TIF 2.0: Through the participant’s eye
Tezos India has been at the heart of propagating Tezos through the TezIndia hackathon, as a Season Sponsor for student-run mini-university hackathons across the nation, and the Tezos India Fellowship, in collaboration with Devfolio. Tezos is quickly becoming the platform of choice for building scalable blockchain applications in the Indian developer community, thanks to the accessible tooling, support, and mentorship provided. 30 great builders worked for 8 weeks alongside the best in the Tezos ecosystem on significant projects. Over the course of an 8-week mentor-led programme, the top developers in India were coached and assisted in learning and then building on the Tezos stack while getting a $2000 stipend.
To get you a better outlook of the program here we share experience from our bests and brightest:
Srijan: Our time at TIF 2.0 was spent building BitHounds — a platform where users can buy and trade NFTs representing pixel-y monsters. Each hound is procedurally generated and has a unique DNA sequence that determines its characteristics such as rarity, moon affiliation, mood and its pixel avatar. Hounds can be bred to give birth to a new generation of hounds that may have new characters separate from both parents. The project uses Taquito, React, Node.js. IPFS, and smart contracts written in SmartPy.
Tezos India did a wonderful job supporting our project and getting us to a point where we could pitch the prototype to a panel of experts in the domain and receive appreciative feedback.
Ayush Yadav: Hello everyone, I am Ayush Yadav currently pursuing my B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from Netaji Subhas University of Technology East Campus. It’s been almost 6 months since I was introduced to the blockchain world and Tezos Ecosystem. I began my journey to learn blockchain on my own. I used to study on google and watch youtube videos to understand and grasp advanced concepts. It was a difficult journey as I had no one to clear my doubts and concepts.
One day through social media I came across the Tezos India Fellowship (TIF) 2.0 program being organized by Tezos India. Through that, I was introduced to a Telegram channel for developers working on Tezos Blockchain (https://t.me/indiatezosdeveloper). I found this channel immensely helpful in clearing my doubts and errors. There I came to know about an awesome site that can help budding developers like me to kick start their journey on Tezos.
CryptoCodeSchool (https://cryptocodeschool.in/) is a platform where developers can learn the basics of blockchain, SmartPy, FA2 Tokens, Taquito, etc. It has 5 extensive modules that can help in getting a deep understanding of Tezos and its ecosystem. After going through each of them you receive a Cryptobot as an NFT to showcase on your profile. During the application period, I completed all 5 modules and started working on a mini project on Tezos Blockchain.
I think my prerequisite knowledge of Tezos and its ecosystem provided me an edge over other applicants. After my application got selected, I was required to clear 2 interview rounds. And soon the big day came, I along with 30 other fellows got selected for the fellowship program out of 5000+ applications.
On the first day of fellowship, I was introduced to other fellows. In the next few weeks, we were made familiar with various tools and technologies in Tezos and its ecosystem. After that, we were required to submit idea proposals individually or as a team. There I teamed with another fellow and now my friend, Sanket Nighot. We brainstormed some ideas and finalised the idea of creating a gaming platform on top of Tezos Blockchain. For the next two months, we worked on building the MVP of the project, had various meetings with our mentors, and explored the ecosystem.
We later named our project ‘Game Geeks’. Here is the gist of our project.
Game Geeks’ is building a Decentralised Gaming Platform on Tezos Blockchain which allows players to play different games and compete with fellow players to win exciting rewards. We aspire to build a sustainable, creative and dynamic gaming platform by introducing the benefits of the Tezos Blockchain Technology to the gaming sector, which is rapidly expanding a volume of approximately $250 billion by 2023. The MVP we built consisted of a game that was connected to the Tezos blockchain and the players were allowed to battle out 1v1 while betting tokens on their skills and will get the winning pot. It also consisted of a Gaming NFT marketplace.
At the end of the fellowship, we presented our DApp in front of the Tezos India & APAC team. There we got some positive reviews and feedback about our project. Later, we came to know that our project got selected for Ecosystem Growth Grants (EGG). After that, we pitched our idea and our future proposal to further make it a full-fledged DApp to the TZ APAC team. We had some follow-up meetings and finally, after making various updates, the Tezos team accepted our application for EGG.
Now we are working on expanding our project and launching it as soon as possible on the mainnet. We at Game Geeks believe that the Gaming industry is rapidly growing and now the world has started recognizing it as a mainstream sector where gamers and game developers are now getting the worth they deserve.
I want to say to all those budding blockchain developers that it’s never too late to start. In the start, you may face some problems and hardships but believe in yourself and there is always a developer community to support you throughout the phase.
Finally, I would like to thank the Tezos India and TZ APAC team for believing in us and guiding us throughout the process.
Sanket: Hello Everyone, I am Sanket Nighot. Currently working on the Tezos Blockchain, building projects, and exploring the blockchain world.
I am a Graduate in Information Technology. It’s been a year since I am learning and building on Blockchain Technology and Tezos Ecosystem. In the beginning, I started learning blockchain on my own, but faced some problems understanding some deep concepts. So, I decided to join a Boot Camp organised by The Blockchain School. It helped me a lot to clear my basics.
After the Bootcamp, I was searching for opportunities to work and build on blockchain. At that time I came across the Tezos India Fellowship 2.0 organised by Tezos India. So, I found it as a great opportunity to start my career in blockchain, so I applied for the fellowship. We needed to clear the 2 selection rounds for getting selected in the fellowship. I was one of the 30 fellows who were selected for the Tezos India Fellowship out of 3000+ applications.
When the fellowship started, we were first introduced to our fellows on the kick start day. The next 1–2 weeks were followed by learning the Tezos ecosystem and brainstorming on ideas which we would like to work on during the fellowship. I started to explore the Tezos Ecosystem and simultaneously learn about it. I grouped with Ayush Yadav, who was my fellow in the fellowship. We brainstormed on a few ideas which we were looking forward to building during the fellowship.
We sorted some of the ideas and then discussed with the mentors and finalised one idea to work on. Then we started to build the MVP of the project and this continued for the rest of the 2 months.
The project we selected for working in fellowship was Game Geeks.
Currently, we are working on the project, which is soon going to launch on the mainnet. We at Game Geeks believe that the Gaming industry is rapidly growing and now the world has started recognizing it as a mainstream sector where gamers and game developers are now getting the worth they deserve.
Overall, I would like to say that Tezos India Fellowship 2.0 was one of the turning points of my life where I learned a lot and am still learning a lot. It helped me learn at the same time. I would like to thank the Tezos India team, the Tezos APAC team for guiding me through this and helping me in learning and building.
