly, such as ZecHub, Zcash Foundation and Zcash Brazil.

Its impact can be seen in the amount of audiovisual content, workshops, bounties, contests, and alliances with projects outside Zcash in different parts of the world.

Its entire narrative has been built from open source and decentralization, two key concepts in Zcash and which are an essential philosophical element to connect with communities that align with Zcash.

What is fascinating about this approach is the possibility of continuing to connect with new and divergent communities that do not yet use Zcash and cryptocurrencies, but understand its privacy-oriented approach.

The team at The Club has created a masterful strategic plan to achieve that, which, I think, is out of the box. It’s not the classic marketing we’re used to, and it would be interesting to see how they deploy it in 2025.

I can’t wait to see what they will do in these 18 sessions during 2025.

I hope we can deepen the ties with the Zcash community in Spanish.

¡Éxito amigos!

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Thank you very much for your insightful and overwhelmingly positive words of support @yoditar :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: It’s clear that you see what we’re doing and I deeply appreciate your attention :grin: Keep watching! We won’t disappoint you! :zap:

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@ryan.taylor at the most recent meeting, the @ZcashGrants Committee voted to approve this proposal. Congratulations!

ZCG requests that you provide monthly updates via the forum in this thread.

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Thank you Zcash Community Grant committee :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: We won’t let you down.

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Congratulations Ryan! Well deserved, but as Yoditar said, ZK AV Club unified us much more, so thank you for your support!

You can count on us when you need it!

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I’m very happy to see the recognition of zkAV club, congratulations Ryan for the work for the community, we are here to grow together!

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Congratulations Ryan! You deserve it! You are truly a Zcash veteran, but with such a youthful enthusiasm as someone who is just understanding the protocol today and wants everyone to know! You already know that you will always be welcome in Brazil!

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ICYMI:

Zk Av Club Foundry Preseason:

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Why are we doing this? What’s the mission in creating Zero-knowledge Audiovisual Club and our new series Zk Av Club Foundry? From an interview with @peacemonger

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A description of Foundry has been added to zkav.club

:link: https://www.zkav.club/#zk-av-club-foundry

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