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In a global community it is important to recognize that different people in different areas face different barriers. Perhaps the barriers to entry for English speakers in Silicon Valley with fast internet connections are very low, but what is the contribution experience for others?

Successful open source communities make sure that the barriers to entry and contribution are low. Even if your community has done work to make it easy to contribute and if many people have already gotten involved, there could still be many significant barriers that you don’t know about.  

It can come as a surprise to find out that potential community members may think that your project is not inclusive and is a place where they are not welcome. Identifying and dealing with barriers on a regional level will help create a diverse community that includes contributors from around the globe.

Empowering and supporting people developing local, community-led efforts is the best path to addressing the needs of each region. Hyperledger community members have recently been forming regional chapters that bring together people of a common language, culture or geography to collaborate on activities that are relevant for people in those areas.

In just two years, we have launched the India, Brazil, Latinoamerica, Africa and Italian regional chapters.  This post shares details about how these local chapters have dealt with some of the barriers to contribution that people in different parts of the world face. The structure of these chapters owes a lot to the regional community building that other open source projects, like Mozilla, have done. 

Language barriers

Most people in the world don’t speak English, but most of the meetings, discussions, events and other Hyperledger community activities are conducted in English. This isn’t a barrier for English speakers, but it is a huge barrier for people who speak other languages.

The regional chapters have started to address this by creating material and having discussions in a range of different languages. Hyperledger’s 2020 Annual Report has a nice visualization of the community activities that happened in multiple languages last year, including meetups, training, documentation and more.

Cultural barriers

Hyperledger has created a Code of Conduct to establish what sort of behavior is acceptable and unacceptable in the community. However, there are times when people show up and violate those guidelines, and that is a barrier for people who experience that behavior.  

As virtual meetings became the norm during the pandemic, so did the unfortunate by-product of “zoombombing.” This refers to the unwanted, disruptive intrusion, generally by Internet trolls, into a video-conference call. Unfortunately, we live in a world where some people do not respect people from other cultures, and we have had this happen to some community members.

Last year, members of the Hyperledger community in Africa ran a virtual meetup, and it was disrupted by people who dialed in to harass those who were trying to participate. Verbal abuse and inappropriate comments in the chat transpired, and the event had to be stopped. That meetup was rescheduled, and it went well. However, in the next meetup the same community in Africa organized, there were again people who dialed in and disrupted the event.

Those incidents drained a lot of momentum and enthusiasm from the community members who were organizing those events. In response, we changed how we configured the Zoom accounts used for community calls to filter out people seeking to disrupt events. With these safeguards now in place, the community in Africa is making plans to resume events in 2021. It is vital for Hyperledger to create an environment where these community members can contribute successfully if we are going to be a truly inclusive open source project.

Time zones and technical barriers

Whenever a community discussion happens in real time, whether on a call, at an event or in a chat channel, there will be people who have difficulty participating because of time zones. It is not unusual to be on a call where someone is joining in at midnight their time. There is no time of the day when everyone is awake and working, so this is a big challenge for open source communities. Real-time activities aren’t evenly distributed though, and a bulk of Hyperledger community meetings happen at a time that works well for people in Europe and the Americas.

The India Chapter has addressed the  time zone issue  by creating a wide range of meetings and events that happen at times that work well for the local community. Running these events and also having some community members participate in the global community activities provides an easier way for people in India to contribute and also maintain a bridge to the rest of the community.

Sometimes people can’t join in community discussions or activities at all because access to tools is restricted. Some countries, such as China, as well as some large companies block access to tools that are frequently used by community members, such as Zoom and Google Docs. And there are countries where the Internet infrastructure is not robust and stable, making it a challenge to join a live video call. In these cases, people in a region need to find alternate tools that can be accessed and then find ways to be a bridge to connect local activities with the rest of the community.

Get Involved

The Regional Chapters have become a great way for community members to connect, especially during the pandemic since we haven’t been running local in-person meetups.  Increasing collaboration among areas in different regions has brought about greater participation and diversity to Hyperledger’s community.

Removing barriers to participation and expanding inclusion will always be a work in progress. There may be other barriers to entry in other regions that we haven’t identified yet as well as other examples of success stories. We welcome any feedback, suggestions, and lessons learned you have about how to make our community more diverse and inclusive for community members across the globe.  A great place to share your thoughts on this is the Diversity Civility and Inclusion Working Group’s mailing list.  Please feel free to subscribe to that list, introduce yourself and let us know what you think.

Cover image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay.

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Blockchain technology adoption and the startup ecosystem around it within the Indian subcontinent reached new heights in the year 2020. The Government of India announced a blockchain center of excellence where the technology is being evaluated for adoption across multitude of areas. The Hyperledger regional chapter was inaugurated in early 2019 to bolster blockchain technology in India and rapidly spread its wings in 2020.

