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Hyperledger Mentorship Program

Program Description

The Hyperledger mentorship program is aimed at creating a structured hands-on learning opportunity for new developers who may otherwise lack the opportunity to gain exposure to Hyperledger open source development and entry to the technical community. It also provides a more defined path for Hyperledger to connect with the next generation of student developers to inject more talent into its development community. Each mentee will apply and be matched with a mentor or mentors who are active developers in the Hyperledger community. Each mentee will work remotely from his/her location of choice. Regular evaluation and feedback will be provided. Mentees may have the opportunity to travel to a Hyperledger conference/event to meet their peers and mentors face-to-face and to present their work to the broader community.

The Hyperledger mentorship program is aimed at creating a structured hands-on learning opportunity for new developers who may otherwise lack the opportunity to gain exposure to Hyperledger open source development and entry to the technical community.

One of the largest tech companies in the world, Google hosts a Summer of Code mentoring program each year. ... The mentorship opportunity sees the students paired with mentors that can help them further develop their talent and advance their computing skill set. A formal mentoring program is a structured, often one-to-one relationship in a work, organization or academic setting. ... Impactful mentoring programs train mentors and mentees to have productive conversations and meetings, providing them with career development tools and resources to accomplish set goals.

Hyperledger is an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies. It is a global collaboration, hosted by The Linux Foundation, including leaders in finance, banking, IoT, supply chain, manufacturing and technology. To learn more, check out the About Hyperledger page. You can also find out more about Hyperledger's projects, labs, Working Groups, Special Interest Groups and other community activities at the links below.

Eligibility

Mentee Applicant Eligibility

  • You must be at least 18 years of age by end of May.

  • The mentorship will be remote. However, you must be eligible to work in the country and jurisdiction where you reside in for the entire duration of the program.

  • Please review any additional eligibility requirements that may apply.

How to Apply

Application Steps :-

Step 1: review eligibility

The Hyperlegder Mentorship Program is aimed at providing a structured and guided learning opportunity for new developers, including college and university students, interested in becoming open source contributors to the Hyperledger community. Please first review the eligibility requirements to determine if you're eligible to apply.

Step 2: discover projects

Carefully review the Hyperledger mentorship projects that are open for applications in year and identify which project(s) you're interested in.

  • Ask yourself which projects you are the most excited or curious about exploring? The project descriptions, learning objectives and outcomes, and any additional information or links on the project page may give you some insight.
  • Ask yourself which projects are a better fit for your profile. Be sure to read about the educational level and skills required or desired to evaluate if you are qualified.
  • Lastly, some mentorships require Summer FT (full-time) commitment (40 hours a week for 12 consecutive weeks from June to August) or Summer PT (part-time) commitment (20 hours a week for 24 consecutive weeks from June to November) while others allow both options. Make sure the program timeline and schedule will fit into your schedule. Each applicant may apply for multiple but no more than THREE projects. We recommend that you focus your effort on 2 projects and submit a quality application for those two projects.

Step 3: contact mentor(s)

This step is optional. Feel free to contact the mentor(s) for the projects that you are interested in to learn more and to clarify any information that's unclear to you.

  • You may be able to discover more about the desirable background and skills of the mentee the mentor(s) are looking to work with.
  • We have learned that the best applications are often from students who took the time to interact and discuss their ideas with the mentors before submitting an application.
  • But be thoughtful with your questions as our mentors may be receiving a large volume of questions from interested applicants.

Step 4: prepare application materials

Besides collecting standard demographic and contact information on the application, we will ask you to upload your resume and a cover letter.The cover letter will ask you to address the following questions:

  • How did you find out about our program?
  • Why are you interested in the project(s) you're applying to?
  • What experience and knowledge/skills do you have that are applicable to the requirements of the project(s) you're applying to?
  • What do you hope to get out of this experience?
  • Remember, your cover letter should demonstrate not only you're qualified but also passionate about becoming an active contributor in the Hyperledger open source community - through this experience.

Step 5: apply on LFX Mentorship Platform

LFX Mentorship, developed by The Linux Foundation, of which Hyperledger is part of, is the portal where the Hyperledger mentorship projects are listed and mentee applications will be taken.

  • Go to LFX Mentorship Platform
  • Create Your Mentee Profile (you will need to create an LFID first you don't already have one
  • View all projects and search by "Hyperledger" to see all 22 Hyperledger projects open for application
  • Click on the specific Hyperledger projects to read about the project details
  • Be sure to "View Site" to take you to the corresponding wiki page for complete project information
  • When ready, click "Apply" (remember you can apply up to 3 projects) -Complete the application prerequisites: latest resume and cover letter
  • Please review detailed application instructions that may further assist your application on LFX Mentorship.

Benefits for Student Interns

  • Mentees gain exposure to real-world software development by working closely with active developers in the community.

  • Mentees get introduced to open source development infrastructure, tooling, and culture.

  • Mentees have the hands-on opportunity to do work related to their academic and professional interests and to further the pursuit of those interests.

  • Mentees develop close working relationships with open source professionals and industry business leaders to expand their professional network.

