Things are looking up for Ethereum. Now that the merger is complete, a huge weight (measured in tons of CO2) has been removed from the collective consciousness of the Ethereum community. And the whole world is watching what this community does next.
Right now, the ecosystem has a unique opportunity to show skeptics what Ethereum can do: how a fundamental layer of trust on the open Internet can be used to solve large coordination problems that we don’t have. not yet resolved.
The road to serenity is long and the impact of Ethereum is still weak on the scale of human institutions, societies or economies. In recent years, we have collectively become very fond of the term public goodbut we must remember that “public” means we are all 8 billionto give or take.
This is why the EF Scholarship Program was created: to provide a platform for people working towards the long-term vision of Ethereum as a public good for all humans.
If Ethereum is to be the future of human coordination, we must ensure that this future is fairly distributed. That said, we are pleased to announce the appointment of seven exceptional individuals who are thinking and working with this long-term vision in mind.
Meet the second cohort
If you missed the first cohort, you can discover their projects here!
Each EF Scholar was selected because they are pursuing a personal quest that represents a possibility of development compatible with Ethereum.
Exactly what that means is a bit flexible. Some are expanding Ethereum’s usefulness to a new group of people, or learning directly from a community why Ethereum is not (yet) useful to them. Perhaps the researcher is looking at broader challenges that will affect the existing Ethereum community, now or in the future.
Whatever the project, whoever the fellow is, over the next 6 months they will advance their learning, implement their project, and generally help move Ethereum forward into this complicated and messy world.
Colleague presentations
Abhishek Bhattacharya
Abhishek is co-founder of Brú Finance. Brú Finance works with a partner organization called Whrrl, which offers harvest time loans to over 18,000 farmers across India. Whrrl uses a permissioned private blockchain, but for his exchange project, Abhishek will oversee and learn from the launch of a new system on a public chain that uses decentralized liquidity for farmers, and explore what this system could look like at scale worldwide. .
Gabriela Guerra
Gabriela founded Bloinxa startup that implements blockchain-based tandas (also known as cundinas, susu, hui, arisan, quiniela, stokvel and others globally) – informal savings circles. Gabriela believes that blockchain can bring real benefits to the world’s unbanked population and that savings circles are a good startup mechanism. During her fellowship, Gabriela will conduct pilot projects in Mexico and Venezuela and use the research to improve Bloinx on a larger scale.
Geoffrey See
Geoffrey is co-founder of the startup Poko. He has extensive experience working on the legal and regulatory side of blockchain, as well as in an entrepreneurial training initiative and in the growing field of DAOs. For his fellowship project, Geoffrey will explore the interface between DAOs and governments, particularly how governments seeking to create new frameworks and legislation can learn about the unique needs and capabilities of decentralized organizations.
Karam Alhamad
Karam is an entrepreneur, fintech visionary, international development professional, and human rights policy advocate. Karam founded ZeFian educational platform and community focused on promoting blockchain education and research adapted to the Syrian context. For the fellowship, Karam will conduct research that advances the practical and culturally sensitive understanding of how blockchains can solve problems in conflict situations.
Marcus Alburez Myers
Marcus is a Guatemalan entrepreneur striving to address today’s pressing challenges. He is currently Founder in Residence at Europe’s leading accelerator, Entrepreneur First, where he leverages the power of Web3 to empower marginalized communities. Through his work with POP laminatea low-cost housing design project in Guatemala, Marcus will explore the real-world barriers to financing physical assets for DeFi and apply his findings to develop a possible solution for housing finance.
Mary Davies
As a legal researcher and technologist based in the Cayman Islands, Mary explored a pressing question: If life-extension technology doesn’t work in the coming decades, what will happen to your crypto when you die? There is currently no trustless or decentralized solution to this question, which is problematic. Mary’s scholarship will explore what new cryptographic mechanisms could allow us to confidently transfer assets after death, in a legally compliant manner.
Mihajlo Atanackovic
Mihajlo is leading the digital transformation journey of one of the largest non-formal education youth movements in the world: the World Organization of the Scout Movement with over 57 million members worldwide. To prepare the Scout Movement for web3, he is embarking on an ambitious project involving the digitization of badges, exploring DAOs for different levels of the Movement and how scouts could use new coordination mechanisms for grassroots organization .
Next Billion Team at Devcon VI
If you are interested in the work of the Fellows, we hope you will attend the Fellows’ Lectures in person or live. If saving the world (or trying to) is something you’re passionate about, contact us or tag us on Twitter @EFNextBillion
PS No, it’s not Ethereum Protocol Exchange — it’s another initiative of camaraderie at the other end of the same border. Maybe in the future we’ll do a crossover episode.
