Kansas Blockchain Fellowship

Who will you meet at The Midwest Block-a-Thon? ?? We have some ideas! Check out highlights of our incredible mentors attending the hackathon from companies like Apex Fusion, Dragonchain, Oracle, Kraken Digital Asset Exchange, Normal, Pinata, Poa, and Ebisu's Bay! Apply Today: https://lnkd.in/gPAwXRxf (open to all ages 14+) #Blockchain #Kansas #Hackathon

?? We're excited to share a special glimpse into our incredible summer with the Kansas Blockchain Fellowship! This video includes highlights of the KBF journey from classes, to mentorship, and the capstone projects. We are so proud of our amazing Fellows and so grateful for the mentors, faculty, and community around this program. A special thank you to Pinata, Ripple, a16z crypto, and Institute for Information Sciences | I2S at The University of Kansas for making this program possible. Check out our video to celebrate with us a summer of blockchain education and innovation in Kansas! ?? #KansasBlockchainFellowship #BlockchainEducation #Innovation #CommunityImpact https://lnkd.in/gBiyQF85

Highlights from weeks four and five of the Kansas Blockchain Fellowship! In week four, KBF mentor and KU alumn Hudson Headley led an Overview of Industry class, where we dove into current market trends and themes. Hudson covered zk-Proofs, major protocols, abstraction, L2s, and the major players in the 2024 blockchain landscape. At the end of class, the KBF team introduced the web3 stack and practical tools for developing Capstone Projects, including MetaMask, Pinata, IPFS, The Graph, Chainlink, XRPL, Ethereum, Polygon, Fleek, Magic, and more. Thank you Hudson for a wonderful overview and great Q&A session! In week five, KBF Program Director Emma Nasseri led a dApp Development workshop, where each Fellow was able to create their own custom NFT Gallery. The Fellows integrated MetaMask in their React app, wrote and deployed smart contracts, pinned data on IPFS using Pinata, and minted their own unique NFTs. Though this workshop was optional, eight of the sixteen Fellows successfully completed their first dApp! You can find the tutorial Emma created here: https://lnkd.in/g4XHTcni Another amazing week for KBF - onto the next! ???? #BlockchainEducation #KansasBlockchain #dAppDevelopment

??Welcome Back to Our Mentor Highlights!?? As we continue to unveil the outstanding mentors helping lead the Kansas Blockchain Fellowship, here is the next wave of our amazing leaders! ? Pat Thelen - Managing Director of Business Development at Ripple, Pat's journey from a KU business graduate to a leader in blockchain finance is nothing short of inspiring. With previous roles at J.P. Morgan and UMB Bank and his current impactful work at Ripple, Pat exemplifies the bridge between traditional finance and the new age of blockchain technology. ? Austin Adams - Austin, a The University of Kansas alum with degrees in Russian and Economics, is a Mechanism Designer at Uniswap Labs. His journey from the Federal Reserve Bank to the forefront of decentralized finance at Uniswap reflects his belief in trustless markets. He played a pivotal role in advancing Uniswap from V3, which handled two trillion dollars in volume, to planning V4, set to launch by September 2024. ? Samantha Deori-Mitra - Samantha graduated from the University of Kansas in 2020. She received her master's degree in public policy from Columbia University in 2022 and has been working in policy and legal at Uniswap since 2022, where she has been at the cutting edge of the blockchain regulatory landscape. Sam is an incoming J.D. candidate at Georgetown University Law Center - congratulations, Sam! ? - A KU Graduate, Hudson has already established a substantial presence in the blockchain industry. Former VP of Engineering for KU Blockchain Institute, he is now Chief Architect and Founder of the Perpetual Organization Architect (Poa), which simplifies the creation of decentralized autonomous organizations, making perpetual organizations accessible to anyone. Poa was awarded Best New Subgraph at ETHDenver 2024, as well as grants from Morosnet, Gitcoin, and others. The Kansas Blockchain Mentors bring a wealth of knowledge and a passion for both teaching and innovation. Keep an eye out for more updates on their contributions and the ways they're leading our Fellows into the exciting future of blockchain innovation in the Midwest! ??Follow us for more updates and insights into the world of blockchain!?? #KBF #BlockchainMentors #Innovation #BlockchainEducation #UniversityOfKansas

The official countdown begins! Please join us July 26th at our Closing Ceremony to celebrate the amazing accomplishments of our 16 Fellows. We will share highlights from the summer, and each Fellow will demo the capstone project they've been hard at work developing. This event is open to anyone - we hope to see you there!