Benefits for Hyperledger Community

  • More source code gets written and used for the benefit of all.

  • The mentorship program helps create a pipeline to a diverse, well-educated pool of developers.

  • The mentorship program helps spread the word about Hyperledger and its related technologies at academic institutions and increase academia’s interest in the teaching and research of the technologies.

  • The mentorship program helps Hyperledger gain valuable insight into new developer onboarding processes and how to lower the barriers to entry for new developers.

  • The mentorship program creates positive press for Hyperledger via testimonials, brand recognition, and peer-to-peer messaging

Mentee Stipend and Travel Funding

Mentees will be eligible to receive a stipend. The total stipend amount will be calculated using a tiered structure based on the country where the mentee resides when participating in the program. The stipend will be paid in installments provided that regular interval evaluations show the intern is making satisfactory progress. The final installment will be paid upon successful project completion.

Mentees who successfully complete the program may be invited and financially sponsored by Hyperledger to attend a technical event and present their work to the broader community (specific event TBD depending on the event schedule but will be during Q3 or Q4 of the program year or Q1 of the following year).

Summer FT (Full-Time) Mentee Schedule

Full time program requires the commitment of 40 hours per week for 12 consecutive weeks from a mentee and this option is recommended for those who do not have other significant commitment such as school or work from June to August to dedicate full time to working on the internship project.

  • June 1: official start date
  • June 18: 1st Quarter Evaluation at the end of week 3
  • July 9: Midterm Evaluation at the end of week 6 (midterm stipend will be paid to the mentee if the mentee is in good standing with the mentor following the midterm evaluation)
  • July 30: 3rd Quarter Evaluation at the end of week 9
  • August 20-31: Final Evaluation upon conclusion of the internship at the end of week 12 (final stipend will be paid to the mentee if the mentor determines that the mentee has successfully completed the internship following the final evaluation)

Summer PT (Part-Time) Mentee Schedule

Part time program requirements the commitment of 20 hours per week for 24 consecutive weeks and this option is recommended for those who are in school or have other significant commitments for the duration of the program.

  • June 1: official start date
  • July 9: 1st Quarter Evaluation at the end of week 6
  • August 20: Midterm Quarter Evaluation at the end of week 12 (midterm stipend will be paid to the mentee if the mentee is in good standing with the mentor following the midterm evaluation)
  • October 1: 3rd Quarter Evaluation at the end of week 18
  • November 12: Final Evaluation upon conclusion of the internship at the end of week 24 (final stipend stipend will be paid to the mentee if the mentor determines that the mentee has successfully completed the internship following the final evaluation)

Project Proposal

  • Project maintainers, active contributors and community members are welcome to submit a mentorship project proposal for consideration.

  • Multiple mentors supervising one mentee per project would be desirable as this helps spread the workload and reduce the challenge of coverage caused by working remotely with a mentee in a different time zone.

  • The mentor(s) need to be familiar with the project and is/are expected to directly supervise the hired mentee's technical work.

  • The proposed project needs to be clearly scoped and structured to be suitable for a mentorship project.

  • The project should be related to one of the current Hyperledger Projects or Labs.

  • The outcome of the project will benefit the existing Hyperledger Projects or Labs or advance the Hyperledger open source technical community's work at large.

  • The mentor(s) should be ready to be the sponsor of the mentorship project as a Hyperleger Lab when the mentorship commences. This ensures that the project progress can be tracked and the project output can be publicly accessible to the community.

Proposal Review/Selection Process and Criteria

  • The TSC reviews all proposals and validate and/or select projects to open for applications on Linux Foundation LFX Mentorship in coordination with the mentorship program admin.
  • General selection criteria are:
  • The selected proposals have clearly scoped learning objectives and outcomes that are suitable for one mentee, either a student developer/researcher or a new contributor, to complete within 12 weeks if working full time or 24 weeks if working part time.
  • The selected proposals will represent a nice mix of project difficulty levels. Some low, medium, and high difficulties.
  • The selected proposals will maximize the diversity of the proposals, mentors, and mentees.
  • The selected proposals should have a direct connection or relevance to an existing Hyperledger project or lab.
  • The selected proposals will further increase the contributor/maintainer base of the related Hyperledger project or lab.
  • The selected proposals are related to as many Hyperledger projects or lab as possible.
  • The mentors of the selected proposals will represent a nice mix of experienced and new mentors. -Review the current year program schedule including project proposal and selection period.

How to Get a Head Start

  • Review Hyperledger Code of Conduct
  • Browse and take Hyperledger training and tutorials that may be relevant to your interest and project
  • Create LFID and familiarize yourself with the collaboration tools
  • Peruse relevant documentations and mailing list archives
  • Reach out to mentor(s) to schedule weekly check in meetings. Spend one of the 1st meetings aligning on expectations, communication channels/norms/tools, any vacation or - academic scheduling conflict
  • Set up your development environment and tools and do some practice
  • Start working on project plan with your mentor(s) that includes project objectives, milestones/deliverables, methodology, documentation. Project plan should be posted on the wiki for transparency and accountability by end of week