EasyA x Polkadot University Microgrants Bounty
Background context
The EasyA x Polkadot University is currently being established with the support of the Web3 Foundation by means of a Decentralized Futures grant. Its purpose is to attract top university talent to build on Polkadot. Universities are a priceless source of blockchain innovation. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Polkadot’s own co-founder Robert Habermeier were both students when they left academia to build two of the world’s most successful blockchains.
The purpose of this bounty is to fund the microgrants programme for early-stage builders on Polkadot, as envisaged in the EasyA x Polkadot University’s founding mission. This will be modelled on Solana’s fast-grants model with a similar goal, but for Polkadot: anyone who wants to build on Polkadot can get initial funding to do so.
Hundreds of incredible EasyA builders have been inspired to build on Polkadot at our hackathons. Now, let’s get them funded!
The problem
This bounty is a response to the following problems in the Polkadot builder funnel:
- Polkadot doesn’t have clear funding opportunities for very early-stage builders; and
- There is no fast way for developers inspired about Polkadot to get funding to build.
These are both holding back the Polkadot ecosystem, and other blockchains that have solved this are rapidly growing their developer base.
The solution
The good news is that the answer to the above problems is simple:
- A clear programme for early-stage builders to get funding (up to $10,000 each); and
- Approvals made as fast as within 72 hours
Curators
The multisig will be a 3 out of 5:
- Otar Shakarishvili from JUST Open Source
- Phil Kwok from EasyA
- Dom Kwok from EasyA
- TBD*
- TBD*
*The remaining two curators are currently being finalised, and will be invited for their complementary skills - in particular their development expertise, and investment expertise. These curators will be proposed once they have agreed to join the curator set.
Conclusion
Everyone in the Polkadot ecosystem can feel that we’re at an inflection point. As contributors to the Polkadot ecosystem since 2022, we can sense this more than ever. Plaza is right around the corner, agile coretime has arrived, and we’ve inspired a record number of developers about Polkadot’s potential. Whereas previously Polkadot itself was only open to chain builders, it is now opening up to smart contract builders. This is a once in a cycle opportunity. And the EasyA x Polkadot University Microgrants programme is set to capitalise on this.
This bounty will benefit the whole Polkadot ecosystem, including programmes further downstream, producing top talent for bounties like the Dot Play and Open Source Developer Grants Bounty, with whom we are collaborating closely.
Thank you for taking the time to read our proposal. If you have any questions or suggestions, please do comment them here!
Our full proposal is available here. This includes more detail on the differences between this Bounty and the others that already exist, how it will work with those ecosystems, success metrics, budget, the Bounty manifesto, and other important information.
Comments (1)
Comments (1)
Clearly I am interested in the success of the EasyA team, and their overall initiative to bring people on ground zero started on the journey into Polkadot.
Getting people to build their first hello world in Polkadot is an extremely important of the developer journey, and it seems that the EasyA team has the charisma, event coordination ability, and connections to universities to be a major part of that.
But I want to start a conversation about hard truths here.
Which is that the EasyA appa and EasyA educational content is not up to par for even this beginning journey.
- I recently spent some time to actually fully review their app and content, and honestly I was really disappointed. I have heard so many good things about the team and their educational efforts, so many photos of people holding up the app, but under a finer microscope there are many problems.
- The app is very out of date.
- The coding examples are not really teaching anything.
- There seems to be little "follow up" or "next steps" from the EasyA app.
I also am not a big fan of the brand "Polkadot University". This makes me feel like the program itself is an real educationalprogram, versus having a presence at universities with entry level hackathons. Truthfully, I find calling this program "Polkadot University" to be a big disservice to the work done by the Polkadot Blockchain Academy and the Web3 Foundation Education program, which are real university level educaitonal content.
So I want to discuss the path forward and toward success between Polkadot and the EasyA team.
- What funding and resources are being allocated to updating the app?
- What members on your team are currently proficient with the Polkadot technology stack and are able to teach at these hackathons?
- If you are relying on outside sources for this, what funding is being allocated to ensure that someone is made available at each event?
- Are you looking to hire such a role internally given the deep collaboration with your team and Polkadot?
- What parts of your process are ensuring these teams are actually launching off into Polkadot?
- It seems that most, if not all, of your hackathon winners have been using Solidity, which is not "bad", but is certainly not really the path towards Polkadot education today. How are we ensuring these users are actually using these funds to launch in Polkadot (I guess Moonbeam), and not taking their ideas to other EVM chains?
- What are the plans for EasyA outside of a mobile app for education?
- In my opinion, the mobile app is not a good enough starting point for anyone to do coding, and the examples in EasyA verify that.
- Are you open to changing the brand of this program away from "Polkadot University" to something that better represents what you are actually doing?
Thanks for taking the time to read and hopefully answer my concerns.
Clearly I am interested in the success of the EasyA team, and their overall initiative to bring people on ground zero started on the journey into Polkadot.
Getting people to build their first hello world in Polkadot is an extremely important of the developer journey, and it seems that the EasyA team has the charisma, event coordination ability, and connections to universities to be a major part of that.
But I want to start a conversation about hard truths here.
Which is that the EasyA appa and EasyA educational content is not up to par for even this beginning journey.
I also am not a big fan of the brand "Polkadot University". This makes me feel like the program itself is an real educationalprogram, versus having a presence at universities with entry level hackathons. Truthfully, I find calling this program "Polkadot University" to be a big disservice to the work done by the Polkadot Blockchain Academy and the Web3 Foundation Education program, which are real university level educaitonal content.
So I want to discuss the path forward and toward success between Polkadot and the EasyA team.
Thanks for taking the time to read and hopefully answer my concerns.