[Report] Joaquim Ley EiR - Walkinear

Purpose:
Write an update on my first week as an NEAR EiR, how it is going and what’s coming next.

Period:
Jan 21→ 31, 2022

Goals:
My first week’s goals were two fold:

  1. To explore the current ecosystem’s state, meet people who I can collaborate with and figure out where would my time would be best applied
  2. Keep working on my main “project” – Walkinear: (introduction post here on gov soon) which will serve to help people joining/ going deeper into the ecosystem where to find the information (which is abundant but fragmented)

Progress:

  • Started to gather the information on what is already done, similar projects and reached to some of the people working on or who worked on (some of these look stale/abandoned)

  • Looking from the Discord activity (especially developers) decided to write the first journey/course on Walkinear which is the path from 0 to Near certified developer:

    • What is the NCD course
    • What to expect from it (and afterwards)
    • What is not
    • Requirements and where to develop these skills if you still don’t have them
    • What to expect from the first 2h call
    • What is expected from you as a student, what skills you should’ve developed
    • Where to ask for help, FAQs (ever mutating)

This will be available on the Walkinear website (under development) that will include bonus tasks and some others.

Proposals for February
These are the proposals to be written this following month of February, will need collaboration from others (if you are reading and have interest in collaborating with any of these please DM me here or on Discord joaquimley#0579):

  1. Walkinear
  2. Build a mobile wallet app for Android and iOS – my background is in mobile development so I have a lot of technical and management expertise)
  3. Mobile Wallet SDK that facilitates the development of other mobile dApps with an SDK that builds on top of near-api-js, this would be a “by-product” of the 2.
  4. Near PAY - Similar to Solana Pay

Next steps

  • Keep on being active on discord, been more focused on helping out new developers and these are the pain-points that I felt personally, hopefully been able to alleviate the core team efforts;
  • Reach out to other members/fellows who are available to work on this project and/or have feedback;
  • Continue collaboration and meet up with Guilds and Fellows;
  • Focus my attention on one of the future proposals (see above) to where I can focus my time on, don’t what to spread too thin;
  • Create a Guild that will focus on improving the end-user UX and provide development skills (INC4 who will have a chat soon);
  • Create a Portuguese Guild - Focus on building the NEAR community here and onboard more people into the ecosystem, COVID permitting organise meet-ups;

t. @joaquimley
d. joaquimley#0579

2 Likes

Purpose:
Write an update on the work I’ve been doing for February as an NEAR EiR.

Period:
Feb 01→ 28, 2022 (UTC+0 London/Lisbon)

Goals:
The February goals were as follows:

  1. Research the whole ecosystem for the developer experience/onboarding

  2. Interview with as many developers (newcomers to NEAR) and gather as much feedback as I could on their exp.

  3. Bring my team into the NEAR ecosystem as a Service provider+Education Guild

  4. Set the “north-star” for Walkinear project is going to be and how it is going to exist, it is paramount that we don’t mindless compete but rather collaborate.

Progress

This month was very enlightening for me personally to understand the state of the ecosystem for the developer.
There’s a lot of going on, in a sense a lot of projects tackling the same problems. This is not necessarily a bad thing as:

  1. It truly validates there is a problem to be fixed (think of PMF)
  2. We’ll get different POVs and approaches into helping the community.

The Walkinear project focus shifted a lot of times during February.

  • Had a couple calls with the @amgando from the NEAR university
  • Chatted with multiple members of the @NEAR_Core team about the Pagoda (formerly Near Inc.) project.
  • Multiple members of the OWB who were very generous with their time in helping by either answering my questions or pointing to the right direction to get the information I needed.

And it seemed each time I had one of these chats it was back to the drawing board.

I’m writing this report on the 7th of March as a lot these decisions were pending further discussion with the team and availability of 3Ps for follow up chats (these decisions and developments will be in the March report).

KPIs

  • Shortlisted missing tools/information (low hanging fruits) → This will need further chats with the pagoda team to be make sure we don’t build the same thing

  • We got our first couple frens collaborating with us!

  • Completed the NCD - 3/4 rating :tada:

  • Enrolled into the NCE - In progress (Follow the progress on my personal website joaquimley.com/near/nce)

  • Further development in the Walkinear.org website - In progress (just a landing page in “production”) and now working with the team defining the roadmap and presenting the guild this month (March).

  • Onboarded @judithtorres

    • Judith will be leading the guild and OPs
  • Onboarded @miguelmendes

    • Miguel is a software developer currently enrolled in the NCD program
  • Took an advisory role in the OWS Playbook project

  • Joined the OWS mentorship program as a mentor (for developers)

  • Onboarding and helping entrepreneurs, developers, etc. on discord - Always on going

February proposals update

  1. Walkinear - :white_check_mark: Working now on the first iteration
  2. Build a mobile wallet app for Android and iOS – my background is in mobile development so I have a lot of technical and management expertise) - :sweat_smile: There are at least two projects at the moment working on this
  3. Mobile Wallet SDK that facilitates the development of other mobile dApps with an SDK that builds on top of near-api-js , this would be a “by-product” of the 2. - :white_check_mark: Might be one of the first tools we build at the Walkinear guild
  4. Near PAY - Similar to Solana Pay - :sweat_smile: already exists: Visit here NearPay

Next steps

  • Create the guild and DAO;
  • Work on onboarding the first developers (we have a super ambitions goal, numbers will be revealed in the Guild post)
  • Onboard the rest of the team
  • Continue working on the NCE
  • Organize our first meetup (here in Leiria :portugal:) forming a local chapter/hub or restart one → This depends on the COVID situation here as there have been some limitations into these events again.
  • Continue coordinating and talking with the community to understand where I’ll can provide the value.

