EPF6 Office Hours #1

Very well. So, welcome everyone uh once again. Uh it's great to have you here uh the EPF6 and today is a special one because we have also some visiting people from the EPF5. So, uh it's our first office hours. Um just to start with a bit of a context um just to re reiterate on how the fellowship goes from now on uh we have the Monday stand-ups.

Uh we had an introduction this Monday. Next Monday will be a regular standup and uh on Wednesday we have office hours which are um special up to discussion topic uh sessions which um uh mostly host somebody with experience in core development, somebody to help to guide you uh throughout the fellowship, somebody to answer your questions and um uh we invite people from across the client teams. We uh invite people from uh uh research or people who previously uh did something interesting but uh because we are starting the fellowship just now uh we thought of doing something special and we invited not one not two but three speakers today. Um we have uh Katya I see Rahul and Daniel uh here um all success successful follows from previous year. So the most recent people who finished um the fellowship and uh ended up joining us.

So yeah, thanks thanks for being here all of you guys. Um I think it's great to have you here to uh just provide some inspiration advice uh for the people who are starting just now and um yeah if you can uh if you can just introduce yourself we'll start with that. um if you can tell us a bit about yourself, where you're coming from, uh what you did in fellowship and what do you do now uh just shortly about yourself, about your work. Yeah. Uh whoever wants to start, uh I want to say ladies first, but uh it's up to you guys.

No. Okay. So, whoever has the confidence Yeah. to kick it off. I can start if you want.

Go for it. Hey, I'm Daniel. uh as Mar said I uh was a fellow in previous years uh EPF and yeah uh it was an amazing experience and um yeah I before before doing EPF I was in a uh non Ethereum context a developer and several years before EPF I kind of got an interest in in Ethereum and um went to a few hackathons and realized that it's really fun to work on Ethereum like it's a just you know uh being such a complex topic and having so many different areas um where expertise is needed um was really fun as a as a hobby and after some time I finished my studies and decided I want to try and become a core developer because that's the part of Ethereum that you know was the most fun to me. Um so I applied for EPF and was luckily accepted. So um last year I did my project which was network simulations uh using uh software called shadow where I basically um ran the Ethereum several Ethereum clients in a simulation and tested some things especially um with regards to Pas which is upcoming upgrade.

Um and yeah after after a while or during during my EPF um project I was in contact with my mentor which was um Adrien Manning from Zigma Prime uh who works on Lighthouse in SEC client and um yeah after after a while uh yeah he was basically like uh do you want to interview with us? Uh and so then I joined Sigma Prime in November and yeah now I'm working uh currently still on another project in Sigma Prime but uh shifting my attention more uh to Lighthouse in the recent weeks. I'm Rahul. Uh my background is very similar to that of Daniel's in that uh been doing some web two stuff uh previously. Um I joined first the study group which Marian Josh uh held like a precursor to the fellowship.

Then I was accepted to the fellowship where I did some work on EVM especially the pricing bits of EVM. Uh where I looked at uh whether the pricing for memory could be revised uh and yeah I did some work around that um with a team in EF called epsilon. Um and yeah, I continued working on it for a while and January this year I uh you know became a got to join EF. Uh and in EF I work with uh a team of researcher. We basically uh like prototype upcoming EIPs.

So I I do most of research engineering works where I like look at an EIP and see how things would play out. uh uh whether parameters can be adjusted, work with uh client teams to help implement them. Uh yeah, so uh yeah, basically getting the leg work done for EIP implementations. Um I'm working currently on an EIP called block level access list which uh is being targeted for Clamster. So yeah, that's uh that's what my background is and what I'm currently working on.

Hello. Thank you for having us, Mario. It's yeah, like good old times. I feel still a fellow. Uh yeah, my background is web development.

It's kind of enterprise corporate development more than 10 plus years. And uh yeah, I switched to crypto to web three like well I started interesting in it 20 2017 or 18 and then I fully switched in 20 um 22. Yeah, I work for startup u doing smart contracts uh doing testing stuff with defy platform. Yeah, I've been just active in the space, a lot of conferences, a lot of hackathons. Um, and I joined women theory protocols and started contributing into the protocol.