Below are a few of the chapter’s accomplishments in the year 2020:

• HyperHack 2020: The first ever blockchain-run, blockchain-based hackathon to attract teams from across the Asia Pacific region. Prizes worth $10,000 USD were distributed through sponsors.
• Blockchain Stories 2020: A platform for sharing stories and learning from each other. The event, which drew speakers from over 25 organizations across the Asia Pacific, was spread across five  weeks and had over 1,000 participants.
• Women in Blockchain: A panel discussion organized in association with the Saintgits College of Engineering with distinguished speakers from the India diaspora. The event also featured renowned names in blockchain technology.
• Blockchain Hype to Reality: An event aimed at answering the startup ecosystem that echoed the mantra of Vocal for Local. It attracted a crowd of over 1,500 from across the Asia Pacific region.
• Blockchain Techfest 2020: An opportunity for technology enthusiasts to meet, greet and learn from the maintainers of different Hyperledger projects. The event, held in three sessions across three weeks, covered nine Hyperledger projects..

The year also saw improvement in the way community meetings are run. The chapter adopted a more structured format for running meetings and making decisions as well as an option to hear from everybody in the community, which led to increased participation. LinkedIn engagement also increased with more than 2,300 enthusiasts showing interest in the chapter’s activities in the last year. The chapter has also produced over 25 videos on the Hyperledger YouTube channel.

Members of the India community also have taken on an increasing number of leadership roles with Hypereldger at the global level. We have chapter members actively involved in the Hyperledger technical steering committee, as maintainers and contributors across all the projects within the Hyperledger greenhouse and as noticeable contributors in special interest groups and working group activities.

The community activities have accelerated in the region. One example of the quick pace of activity: The idea of student outreach led to an immediate invite from the IEEE Computer Society Kerala Chapter. While we are still defining quarterly goals for the year 2021, here is the gist of what to expect in the coming year:

1. Additional student outreach and the possibility of a Hyperledger India Chapter – Student Wing.
2. Industry outreach aimed at bridging the booming startup ecosystem with the industry experts.
3. Aligning the blockchain activities with the broader effort to make India an innovation hub.
4. A second edition of HyperHack, a hackathon with problem statements that are more relevant to the region. Plans include special consideration for student submissions to encourage the participation. There will also be a lineup of learning activities priori.
5. A 2021 edition of our most popular event, Blockchain Stories, with the aim of increased participation and a new wave of success stories to be shared.

Here is the statement of gratitude from the co-leads of the Hyperledger India Chapter. Arun S M is a senior software engineer at Walmart and also a technical steering committee member at Hyperledger. Kamesh Nagware is a VP Blockchain Technology at Snapper Future Tech as well as an active contributor to the Climate Action & Accounting and Trade Finance SIGs at Hyperledger.

“It is amazing to see how a vibrant and diverse set of people come together for a cause, in this case blockchain technology and Hyperledger. India is a diverse country, and its strength lies in its diversity. We at the Hyperledger India Chapter brought together the finest like-minded people from across the country under one roof.

From running the community meetings once a week as a forum for answering technical questions to having  the weekly trackable activities, it was a long journey. The community stood by us through this transformational path. We did multiple experiments with our activities through the year. At the end, we are happy for what has come out of it.

When it was the time to organize events, we were quick to identify that going virtual is inevitable. Also, the geographical location advantage India provides has made it easy for us to connect with the audiences across Asia Pacific, Middle East Asia and Europe. The continued engagement of volunteers and the  interest shown by the blockchain enthusiasts has propelled us to do even more. This feeling of ours echoed through the feedback, emails, YouTube viewership and the number of times these events were spoken about across the globe.

Hyperledger India Chapter carried the strong bond it built across Asia Pacific region, and it shows up in the continued engagement we have with the enthusiasts outside Indian territory.

On Dec 17th, 2020, Hyperledger marked five  years since its inception. On Dec 18th, Hyperledger hosted an open networking event for the Asia Pacific region as part of its 5th anniversary celebration. The event attracted an overwhelming crowd from across India.

We couldn’t be more proud of what the Hyperledger India Chapter accomplished in the year 2020. It is all possible because of the ever increasing enthusiasm we see in the community. All roads now lead to 2021. We are excited to have more community engagement in the coming year!

 We look forward to having more technical contributions from the region in 2021 and  call on all of you residing in Indian subcontinent to join our weekly calls. Let us build a better future holding hands together.

All of this would not be possible without the help of staff at the Hyperledger. Everybody at Hyperledger has stood by us. Dorothy Cheng and David Boswell specifically have eased most of our jobs.”

