ARK Developer Outreach — 3 New Programs to Increase Communication & Collaboration
The ARK.io Team is dedicated to supporting our ever growing community of open-source developers. Their contributions are integral to the success of both the ARK Blockchain Platform and the ARK Public Network. To continue to grow and nurture this community, we are implementing three (3) new developer focused outreach programs aimed at improving communication & collaboration. We believe these efforts will allow us to continue to foster an open and inclusive environment for ARK veterans and newcomers alike.
Fostering Collaboration
ARK was founded as an open-source, collaborative project. In the last 12 months, we have had over 200 contributors to our various projects on the ARK public Github. With the ARK.io team maintaining 12 full-time developers, that means the ARK open-source developer community is over 16x larger than the ARK.io Team. We continue to be grateful that anyone would choose to spend their time and energy contributing to our project and we want to honor that by ensuring that we are giving the community the knowledge and tools necessary to help make the ARK Ecosystem one of the top projects in the industry.
We believe that by increasing our outward facing lines of communication and continuing to pull back the curtain on our development efforts, we can improve the overall opportunities for collaboration between the community and our team. As of June, we are implementing three (3) new developer outreach programs that we believe will form a solid foundation for building a stronger ecosystem.
Program #1: ARK Developer AMAs
Starting in the month of June, the ARK.io Team will be conducting weekly AMAs with our project leads responsible for each component of the ARK Blockchain Platform. These AMAs will be conducted in our public Slack and will rotate between the various projects throughout the month.
Every project lead will conduct at least one (1) session per month and sessions will last approximately one (1) hour. We will have two (2) Project Leads present every Thursday (with the exception of Roundtable Thursdays) with one session at 10:00 UTC and one at 20:00 UTC. Projects will rotate time slots in order to cover all time zones equally.
During the hour long AMA, the project lead will provide a status update on their project and be available for answering questions. This is your opportunity to pick the brain of the developers and get to know the members of our team who are shaping the future of the ARK Ecosystem.
Details:
- Where: The ARK Public Slack — Channel #ama
- When: Thursdays at 10:00 UTC & 20:00 UTC (excluding Roundtable Thursdays)
The schedule for June can be found at the end of this post. In the future, we will have a dedicated page on the new website for keeping track of the monthly event schedule.
Transcripts of sessions will be posted to pastebin and available on the website and Reddit.
Program #2: ARK Developer Roundtable
The ARK Developer Roundtable is a monthly, open attendance video call, conducted by ARK.io Chief Technical Officer (CTO), Kristjan Košič. These calls allow a unique opportunity to present information to the community, gain valuable insight from community developers, and coordinate efforts to bring everyone together into a unified vision and focus.
The ARK Developer Roundtable is an inclusive meeting that allows all members to be equal and share both opinions & ideas while receiving feedback from both the team and the community. We have already conducted two monthly sessions and the feedback was very positive. Moving forward, the ARK Developer Roundtable will take place the last Thursday of every month.
Topics of discussion include, but are not limited to:
- ARK.io Development Roadmap
- AIP Review & Discussion
- Tier 0 Updates & Discussion
- Upcoming Releases & Testing Guidelines
- Community Project Proposals & Idea Exchange
Recordings of each Developer Roundtable will be available on the ARK.io website and Youtube channel once complete.
Details:
- Where: GoToMeeting (Links available in #AMA Channel during meetings)
- When: Last Thursday of every month.
Program #3: ARK Blockchain Workshops
Our third and final program is focused on education. We believe that in order to continue to grow and improve our community of open-source developers, we need to both bring new developers into the Blockchain industry, as well as continue to develop and educate those who have already joined our community.
The ARK Blockchain Workshops will be 2–4 hour workshops that present everything from Basic Blockchain Concepts to Advanced ARK Plugin Development. These sessions will be conducted by the ARK.io Team and ARK Community members who have expertise in various aspects of development. Sessions will be conducted using GoToWebinar and will be free, open-enrollment workshops that anyone can attend.
The first ARK Blockchain Workshop will debut in July. We will provide additional details on topics and scheduling towards the end of June. If you have any ideas for topics you would be interested in, email sam@ark.io with your ideas or bring them to the June Developer Roundtable!
Recordings of each workshop will be available on the ARK.io website as well as our Youtube channel once complete.
Details:
- Where: GoToWebinar (Links available in #AMA Channel during Workshops)
- When: Starting in July (Date TBD)
Schedule: June 2019
The ARK Developer AMAs & ARK Developer Roundtable will officially go live beginning next month (June 2019).
Thursday, June 6th:
- ARK Desktop Wallet: Alex (10:00 UTC)
- ARK Mobile Wallet: Lúcio (20:00 UTC)
Thursday, June 13th:
- ARK Deployer: Alex (10:00 UTC)
- ARK Internet-of-Things (IoT): Simon (20:00 UTC)
Thursday, June 20th:
- ARK Explorer: Michel (10:00 UTC)
- ARK CORE: Joshua (20:00 UTC)
Thursday, June 27th:
- Developer Roundtable: Chris
The first ARK Blockchain Workshop will take place starting in July. Follow ARK on social media or join our slack to stay up to date on our upcoming schedules.
Just the Start
While these new programs will go a long way towards increasing our communication and collaboration with the ARK Community of open-source developers, we believe this is just the start. The ARK.io Team will continue to look for new and innovative ways to reach out to our community and help foster a growing ecosystem that we believe is one of the best in the industry.
Through these new AMAs, roundtables, and workshops, we can harness the talents within our community and focus our energy and efforts on working together on amazing new projects. Whether you are a 2 year veteran of the ARK Ecosystem or brand new to Blockchain, we intend to have something that can help you join in and help shape the future of the ARK Ecosystem together!