Um and then yeah that's where I I found out about the fellowship um and uh applied and joined the fellowship and my project was uh standardizing uh pure test metrics uh which means that uh for testing clients uh we need kind of uh the same metrics just to have the same benchmarks and uh while running the test net um this is what I've started during my fellowship. ship and I still continue and maintain this ripple. Uh yeah, we're progressing in this. Um yeah, so that's really important for testing phase. Thank you.

Oh, sorry. I forgot I forgot to say that I contribute to low star current. Sorry, a little bit nervous. Yeah. Just joined recently.

Yeah. I kind of outsourced contributor currently. It's like a Yeah. different type of contract. Very well.

Uh thanks everyone. And um as you can see uh I we have three people here representing also like different sort of experience that you can uh get in the EPF or outcomes that you can expect after EPF. Um I I chose three of you folks. Uh well not just because I bumped into you last week and it was easy to ask you to come. Uh but uh you guys did a great job.

You I think are the example of success successful follows. uh but also uh there are many other great su successful fellows of course but uh the these are also great examples of people who've been working on different projects took different paths had different challenges and now uh we have u so Danielle who ended up being on boarded directly to a client team Katya who was working on a grant more independently and Rahul who joined a research team so uh basically three kind of outcomes you can hope for three different kind of outcomes you can hope for after the EPF uh but let's get back to the fellowship uh because you also had uh different starts in the fellowship, different challenges that you faced. Uh Rahul as he mentioned started all the way when uh the first study group started last year. Um Daniel actually had to join a bit later uh the cohort because he was still finishing his work. Um, so, uh, my question for for you guys is, uh, what was some, um, maybe something that caught you, uh, off guard, something unexpected during the cohort that you had to deal with or maybe something that changed, some assumptions you had about the core development or Ethereum?

What was something, yes, surprising, some some challenge that you didn't expect uh, during the the fellowship? Um, if you have any any thoughts, feel free to speak up. Yeah, for me uh it was challenging because uh I didn't contribute into the protocol before. So, uh it it was it was all new for me just protocol development. Uh and that is why uh you needed to learn a lot uh like from from specs to EAPs and P2P everything like a lot of things to learn uh from scratch.

Uh that was the challenging part. Yeah, kind of adjacent to what Katya said. Um there's as I also said in my introduction, it's nice that there's like so many areas in Ethereum that you can invest your time in, but it's also a curse because there is so much and and especially doing this first phase of EPF which was cut short as Mario said for me um just researching uh all the different areas uh was was challenging and then also staying focused on the one area you picked your project on. Like uh it's it's of course it's nice to have a general overview of what's going on in Ethereum right now and that's also important but just don't expect from yourself that you can follow all that in in uh you know complete detail that's impossible. So, so yeah, I guess that was a challenge I didn't really anticipate.

Yeah, for me I think uh like I started looking into even within my topic a lot of resources uh that went back in time. So it's ideally good to find a cut off um in the time that you invest into researching. Um, so if I were to start over, I'd probably do the bare minimum of reading and then get get to coding or whatever project uh uh outcomes are supposed to do then you know reading up a lot of things that and going sideways. you know it's very difficult to lose time if you keep reading stuff and then um you can you can always come back and read more but but if I were to do it again like I said I just do the bare minimum stuff uh and then you know started rating on that a couple more questions I just want to uh mention again uh folks this is AMA. So anybody can ask questions.

Uh we have 40 people here listening. So uh please feel free to write your uh questions to the comments but I think I might not see all the messages coming. Uh you can use discord. You can raise your hand. Um so I will open more for the audience.

Feel free to use the raise in the hand feature in uh in Discord. Uh sorry in uh Jity here. Um and um just to continue with one more question for me meanwhile uh while you get your questions ready. Um so yeah actually it's this is I think Katya is a great inspiration here. I think you were the one always asking questions at these office hours like she a huge respect for that like she never she always took up al bunch of other people of course but I remember Katya specifically always uh took the chance to ask some question make a connection with the mentor and has some uh has some insightful questions.

So um I think that's uh that's uh one thing I wanted to highlight and also some of the reason why you guys are here why I chose you is that you were some of the most motivated people that really got dedicated uh to the fellowship. So I really respect your motivation dedication. I think that's something that can be inspiring. So my question would be like what uh what is the source of this uh for you or like how do you keep yourself going? It's really a marathon that's going to be five months.

It was a it was a long journey that took a lot of learning, a lot of uh a lot of challenges to solve. So yeah, how did you how did you manage to stay dedicated? Um yeah, what what kept what keeps you going guys? Whoever feels like it. Yeah.

