Zcash Network School

Community Grants Applications
1

Hello, Zcash community!

We share our proposal for a three-month Zcash Hub at Network School (NS) in Malaysia, near Singapore, from May to July 2026.

GitHub Application: Grant Application - Zcash Network School · Issue #266 · ZcashCommunityGrants/zcashcommunitygrants · GitHub

───

What is this?

A structured Zcash presence at Network School (NS) in Malaysia near Singapore. The program introduces residents, visitors, and businesses to Zcash and privacy technology through a dedicated office, weekly office hours, educational events, wallet onboarding with incentives, user interviews, and monthly public reports. Goals include 100 new wallet activations, 4 new point-of-sale systems, and inviting participants into the broader Zcash community and governance.

Every month, NS welcomes 150-300 new founders, developers, and investors, plus the current long-term residents and 500-1,000 event visitors from Southeast Asia. Currently, there is no organized Zcash community in the region.

No permanent Zcash presence currently exists at Network School, even though Zcash events draw significant attention. James has been organizing unfunded weekly office hours and a monthly talk on zero-knowledge proofs with 10-50 participants each. This grant expands these activities into a structured program.

Previous Zcash engagement at NS includes Zooko Wilcox speaking at NS conferences in 2024 and 2025, Eli Ben-Sasson delivering a guest lecture, and Arjun Khemani organizing “The Zcash Network State” event with 50+ attendees. More recently, a Zcash Hackathon took place on site (https://ns.com/zcash).

This program is complementary to existing regional grants (Zcash Brasil, Arabia, Turkey, Global en Español): English-first, founder/developer audience, Southeast Asia.

Deliverables over 3 months:

1. Zcash Office: dedicated physical workspace on NS campus operational for the full program duration.

2. Educational events: 6 sessions total (2 per month): “Privacy is Normal” (Andre) and “Zero Knowledge Proofs 101” (James), with 20-60 participants each.

3. Weekly office hours: 12 sessions total (4 per month), covering wallet usage, shielded transactions, security practices, ecosystem updates, and troubleshooting. 5-25 participants each.

4. Incentives for users: ~5 USD for each new participant/user

5. Onboarding materials: “Get Started with Zcash in 60 Seconds” printed guides, QR cards, t-shirts, banners, signage, and “Privacy is Normal” campaign materials.

6. User interviews: conducted with residents and businesses (users and non-users). Transcripts exclude personally identifiable information.

7. Community announcements: regular posts in NS communication channels connecting participants to Zcash Community Forum, ZecHub, coinholder votes, and contribution opportunities.

8. Monthly reports: 3 reports published on the Zcash Community Forum summarizing events, recordings, wallet activations, merchant discussions, newsletter and announcement metrics, interview transcripts and insights, and spending.

This proposal builds on existing, unfunded activity:

- James runs “Zero Knowledge Proofs 101” monthly at NS Library — 20-50 attendees (example: Zero Knowledge Proofs 101 · Luma )

- James runs “Zcash Office Hours” weekly at NS, 13th Floor VIP8 — 10-30 attendees (example: ⓩ Zcash Office Hours · Luma )

- James, as founder of Zcash.me, created a dedicated NS module ( Name Service Directory - Zcash.me )

- Andre lived at Network School for 30 days in January 2026 at personal expense, where he connected with James and laid the groundwork for this proposal.

Core Team

Andre Froes (Project Lead)

Cofounder & CEO, Weever. 15+ years in education design and community building. Co-author of “Privacy as Infrastructure for Self-Governing Communities: Zcash Society,” a framework for privacy-first governance using Zcash. Relocating as permanent NS resident in May 2026.

James Joseph

Founder, Zcash.me: a Zcash address directory and name service (ZcashNames.com). Full-time NS resident and long-time Zcash community member. Has been running unfunded Zcash activities at NS, including weekly office hours and monthly ZK lectures.

Michael (@Michae2xl) (Advisor) - Zcash Brasil lead.

Thank you, and we welcome your feedback.

