Who are @jwmdev and the team behind mhc.watch and MHConnect?
As you remember, a couple of weeks ago we encouraged you to hang out more and share your achievements with the community, thus contributing to its development and strengthening.
Some of you have already shown interest in such activity, and today we’re happy to bring you a message from #MetaHash enthusiasts Joseph (@jwmdev) and his team.
They’ll talk about why they’re interested in the project, what they’ve already accomplished, and how they’re helping the community and the project move forward.
Anyone can share interesting ideas related to the project in our social networks — just contact our admins @vinnythe or @az5kf and they’ll be happy to help!
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Hey! This is @jwmdev. My real name is Joseph Wambura Matiko. If you are wondering, strangely sounding names have meaning. Wambura literally means rain and Matiko literally means night. It means I was born on a rainy season at night! Probably this is the reason I like coding at night :)
I am currently based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where I live with my wife and five children. We live about 40 minutes from the city center and about 5 minutes from the beautiful white sand Indian ocean beaches.
I did my bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering at Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology (Tanzania) and I obtained an EU Erasmus Scholarship to pursue an international Masters Programme in Wireless Communications at Lund University (Sweden). Then I joined my PhD studies in the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton (United Kingdom).
I am now a full-time employee of the Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology, one of the oldest technical training institutions in my country. I am working as a lecturer, researcher, and consultant and I am currently teaching undergraduate and masters students in the field of Embedded programming, Advanced computational Algorithms, and Data Mining. I am extremely busy at work and I normally do #Metahash development after working hours, often in the late evening or early morning and on weekends.
My journey in cryptocurrency started in 2011 when I first heard about Bitcoin from my fellow PhD students at the University of Southampton. I mined a few satoshi through a mining pool but I was so busy with my studies that I decided to shut down my rig and forgot everything about Bitcoin. In 2018, my interest in cryptocurrency was reignited and I started looking for potential projects that I could get involved in. I was looking for projects that meet the following criteria: (1) energy-efficient and environmentally friendly consensus protocol, (2) zero or low transaction fee, (3) high transaction rate and scalability, (4) security, and (5) innovation. #Metahash project was among a few projects that met my criteria and I started investing in it since ICO in August 2018.
Over time, I felt that I needed to contribute to this great project and to the community. My #Metahash development journey started from a Telegram conversation with James Flame (@JamesFlame) in July 2020 where there was a discussion about a discontinued MHC Explorer site “metawat.ch”.
I checked the metawat.ch repository by @xboston and I was glad when I found that the service was developed using Golang. So I started developing it further and finally resumed the service that was really needed by the community. Now the service is actively being developed and maintained at http://mhc.watch. Whenever I was stuck, I consulted @xboston who provided great technical support and always responded promptly (thanks @xboston, you are awesome). The mhc.watch server is now used to give additional information to the community and feeds data to other third party sites, such as https://blocktivity.info/.
Initially, I started working closely with James Flame (@JamesFlame) in the development team. James is among the community members who have been encouraging me to keep moving on. I personally feel privileged to have him on our team. He has been helping me with coordination and collaboration, organized our original advertisement to request other members to delegate to our server (mhc.watch). Server rewards are retained to sustain the mhc.watch service. I was thrilled by the support received by community members. Later, other team members joined the team. Everyone has contributed ideas and every idea is considered and valued then and now.
In August 2020, James and I had a long conversation and, finally, we decided to move on with the #Metahash Android mobile wallet development. James helped mobilize a small team of testers, who gave invaluable contributions and feedback and gave various suggestions including the wallet name. The app can be downloaded from Google Play Store by simply searching for MHConnect. The wallet is currently in Beta, with over 100 downloads so far.
Engaging the community in the development creates a sense of project ownership. In addition, using the community helps release a lot of pressure from the core development team, because some of the services can be created by community teams/members. This approach gives more time for the core team to focus on advanced project features. Both mhc.watch and the MHConnect app are typical examples of community-driven initiatives developed by a small and passionate team with no funding. Effective communication and regular development updates have been some of the key contributing factors to the success made so far. I would therefore recommend the following to the core #Metahash team:
First, consider the allocation of the development fund to incentivize the community to contribute to the project in a controlled manner. Small project tasks could be given to the community in return for MHC rewards. We believe that encouraging developers is the best way to boost adoption and to drive demand for MHC.
Second, the core team should employ effective communication techniques to engage the community and provide more informative updates regularly.
Finally, for the mhc.watch service and MHConnect app, we would request the core team to delegate development funds to our server (mhc.watch) and the daily server reward obtained will be used to support the development and sustain the service. Running the server is expensive, and we are a long way from being self-sufficient.
On behalf of the mhc.watch and MHConnect team, I would like to thank the community for the support received in terms of ideas, comments, feedback, donation, and delegation on mhc.watch server. It has been a challenging year in so many ways, but in terms of building on the Metahash blockchain, it’s been a really wonderful year.
I am looking forward to putting more development time into the mhc.watch service and MHConnect app — we have a lot of ideas to work through. I believe this contribution will add value to the community and to the #Metahash project.
Also, I wish every #Metahash community member a Happy New Year 2021. Keep your eyes peeled for the imminent mhc.watch/MHConnect development roadmap for 2021!
That’s all for now, stay in touch!
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