Um yeah, I think what kept me going is uh knowing that this is the opportunity of a lifetime. Like uh I'm not sure if there's like been scenarios before where people uh joined multiple EPFs. I don't think so. Uh so so like this is it like this is the uh best opportunity to prove myself. uh I was this dependent fellow and because uh previously I had had another job but working on Ethereum during that time like I did a PR or two like on the side but that was challenging because I I just had no capacity and like this opportunity to dedicate myself into my project fully uh was great and there was little time like as Katya said or Rahul said there's little time and and one has to manage it and uh knowing that I don't have really have any time to waste uh motivated me.

It was also a bit stressful of course but it was also uh motivating and also all the great fellows like uh Kata and Rahul and all the others. Uh it was just great uh working with with them alongside hearing every week what they've been up to. Uh it's also you know kind of a uh yeah I guess yeah yeah it really good uh to to work with such awesome people um that motivated [Laughter] yeah so for me I think uh you know I I had no real big plans after the fellowship. But I was drawn into because the problems and the projects drafted by the codev were incredibly challenging. Uh and there were like genuinely new areas for you to work on that's manageable within uh the time period for fellowship and then everyone around you and uh the coders are also very very smart people.

So it's really motivating to work alongside them and see how you can contribute. I mean, if you use your time right, you could make a meaningful difference um uh in the Ethereum ecosystem, which I think is a is a great uh motivator. Yeah, for me, I had I always had an inspiration about blockchain. So, from the very beginning, um it just captured me the technology itself. So, decentralized servers.

So, um this is what I wanted to build from the very beginning. Um yeah, I just had this long journey uh which I didn't know how to start. But when I come when I came to this point like this is what I really wanted to do always. So I'm not going to go anywhere. So yeah, this is just my place where it should be.

This is how I feel. uh and I I I've read a lot of like books about blockchain technology, how it brings uh so what it brings to people, the future possibilities. Uh yeah, at the very beginning it was really inspiring. So still inspires me and what we're building here is amazing actually. It's super cool technology.

Yeah, I hope we will adopt it more and more. I think these are all great answers we got. I like that you guys have different perspectives and everybody can find their own niche there and I very much resonate with all of you. Uh I mean being part of Ethereum something uh this special this big. It's a it's an honor.

It's something that's uh uh really feels special to to work towards. And um folks I want to ask you again to uh ask questions. You can uh you can raise your hand. You can write to the comments. you can uh write to the discord chat or uh maybe um the issue in GitHub.

I'm also monitoring that and we get the first questions come in. Uh Harsh uh you were the first one. Go ahead. Wanted to ask how did you manage your time commitments? Like I'm still a university student.

So I have to juggle between a lot of stuff and EPF takes around like 25 to 30 hours per week and I'm including weekends as well. So you must you must be having some full-time job or something and EPF has to be a side thing or something. So how would how were you able to manage a lot of these things together given the fact that I get into a lot of rabbit holes like I keep on researching about stuff and then start coding. So a lot of juggling between different things. Yeah, I would love to get some opinions on that.

My answer is very easy. So I was just fully in in the fellowship. So I didn't have any other stuff to do. So I just fully in the fellowship. So unfortunately I can't give you an advice.

Yeah. alo also uh focusing on the uh fellowship 100% so no no side job or um anything like I had I had a tiny bit of university left but that was not that significant um but uh in general like time management is important and uh for me it was also very good that in the beginning uh I guess it's the same this time you have to write like a project proposal but you also have define a certain timeline and it's very important to keep those in mind and just treat them as deadlines. So, um if you realize that you would like to polish the phase one of your project more um that's tempting but at some point you got to move on to the further phases. So, uh you either yeah have to cut some some something or whatever. Uh so just making sure that these goals or yeah phases uh are important um is is is good and and just uh internalize that this is not like a side thing but if you have the time really set aside specific time slots when you are going to work on EPF like if you have if you are limited uh just being like I'll squeeze it there and there is is going to be hard.

So just set aside fixed time each week uh for it. That makes it probably easier. Yeah. And I would add to this just try not to choose huge project which you can't deliver by the end of the week. So you can choose maybe something less like time consuming.