7 Likes
Zcash Community Grants Meeting Minutes 4/13/2026
2

Have been collaborating with Andre for almost two years, and now more closely this week on Ipecity, and the vision and collaboration is trusted, since he has already met James from zcash.me and zcash.names that is delivering a system to the Zcash community, which are great initiatives, and when they andre told me that he could move to Sigapure/Malaysia and have a Zcash office/hub, there’s a partner that could be learned and met and share with us to learn, is a good thing in my opinion.

Here’s how the Zcash Office outside of Brazil compounds the work we’ve already built with Zcash Brasil and the Network State framework:

  1. Two-way pipeline Brazil ↔ Southeast Asia

Brazilians who pass through NS (founders, devs, investors) become spokespeople, Zcash Brasil gains nodes in Singapore/Malaysia for hybrid meetups and warm intros. And NS residents who connect with Zcash for the first time land in a live LatAm community instead of an empty forum.

  1. Cross-cultural validation of the Zcash Society framework

NS is the living lab of the network state idea, it’s where “Privacy as Infrastructure for Self-Governing Communities” stops being a paper and becomes fieldwork. Every user interview, every merchant conversation, every resident onboarding is empirical data feeding back into the framework that already anchors Zcash Brasil’s narrative. No other regional grant can claim that.

  1. Shared operational playbook

Office hours format, onboarding flow, wallet activation metrics, whatever works at NS gets imported by Zcash Brasil, and vice-versa. One investment, two deployments. The 4 POS systems at NS, plus the ones we’re running in Brazil, become a joint case study of real-world Zcash adoption.

4. Governance weight

This is a good one, bringing NS residents into the Zcash forum, ZCAP, and coinholder votes expands the base that historically aligns with Zcash. LatAm + SEA voting as a connected bloc gives regional grants real political weight in treasury decisions, instead of being isolated line items.

  1. Content compounding

NS monthly reports and Zcash Brasil updates published in parallel on the forum = doubled cadence of visibility. Interviews and transcripts (PII-stripped) become a shared public library that both programs cite and build on.

6 Likes
3

Michael, thank you for the endorsement and mentorship as an advisor on the project! Here follows, point by point:

1. Two-way pipeline Brazil ↔️ Southeast Asia
The proposed Brazil - Network School pipeline makes this grant strategic beyond just regional coverage. As you’ve seen here at Ipê City in Florianópolis, there’s an emerging community interested in Network States, and there will be an influx of Brazilians to NS and residents to popup cities and events like Ipê. All privacy pilled thanks to the work we’ve been developing.

2. Cross-cultural validation of the Zcash Society framework
The framework validation aspect is compelling: NS isn’t just another co-working space, it’s the premier testing ground for network state concepts. Having Zcash embedded there as residents experiment with new forms of governance gives us real-world data and a footing on privacy infrastructure of the future.

3. Shared operational playbook
James’s existing weekly office hours format has been drawing 10-30 people consistently, plus the ZK 101 that can draw up to 60 people, so the proven Zcash Brasil methodologies you are willing to share together with an educational revamp will help us scale that immediately. The merchant onboarding process you’ve developed is relevant and can be expanded outside NS in the future.

4. Governance weight
Our objective is bringing English-speaking and philosophically aligned founders and developers from NS into ZCAP and community votes, creating a more globally representative voice in treasury decisions.

5. Content compounding
Monthly reports from NS and shared user interviews will create a knowledge base both programs can build on.

Thanks also for the onsite collaboration at Ipê City last week. It’s been a great preview of how our coordination will work when the NS grant launches.

Andre

1 Like
4

@andr9froes ZCG has voted to approve this proposal. Congratulations!

To keep the community informed, ZCG requests that you provide monthly updates via the forum in this thread.

Please check your forum inbox for a direct message from FPF with important next steps, including a link to the Milestone Payment Request Form and your unique validation code for submitting payment requests.

1 Like
5

Thank you so much for the trust! We are thrilled to start this journey.

We are already mobilizing the team and will do our best to overdeliver on the expectations of this amazing community.

Looking forward to sharing our first progress update next month directly from the Network School.