Thank you


d. joaquimley#0579
t. @joaquimley
d. joaquimley#0579

Purpose:
Write an update on the work I’ve been doing for March as a NEAR EiR.

Period:
Mar 01→ 31, 2022 (UTC+0 London/Lisbon)

Goals:
The March goals were as follows:

  1. Continue research in the ecosystem for the developer experience/onboarding
  2. Compile information from Interviews and keep on interviewing more developers (newcomers to NEAR).
  3. Bring in the last element of my team into the NEAR ecosystem, Rita.
  4. Finally publish the Walkinear project.

Progress

This month was very enlightening for me personally to understand the state of the ecosystem for the developer.
There’s a lot going on, in a sense a lot of projects tackling the same problems. This is not necessarily a bad thing as:

  1. It truly validates there is a problem to be fixed (think of PMF)
  2. We’ll get different POVs and approaches to helping the community.

The Walkinear project

  • We are changing our name and somewhat our approach.
  • Kept working as a mentor for the OWS program (but no project started)
  • Advisor role on the OWS playbook
  • Booking a meeting with a professor of the university I attended ESTG and get the first batch of NCD

Now

  • Working on bringing/helping multiple projects into the NEAR ecosystem with partners (not alone)
    • “Stealth” DeFi platform
    • Non-commerical NFTs+NGOs collaboration (development+design)
    • Fintech using commercial grade hardware with light therapy and brainwave sensor using NEAR as a reward system making the hardware free (early research and prototyping)
    • Privacy-focused txs in NEAR (tornado.cash)

April+May

  • Continue listing missing tools/information and propose to the community if there would be a need to develop these (all oss)
  • Expanding the team with a couple more developers, a designer and a marketeer
  • Helping @miguelmendes get his NCD certification
  • Continue working in the NCE - Look into our product (staging) https://staging.sliko.io
  • Last month had onboarded @judithtorres but she’ll be taking over the operations while I focus on tech+onboarding users
  • @miguelmendes is now working on our first project!
  • Onboarding and helping entrepreneurs, developers, etc. on discord - Always ongoing

Next steps

  • Create the guild and DAO (probably only in May as I’m moving into my new house next week);
  • Work on onboarding the first developers (we have a super ambitions goal, numbers will be revealed in the Guild post) → This is WIP but have to wait for the call with my former college teacher
  • Only one member of the team remaining
  • Continue working on the NCE
  • Continue coordinating and talking with the community to understand where I’ll can provide the value.

Thank you

d. joaquimley#0579
t. @joaquimley

2 Likes

Purpose:
Write an update on the work I’ve been doing for the month of April as a NEAR EiR.

Period:
Apr 01→ 30, 2022 (UTC+0 London/Lisbon)

Goals:
The March goals were as follows:

  1. Start building on the research done/dev feedback
  2. Continue working on the NCE - Build sliko
  3. Collaborate with other members in the ecosystem (projects, first “Guild” as a service provider)

Progress

  • Actively working on a couple of projects, bringing extra developers (onboarding) to help
  • “Stealth” DeFi platform - Scrapped
  • Non-commerical NFTs+NGOs collaboration (development+design) - In active development
  • Fintech using commercial grade hardware with light therapy - paused due to the rest to some hardware complications/dev
  • Privacy-focused txs in NEAR (tornado.cash) - Scrapped → Already exists
  • Building the educational platform
  • Helping entrepreneurs, developers, etc. on discord - Always ongoing

Next

I’m taking less of an operator role and start to focus my time in execution and strategy as me developing and also manage people+projects becomes too hard.

Possible collaboration with another project in the NEAR ecosystem in the works.

Thank you

d. joaquimley#0579
t. @joaquimley

1 Like

Purpose:
Write an update (and my last one for my amazing EiR) on the work I’ve been doing for the month of May as a NEAR EiR.

Period:
May 01→ 31, 2022 (UTC+0 London/Lisbon)

Goals:
The May goals were as follows:

  1. Continue collaborating with other projects in the ecosystem
  2. Continue working on the NCE - Build sliko
  3. Start the work done on the LMS for NEAR (walkinear)
  4. Create DAO forr the guild

Progress

  • We now have an official name for our guild, omen - omendao.com
  • I’ve now onboarded the whole team into the NEAR ecosystem and we’re now actively working on NEAR projects, l’ll start looking into bringing in more members into the build
  • Working on an asset-based FT
  • Work on our grant proposal for the guild
  • Building the educational platform
  • Helping entrepreneurs, developers, etc. on discord - Always ongoing

Next

Focusing on the guild/dao now that my EiR as ended.

Conclusion

I would like thank the Near University for the opportunity to break into the Web3 space, and @amgando fo the time when navigating the ecosystem ;).

Thank you

d. joaquimley#0579
t. @joaquimley