So uh you could deliver it. If you don't know how much time it can take, you can just ask in the fellowship channel like is this huge project or ask mentors. So uh we can we I I I went through the ideas so like a little bit uh can understand if it's like really huge job, really huge project or not or so. Yeah, you can just ask time it will take. Uh so yeah, make sure to set the scope of your project correctly.

Uh there even if you're working just part-time on the fellowship like you can you can consider it's like you know two month three month project instead of four or five month. Um so uh consider that and we have some questions in the comments uh before I continue on. Uh we had um we had one earlier from Nando. How long did it take to choose your projects? Or maybe if you can recall not just the time but I would reframe the question like also um uh what was your decision process there?

If you can recall like what made you made you choose the the project? Yeah. What was the process? For me, I think I wanted to work with a certain team. Um, that was excelon in EF.

Um, and then my project was selecting a team and then looking at their projects and reading more about it. And fortunately, I was in uh interested in uh one of the projects that the team had put out. So for me the goal was probably to work closer with the team and then uh you know choosing a project for them and then yeah that's how I chose yeah same. So I uh I really like rest so I wanted to work on a rest based client. Uh so that narrowed it down quite a bit.

So uh looking at the project proposals uh there are certain mentors of course um so I tried to pick something uh that was kind of close to uh an a mentor from Zigma Prime or Paradigm and also I really like network uh networking stuff. So uh that was also then like two two two birds with one stone uh picking network simulations. Uh uh yeah and also I guess I wanted something that has a large part of implementation as well like um there are a lot of project projects which are more research adjacent but I wanted to implement something um so that was also nice uh because with the simulations I basically wrote a tool to make these simulations really easily runnable. So that combined this as well. Um for me uh I had a an area which I was interested in before the fellowship.

So it was DA layers data availability layers. So uh I was trying to dive deeper into it doing hackathons like learning its part and uh when I joined the fellowship um I was looking for something similar so how can I dive into it deeper so what's going on on the Ethereum side uh protocol itself and um it was as I said like pure dust testing phase and um I kind of had this question how can I help uh at this stage. So what can I do? So what what problem can I solve or how can I help? Uh this is how I started to choose my project.

Uh I joined the calls. Um yeah, I was trying to follow what's going on there. Um and that's how I find so I was talking to different people to mentors. So can I do this or this? So this is how I so find my project.

so much. Uh we got a couple more questions uh uh in the in the hands up. So we'll start with those first. Um um so we'll start with these. Uh Chander Praash has a hand up.

Uh if you want to if you want to ask something. Yes. Yes. Thank you Mario. Thank you all of first of all came here and guiding us.

I have the question regarding especially to the Rahul because he works in the research team also but kind of applied research team but like you work on a research project. So how you like plan a research projects and how you maintain the rhythm with the theoretical research and because like I feel like the project I choose is quite ambitious. Uh but I'm thinking to divide into cutlet into sub problems and choosing out one of them. So like what would what your advice for me for this project? Okay.

Okay, I don't I don't do blue sky research uh like in academia but there are EIPs and proposals from ETH research uh that our teams pick picks up and I particularly look at the feasibility of implementation. So I I look at a proposal and I I look at you know how how would implementation would that look like. So yeah, I don't do like a blue sky research where I pick a certain problem and try and come up a solution. Uh is that similar for you or are you like proposing a solution to a problem? Now yeah R like it's not similar to that I am thinking to proposing a solution to a problem.

Uh that's kind of project I have. So I'll speak from consuming a solution side of things. uh if you if you find a problem that you that you think you have a good solution for, I think the best way is to uh talk to people in like who are experts in that area. Maybe give them a draft of what you think uh your solution could look like before you invest like too much time into into like going deep into it. Uh getting feedback early would be really helpful.

I mean it could be that the solution that you tried you're trying now has been tried already. Uh so so it's it's nice to like have a short proposal talk to experts and get some feedback early. Okay. Thank you R. Yes.

Hi. Uh I'm wondering uh what's the most important thing uh you learned from the EPF last cohort for example if you do that again if you got a chance to do that again would you think you would definitely try to do something better um so the the most important thing I learned from being in the ecosystem especially the fellowship stack. Um like it's very uh the community is super open. So if you're if you're putting willing to put in the time uh people are really nice and you can you can probably talk to anyone in the community. Mario and Josh are uh you know there to support you.