“Since the launch of the Hyperledger India Chapter in early 2019, it has been a pleasure for me to work with this inspiring group of volunteers, dedicated to supporting Hyperledger technologies, open source collaboration, sharing information and assisting the India blockchain community. 2020 has been a challenging year. It has been heartening to see the innovative ways the India Chapter has found to share information and support the blockchain community – in India, across Asia Pacific and globally.

In 2020 the India Chapter created and ran engaging events online – from it’s HyperHack hackathon, to the informative Blockchain Stories series, to it’s Women in Blockchain event and much more. It set up exciting programmes in areas such as student outreach and tirelessly worked to meet, communicate with and support the community.

The India Chapter was the first of its kind in the Hyperledger community, and it has inspired the creation of Chapters around the world.

The India Chapter has grown immensely and accelerated its development in 2020. I am excited to see how they build on their successes as we move into 2021 and face the challenges and opportunities ahead. I know they will bring energy, commitment and inspiration to all that they do.

There are so many in the Hyperledger India Chapter who deserve recognition and thanks from the Hyperledger community. I would particularly like to thank Arun S M and Kamlesh Nagware for their great leadership in 2020.

I look forward to working with the Hyperledger India Chapter in 2021.”

From all of us at the Hyperledger India Chapter, we wish you all a very Happy New Year!

In this series of blog posts, you will hear from many of our active volunteers on what the year 2020 and the Hyperledger India Chapter brought to them.

Cover image by motionstock from Pixabay.

The living society has long been inching toward a moment of overlap between physical and digital iterations in the so-called digital transformation of social interaction between people and legal entities.

Step by step, we are entering into a digitized society able to operate through the exchange of fungible and digitized assets.

Within this scenario, distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) have an essential role and a possible large-scale application that can be extended to various economic and social sectors by managing huge amounts of data with tangible consequences on the real life of end users. Nations are trying to onboard DLT software solutions with the intent to support development of the digital society and economy. 

In the case of Italy, the  diversified import-export-oriented economy offers a conducive environment for the development, test and adoption of blockchain solutions in a variety of sectors. This peculiarity of the Italian business structure opens several opportunities, as international trade is one of the most interesting areas of development of solutions based on DLT. 

Italian industrial sector that is worldwide famous for “Made in Italy” style carries an important market value that can strongly benefit from the features of transparency, security and traceability offered by blockchain. SMEs represent the core of the Italian industrial clusters (e.g., textiles, furniture, white goods and footwear) in addition to other important export sectors like mechanics and agri-food. Blockchain systems are inherently strong in ensuring optimal management of data provided by traditional quality assurance providers on provenance and quality of products, which could add significant value to production processes embedding this technology.

Innovative Italian SMEs are testing DLT solutions to serve these sectors, and some are starting to commercialize them. State-participated companies, financial institutions, associations and large Italian tech players are experimenting on distributed registries, for example SIA by SIAChain.

The idea of ​​proposing an “Italian Chapter” lay precisely on the purpose of ​​providing a different and more comprehensive perspective of the DLT phenomenon, being aware of the wide field of application of the technology. The Italian society should be preparing to experience a wide adoption of distributed ledger technology and the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger in its form of independent open source software collaborative has a key role to guide the interoperability of software solutions on the market and the harmonization of institutional compliance processes between digital iterations and real iterations at national institutional level.

The main task of the chapter will be the development of the Hyperledger community in Italy and guidance for the various private and public projects born in the national territory that aim to establish a common national best practice. The Hyperledger Italian Chapter will also seek to interface with national institutional entities to provide technological support for the harmonization and creation of common technical and operational standards for national strategic projects.

In this perspective, the chapter will engage with different functional areas from the technical sector. This entails coordinating meetups, involving academic-university research projects, encouraging  private business projects in different product areas in the territory national (from finance, manufacturing industry, agri-food, luxury industry, etc.) to share knowledge and experiences, and supporting of corporate or institutional initiatives for the development of national strategic projects.

Obviously, no project can work alone, which is why we consider it essential to share this proposal with the technical, private-corporate, academic, and public-institutional ecosystem so that a community can emerge and bring together the best technology experts to face the challenges that an intensely digitized society has to deal with.

The chapter’s initial activities will include diving into some new features released like Hyperledger Cactus, a new tool by Accenture allowing interoperability between DLT networks and now within Hyperledger Greenhouse, and other amazing updates by Linux Foundation and Hyperledger members like IBM, Chainstack and Digital Asset.

We hope you can join our community!

Sali a bordo con noi!

Please visit:

Hyperledger Italian Chapter wiki page
Hyperledger Italian Chapter LinkedIn profile