Devconnect Scholars Program – Ethereum Stories from Istanbul and Beyond
Ethereum is growing, and the diversity of human participation creates resilience across the ecosystem. Devconnect Scholar Program It is a small effort aimed at creating resilience through the diversity of our communities. Better representation of human geography and demographics leads to diverse experiences and new perspectives that help the Ethereum protocol meet the coordination needs of all humans, not just the lucky few. For example, we believe that better representation, leading to better geographic distribution of Ethereum nodes, not only helps secure the network, but is also important for enriching the community and helping more people make the Ethereum story tangible.
The Scholars program brought in Devconnect Istanbul 22 builders from communities currently underrepresented in Ethereum. This post highlights some scholars and their stories.
Meet the Scholars
Meet Ovia, a blockchain researcher who studied proof-of-work blockchains as part of her PhD research. She actively contributes to the Web3 community in India, particularly by providing technical workshops and empowering women and non-binary individuals at the Phoenix Guild. Ovia said that in addition to having a “fangirl” moment meeting her tech heroes in real life, she left Devconnect with ideas and potential collaborations that could contribute to her ongoing work. You can read her takeaways here. “Introduction to ZKVM and types of ZKVM” And here: “Simplified monthly calculations behind ZKSNARK.”
Meet Elnaz, an Iranian Java backend developer turned smart contract developer. After banning himself and people from certain countries from centralized exchanges, Elnaz read the Bitcoin and Ethereum whitepapers and found the decentralization innovation “remarkable.” Talking about her own community where her access to banks is limited and her inflation is high, she said there is still work to be done in educating her people about the shortcomings of centralized networks and onboarding them to decentralized networks. I said I needed it. You can find her thoughts here: “Enabling low-cost, decentralized micropayments on Ethereum through layer 2 rollups.”
Meet Alphonce, a software engineer from Kenya. He was initially drawn to cryptocurrencies for speculation, but his perspective changed when he started participating in Ethereum’s open source project and realized it could be “a powerful platform for promoting financial inclusion and innovation.” He said he wanted to bring back Devconnect’s spirit of collaboration and knowledge exchange and contribute to Africa’s blockchain ecosystem. Continue reading his findings here. “DevConnect Reflections: Unveiling Financial Inclusion Opportunities with Ethereum.”
You’ll find stories, insights, and learnings from more scholars. here.
What are your future plans?
With the efforts already underway in our communities for better representation, Devcon and Devconnect Scholars Help expand and enrich your infinite Ethereum garden. For upcoming Scholars programs and more stories, follow: @EFNextBillion.