So, it's really a matter of a uh picking something that you're really interested in and b, you know, investing your time into it. Uh, and and yeah, you you can you'd be surprised how how far you can go by doing these two things. I don't know. Nothing comes to my mind. only the one thing that I could start learning protocol early that's that's the only thing that comes to me so yeah this is how I could prepare so maybe I don't know like maybe I spend more time on GitHub or something like similar things uh but yeah I don't know like um I just learn a lot of things and uh no matter like how you start so you definitely need to learn a lot.

So yeah, for me um I kind of wish I would have allocated my time a little bit different. I don't want to get into any technical details but um basically I had an implementation phase and then a simulation phase where I did all my network simulations and um on one hand I kind of felt like I spent too much time on the implementation phase. On the other hand, um if if I had like instead of like these main two phases where I first do the implementation, then the simulations, I should have done a bit more iteratively like implement something, run some tests and yeah, kind of to to be able to adapt quicker. Um, so I guess in in a nutshell is um try to be able to uh get preliminary findings early in order to not waste too much time on the wrong things. Yeah.

Yeah. I totally agree with that. It happens a lot in like a previous hexen hex experience. Thanks a lot. Yeah.

And probably keeping in touch with your mentor that will help. So are you in the right direction? Are you progressing? So, All right. By the way, Mario AI is not really good with protocol stuff, so just be careful without it, especially like in those areas where it's niche and you need to actually practice some skill.

Um, uh, you will get, u, uh, yeah, you will get, uh, problems sooner or later with that. Uh, but we have bunch of questions. So, let's go to Shane now. Oh sh go ahead and Yeah. Yeah.

Awesome. Yeah. So when you were um communicating with your mentors during the fellowship, what format seemed to work best for you? Was it mostly um like DMs over Telegram or just like uh PR feedback? Did you ever have like direct calls with them?

I understand that their time is very limited. You want to uh minimize your interaction, but just make sure you're every once in a while going in the right direction as you all just kind of said. So just curious how y'all managed your relationships with them. Good question. Um so as I mentioned before I had Adrian from Lighthouse as a mentor and I also had a second mentor um Pop from EF Research and it was kind of different with both.

So it definitely depends on also what your mentor prefers but with H I basically had on demand calls. So weekly would have been a bit too much both for me and for him. Um but a call was a really really good avenue to get feedback with uh just talking things through uh showing some results. Um and also uh of course before those calls it's really good to have like a nice write up but I guess there will be the weekly updates. Um so just informing them them early of any road blocks you have and if necessary having uh calls is good.

uh with POP. Um, I had fewer calls but a bit more uh, yeah, PR reviews like he he looked over uh, the code I wrote for uh, the simulations and uh, yeah, so it kind of depends is the answer. But calls are calls are a good thing. Like uh a lot of people in the industry are like async only or or really prefer async uh like chats or DMs or or periods, but calls really do have a huge value. Um so I recommend trying that.

Yeah, I had only I guess like a few calls. So I was worried about not to bother people that much because when you're new you definitely have a lot of calls. So I was trying to use uh like discord async uh just asking questions when I stuck. Uh yeah it was a lot of self-arning and um uh yeah but the calls are important when you have the a bunch of questions. So when when you feel you're stuck or at the beginning for example just to set up everything when you have already an open PR yes you can just uh interact through comments uh you can mark your code uh it depends on uh where you are on so um yeah I also have calls uh yeah and some questions in DMs in the groups so they kind of uh manage you so okay you can ask in this group if like or let's go to DMs or something like this or proper channel.

So yeah, trying to find a balance for me. I think I uh I slightly misunderstood the requirement of the project before the first call. So the first call was really important uh uh for for setting the context of the project and for me and my mentor to get on the same page. Uh I think yeah you should do a call at least to understand the scope of the project define the boundaries and um get to know your mentor. So an introductory call and then probably like an async uh async setup would work.

I didn't have even this privilege of Telegram DMs. Now we just use Discord. Got it. Okay. Very well.

And uh so yeah, we have a question from Irene uh coming after Shane. So please go ahead and ask. Hi guys. Thank you for the the answers. So I just picked the most interesting one which is like what you wish you had known on day one that you only figure out towards the end.

something really useful that you like get to understand by almost the end of your project. Um I would say even within your scope of work uh nobody really is an expert on everything right if you pick up consensus or or P2P nobody has the entire stack uh memorized. So it's okay to like not know everything and like be in a niche but uh you could you could do really good stuff like in the scope of the project that you're doing. So uh it's very easy to get over like that but everybody around you is not also like not an expert on everything. So so that's kind of reassuring.