We were honored to host our Uniswap Labs mentors Austin Adams and Samantha Deori-Mitra for week 3 of the Kansas Blockchain Fellowship! Austin (+ his cat!) joined us to give an overview of DeFi and the Uniswap protocol. Austin did a wonderful job defining terms and breaking down complex topics into accessible parts. In the second part of class, KBF Fellow Ellia Morse stepped up to introduce Samantha to the class, after interviewing her at the beginning of the summer. Samantha Deori-Mitra gave our Fellows an overview of the legal and regulatory landscape for blockchain. Thank you, Sam, for the educational and engaging lecture! Week 3 was a wonderful introduction to DeFi and Regulation, with a great sense of hope for the future of Web3. Thank you, Austin and Sam, for investing in blockchain education in the Midwest and representing The University of Kansas at Uniswap. We are proud of you and look forward to hosting you again soon! #kansasblockchain #uniswap #blockchaineducation

?? A huge thank you to KBF mentor Pat Thelen for joining us in Kansas for a deep dive on Ripple, the Internet of Value, and how crypto is revolutionizing global payments! ??? Pat Thelen is a Kansas City native, The University of Kansas alumn, and Managing Director of Business Development at Ripple. In Pat's presentation, he shared his journey with us and inspired our Fellows to step beyond complacency and seek challenging, meaningful, and forward-thinking paths. ??Thank you, Pat, for taking the time to share your knowledge and expertise with the Kansas Blockchain Fellows and for staying late to talk with the group, share advice, and answer questions. Your visit was truly inspiring and greatly appreciated by all our fellows! ?? We are proud of and inspired by Pat Thelen, Brad Garlinghouse, and all of our other KU Alumni at shaping the future of DeFi at Ripple! #UBRI #KansasBlockchain #Ripple #BlockchainEducation

??Welcome Mentors!?? We are thrilled to introduce our incredible Kansas Blockchain Fellowship mentors! Over the next few weeks, we will be highlighting these brilliant minds in waves, giving you a sneak peek into the wealth of knowledge and experience they bring to our community. ??Our First Wave of Mentors?? 1. Joe Roets -?Joe is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Dragonchain. He is a visionary and thought leader in blockchain technology having led or contributed to projects in the space since 2010 at companies such as Overstock, Coinbase, Symbiont, & The Walt Disney Company. Dragonchain is an enterprise and start-up-ready platform for building flexible and scalable blockchain applications. 2. Kevin Galler - Kevin grew up in the Kansas City area and has been full-time in the crypto space for about 3 years. He was previously a Core Engineer at Solana Labs and now does Developer Relations for Monad Labs. Before that, he worked for 5 years at Apple doing all things AirPods. Kevin is passionate about centering App design on the core properties of blockchains to bring meaningfully better experiences to users and helps run the Unlayered podcast. 3. Paige Jones - Paige graduated from KU in 2016 and is a builder, maker, and Senior Software Engineer at Pinata. She is fascinated by P2P networks and enjoys working with Smart Contracts as well. Paige is passionate about developing web3 applications that solve real-world problems by providing thoughtful and creative solutions. She has been a huge support for blockchain students in Kansas for several years. 4. Thomas Flynn - Thomas is Co-Founder and COO of HAL8 and a core contributor at Apex Fusion. He was previously the Head of Business Development U.S. at Spheron Network and Commercial Director at Input Output (IOHK). He has worked in web3 for about 8 years and is passionate about bringing together UTXO and EVM technologies and ecosystems. These leaders are not just experts in their fields, they are passionate educators committed to shaping the next generation of innovators and thinkers. Stay tuned as we reveal more about each mentor. We can't wait for you to meet them all! ??Don’t forget to follow us for updates and more exciting news!?? #FellowshipProgram #Mentorship #BlockchainTechnology #Innovation #Education

???Reading time!??? A heartfelt thank you to the incredible team at a16z crypto for their generous book donation to the Kansas Blockchain Fellowship! Through this donation, each fellow will receive a copy of Chris Dixon’s Read Write Own to support their learning throughout the summer. This book is a wonderful primer on web3, explained in an engaging, relevant, and accessible way. Thank you a16z crypto for supporting our?journey towards fostering web3 education and innovation in the Midwest,?and a special thanks to Anna Semenova ????, Shari Doherty, and Deana Burke for facilitating.??? #BlockchainEducation #Innovation #ThankYou #Partnership #a16z #KansasBlockchainFellowship

???Reading time!??? A heartfelt thank you to the incredible team at a16z crypto for their generous book donation to the Kansas Blockchain Fellowship! Through this donation, each fellow will receive a copy of Chris Dixon’s Read Write Own to support their learning throughout the summer. This book is a wonderful primer on web3, explained in an engaging, relevant, and accessible way. Thank you a16z crypto for supporting our?journey towards fostering web3 education and innovation in the Midwest,?and a special thanks to Anna Semenova ????, Shari Doherty, and Deana Burke for facilitating.??? #BlockchainEducation #Innovation #ThankYou #Partnership #a16z #KansasBlockchainFellowship