NEAR Academy AMA
NEAR Academy has recently launched on NEAR Protocol, as an immediate first step for developers to get involved in the NEAR Ecosystem. Today, 4NTS Guild had the chance to sit down with 101 Labs on their vision for NEAR academy, and all of the unique facets it holds for a prospective developer looking to break into the crypto-verse.
The basic idea behind NEAR Academy is to equip developers to build apps on NEAR Protocol. From a high level overview, why would a developer today want to dip their toes into the world of cryptocurrencies and smart contracts?
Sherif: “Software is eating the world”, wrote Marc Andreesen ten years ago. In fact we are now, for the first time in human history, able to economically incentivize truth, and therefore trust, among strangers. Blockchain technology and the smart contracts managed by it is the first provably honest actor in human history. This actor may soon replace banks, governments and more as its speed, scalability and affordability improve in coming years. For any software developer who joins this movement today, the world will be rich with opportunities tomorrow.
Is there a specific profile for the developers that you are looking for, to join NEAR Academy?
Albert: NEAR Academy targets web developers who want to dive into blockchain. We do not expect any prior blockchain knowledge, but a basic understanding of web development. NEAR Academy focuses on showing how to develop a dApp and how to interact with smart contracts.
How has NEAR Academy been structured to cover the most important parts of getting started on NEAR?
Laurent: This has been a process of using the available material developed by the NEAR foundation, NEAR developers and partners, and making it our own. We focused on the profile of the people this course is for, the learning objectives, and the best structure (content + exercises) to support the learning objectives. Without forgetting that it should be fun, of course.
We had several iterations with our main contact at NEAR, who heads the education programs, to nail down a flow of the Academy. We think this is intuitive for Web developers, but of course we are open to update and refine to make it the easiest and most fun way to dive into NEAR.
Gary: NEAR Documentation was easy to work with. The focus on user friendliness is perceivable in NEAR, in every of its expressions. With the NEAR Academy’s modules, you will be progressively onboarded into a meta-working like scenario. This blended with the NEAR values, and several interactions, brought us to establish what will hopefully be the NEAR Educational/Onboarding options.
How long does it take to complete a NEAR Academy course?
Albert: It really depends on your level of commitment. If you just read through the text and do not care for any exercises you can walk through the course in something like 20 minutes. If you take notes and also follow the exercises and try to understand the example applications it might take you something around 3 hours. Though this heavily depends on you.
How can one contribute to NEAR Academy as a developer, designer or content creator?
Albert: NEAR Academy is completely open-source. This includes all the graphics, frontend, backend and contracts.
Anyone who wants to get involved can easily get started on Github:
Academy: https://github.com/101labs-tech/near-academy
Contracts: https://github.com/Learn-NEAR/sample--meme-museum
Gary: You don’t have to be necessarily technical to contribute to the Academy, all you need is a clear plan on what to do and how to execute. I would strongly recommend to get in contact to understand what the priorities are.
If a developer had to choose between NEAR Academy and another way of getting started in crypto, why would you recommend NEAR Academy?
Laurent: NEAR Academy is the most lightweight, simple and quick entry point for Web developers into crypto. NEAR was built with this end in mind, and we reapplied the design principles during the creation process of NEAR Academy to provide an easy and fun way to get started.
Albert: NEAR Academy is heavily focused on web developers. It compares new paradigms and possibilities with current technologies. It tries to make the transition seamless and easy by introducing aspects of NEAR as an enhancement of current tech stacks step by step.
What should a developer be able to do once he graduates from NEAR Academy? What role do you envision graduates of the Academy playing in the Ecosystem in the Future?
Laurent: Graduates of NEAR Academy will be able to create their own dApps on NEAR, or connect their current Apps to NEAR straight away. They are also provided all the relevant onboarding information to get started within the community, where to find grants, how to join guilds, and how to get involved in the ecosystem in general.
Gary: After getting your certificate, I think there are two ways to approach this:
- Start contributing to the growth of NEAR Academy by being proactive in leveraging this educational hub for the community and yourself
- Keep exploring the NEAR Ecosystem and join a Guild
- Do both
NEAR Academy is young, as is the NEAR Ecosystem. How do you plan on expanding the academy into the future? What support would be helpful from the NEAR community to achieve these goals?
Laurent: We have ambitious plans to develop NEAR Academy further, including better connectivity with NEAR Testnet and Mainnet, continuous improvements systems and outreach activities. We are also discussing new modules that would offer value to the community, like for example on the Rainbow Bridge or NFTs.
In the long term, in about a year or so, we envision that NEAR Academy will be handled entirely by the community. This is a model that has worked well with Ocean Academy, which now is an independent organization within the ecosystem made of community members for community members. If anyone is looking to get involved, please get in touch!
Beyond the existing chapters of the course, what else can we expect from NEAR Academy in terms of covering different components of NEAR Protocol in the Future? A module on the NEAR EVM? Or Launching an NFT Marketplace?
Laurent: Exactly, we are discussing a lot of options, including the Rainbow Bridge, NFTs, external smart contract/apps development, and more.
How do you envision NEAR Academy growing over the course of the next 6 months? Are there any plans for recruiting more developers willing to contribute to NEAR Academy?
Laurent: Absolutely! As I mentioned, in the long term the Academy will be self-governed by the NEAR community. Our role in developing the academy is to open the door to developers and contributors from the vibrant NEAR community, and get them involved with the development of the vision, adoption, content and infrastructure.
This effort will start over Q3 2021 and will scale over time as needed to best support NEAR Academy. The evolution will be gradual, and we will learn and adapt as we go, but that’s the idea.
Gary: NEAR Academy is for NEAR Community first. The way to see this is as an educational gateway for the all NEAR Ecosystem. I invite other NEAR projects to consider having a dedicated module on the academy.
As the Crypto-verse continues to develop, is there a specific area of it that you are keen to see more developers enter into? What are the greatest opportunities for existing developers entering Crypto today?
Laurent: Oh my! I’m not a developer myself, but I can’t help to wonder: if I was a Web developer, would I not be dying to jump into the Web3 world? From art, to open finance, to social economies: the space is expanding in all directions, opportunities are everywhere to be seized, literally!