I sorry I just didn't get the question. Maybe Mario you can repeat because the sound was not good. The most one is the protocol is so interesting but it's so exciting. so many uh things you can dive into and it's like never ending story for me. One of the things is that I realized by the end how important is is to take good notes.

So you're going to write these weekly updates and uh do really investing time in those is worthwhile because uh I I still reference those like we we are still talking uh about the simulations at at some points because they are quite interesting and maybe promising to do it in a wider scope and in in Ethereum re research and just being able to point people to these uh now more than half a year old posts and being like, "Hey, look at this." It is worthwhile and also for my own reference if I ever, you know, want to go back to that. So, I I my advice would be to not to have like three bullet points. Okay? Sometimes that is unavoidable.

Like sometimes you're just a week is kind of tedious and you don't get any, you know, meaningful results. But, uh, when there's something interesting, uh, write it down. uh nicely. Yeah, I would also add that at the beginning I would like to know good resources. So because there are a lot of resources like is research uh yeah like forums, videos.

So the shortest way maybe is to ask a mentor where where can I better get the links the proper links I need I really need for my project. So just to shorten your time. Yeah, sure. Uh first thing thank you all for speaking with us today. So I think some of you mentioned that you've worked in more traditional dev before.

So my question was what are some like pitfalls and common mistakes that people make when they're going from more traditional to open source and Ethereum development as a whole and just things to look out for and how you made that transition. That is a tricky one. Yeah. Go ahead, Kata. No, no, go ahead.

It is hard to make like a generalized statement about that because I only have been at one employer before and yeah it's of course a completely different world like the open source uh ecosystem or or general approach to working versus uh you know you go into an office daily and see all your colleagues. Um there are advantages and disadvantages to both of them. Uh I guess the the big difference is of course that you have a far wider audience with uh open source. So again um express your express your concerns with things uh well because if you are being wake or or anything might you know be uh conceived differently in like an office setting where everyone has a lot of context uh on the specific issue to look into. Um, I kind of lost myself in that sentence, but uh, yeah, just just just be aware that it's a it's a it's can be a huge cultural difference and um, this is a bit a bit more socially, but um, for for me, I I like going to the office to meet my colleagues.

I didn't really have that anymore during EPF because I was here working on my own. So, uh try to connect to people somehow. Uh of course the the town halls are good for that or the standups. Um yeah, I guess um yeah, for me I was just struggling a lot with GitHub. Uh I always up yours, Mario.

You remember? So I just uh I just spend some time okay I need to to just learn it how how to do it properly and dive into it. So because my web two uh experience it wasn't open source so I didn't use GitHub so yeah it was like corporate and uh oh yeah I struggled with it I remember in other ways um uh well you have the specs uh Ethereum specs and they correlate uh at some point uh like some functions uh with the uh with the clients but there is also another part which is uh not ex exactly speculated like uh all around like databases caches etc etc so so you need to learn both and also uh I don't know uh the basics of lip networking things uh yeah you just probably you need to have an understanding of which parts like it consists on the at least top level. So just not diving into it. I think your like web two experience will definitely helpful here.

So yeah, I think all the technical uh skills from web two are transferable directly to what you do in web 3 is testing software, right? uh but working in open source I think people uh working on all the projects across ecosystem are very busy so if you want to contribute something maybe pick something small um if you you know you should always try and use the software uh where you're trying to contribute um and if you generally find something that you can uh fix or add as a feature probably create an issue if it's not already there communicate uh what you're trying to work on and then you know be nice to people and u you know iterate on that people are generally very welcoming uh so if you give them something small to review or to start with where they have enough context uh whether that's an issue or something like a conversation uh they respond well like versus creating a a big PR out of the blind And then you know uh asking them to review um great point of view there u you know we are building or we have fellowship at Ethereum it's a bazar right it's not a cathedral so having your git skills and uh your open source uh mindset ready for the fellowship is very important um And uh now um uh we have some more questions in the chat. Uh but feel free to also raise your hand. We still have space for a couple. Um the one that I see uh this one is very optimistic.

So just um yeah give him the business guys like what's the best course of action if you finish your selected project ahead of time like one two months ahead. Um I'm not sure if that ever happened. Um so um I would maybe rephrase it a bit uh in a sense like um if there are multiple things you want to work on right like how to uh focus on your preference how to um how to figure out what's the what's the right thing if you um if you're in between or if you uh uh please crush their dreams like I just want to ask you guys like if somebody like if they imagine that they can they can do do like two projects uh uh in a in the fellowship. So how please crush their dreams about this like tell them tell them it's not possible so because they don't trust me obviously. Yeah.

Is it like protocol related question in the projects like fellowship projects or side projects? Like Katya like you're a good example like you followed up on your project right like you continued uh working on your project. So uh maybe if you can talk a bit about this experience like what is it like to you you finished the project there is still more more steps to do. So um yeah how do you how do you um go about this? How uh what was the experience like for you doing something as a part of the fellowship then continuing independently?

Uh when you you just uh like your project you're it's like your child. you you you put a lot of efforts into it. You understand its usefulness um like how it should work. You you see the the light at the end. So like you have some expectations how it should work.

You want it work as it is. So um yeah just go on with it. Uh yeah, with regards to finishing finishing the project early, as Mario said, it's quite impossible because uh no matter how small you think the problem is or how well you think understood it at the end of the preparation phase, that's only like the tip of the iceberg. Like once you get started working on it, you think about it in a whole different way and you'll find ways to ah wait but can I do this or that or oh there's this related topic maybe I can somehow integrate with that or how can I build upon it and then you get all these ideas and maybe you finish the original scope you won't finish it much earlier but there will be there will be like uh a lot of interesting things that you encounter or will uh be thinking about. So uh it will be come quite naturally to fill the time like don't worry about that.

Yeah, for um the ECC conference, just curious uh how you would say to maximize your time there like going obviously to maybe catch some talks, but would you recommend trying to go to some Ethereum specific meetups uh side events? Um how would you maybe have done it differently? Uh if you could do it again, that type of thing. Uh well, I couldn't unfortunately. I didn't get visa so I couldn't personally come to FCC.

Um yeah so but I can share my uh Bangkok experience. Uh so uh I mostly uh went to core protocol talks that I was hanging out on the core protocol section. That's that's how it worked for me. So besides the EBF of course the the first place. So you need to uh make your presentation, finish your job.

Uh for a CC, start your job. So yeah, other talks were mostly for me are protocol related. So for example, like you don't need that much of defy stuff for for protocol development. So you can just Yeah. But whenever your interests are so you can choose why not.

I would I would uh I was I was at ETC and I really liked it. Um not only because of the talks um but also because it was an opportunity to meet your fellow fellows because it kind of elevated them from just being a face and and like weekly update to someone, right? And that's hugely motivating uh to get the people you are working with for working with either directly if you team up for some project or indirectly uh by EPF. It it's really motivating uh to to spend some time with them. So um I I would not plan to go like just to talks like the whole week.

Um make some space for uh the fellows and ping your mentor if they are around or if someone uh someone you know from the same team as the mentor is around because getting to know these people as well um can can really help uh just to uh make them aware that you exist kind of. Yeah. Uh so yeah network networking it's very important. Just good luck guys. Uh choose your project, love it, care about it.

Just Yeah, we will be happy to join all your talks and uh yeah, do your best and enjoy enjoy the protocol. Yeah, all the best and I'm looking forward to see what projects are um coming out of this and thanks for having me. No, I think yeah, good luck, guys. I think uh it's a it's a great opportunity that you guys have. Um really looking forward to what you what you guys will off work hard and enjoy.

And we also in the channels of a fellowship channel if there are any questions just tag us and maybe like related project or something or you need some links or whatever and use protocol wiki like our wiki bfiki because it's from fellows to fellows. Uh we will meet again on uh on Monday. uh we will have um uh a standup session where everybody will just give updates on your current research uh current project um uh research and uh also for this we opened a thread in uh discord apart from the weekly threads where you uh push your project uh updates uh we have um we have a thread dedicated to uh signaling what projects you are currently looking into again this is not some sort of like commitment it's just to let other people know what you are uh uh researching right now. Uh please don't settle on anything yet. You still have bunch of time.

So um yeah uh also write some updates there. So yeah, that's it and I'll see you all on Monday. Thank you so much everyone again. It was really great. Uh some great questions, great answers.

It was awesome. Very well. Thanks again everyone. Thank you. Thanks so much Daniel.

Gotcha. We'll see you guys all Monday. See you guys.