The First ETHWMN Fellowship: A Look Back
The web industry has always been meant for all, but traditionally, there has been a lack of representation of women developers. With the next generation of the web coming into play, there has not been a better opportunity to level the playground.
We at Devfolio were very excited to host the 1st ever ETHWMN fellowship. Conducted over the course of 8 weeks starting from February, the fellowship is designed in a way to upskill the women and non-binary folks and onboard them onto the Web3 ecosystem.
During the first edition, the primary goal of this fellowship was to bridge the gender gap in this industry and to create more inclusive spaces across the board, from beginner's workshops to networking events where diverse groups feel comfortable participating. We wanted to provide them mentors, that they can work with closely and have role models in the Web3 space.
ETHWMN in Numbers
We chose 20 high agency, talented fellows among 3000 applications from women and non-binary devs across the country. To aid the fellows’ journey, we invited experienced mentors from the Web3 space! Huge shout out to all the cohort mentors — Divya, Sayli, Smriti, Vishwa, and Angela Gilhotra, for taking out the time to help all the fellows at each step, ensuring their progress and growth throughout the course of the fellowship.
We also would like to extend our gratitude to — Pooja Ranjan, Harshitha Singh, Ally Haire, Helena Flack for holding informative sessions and helping the fellows get a deeper understanding of the ecosystem.
Diving into Web3
The fellowship had three major components: Learn, Explore, and Build. As part of their coursework, they were introduced to the core ideas of Web3. They began with the fundamentals, such as interacting with a node and writing smart contracts. They delved into Web applications over the next few weeks covering everything from Defi, DAOs, NFTs, Infra/tooling to Metaverse and gaming.
Along with the coursework, various knowledge sessions about the above topics were held to help them understand the applications and impact of Web3.
ETHWMN Demo Day 2022
All the hard work by the fellows culminated with a demo day. As part of the fellowship program, we had a session where the fellows presented their ideas to the mentors and other fellows. This was a great chance for them to get feedback about an idea, as well as to see what everyone else is working on. After some initial brainstorming sessions, we had a session where the fellows covered their ideas in two one-hour segments.
This session was facilitated by their primary mentors, as well as Pooja Ranjan.
We finally wrapped up with a session by Pooja Ranjan that covered opportunities in Web3 and how the fellows could make the best use of their time here at the fellowship to kickstart their careers in Web3.
Path Ahead
Over the course of the fellowship, we’ve had the opportunity to work with awesome people who are passionate about making tech more inclusive.
Overall we believe that this program was a step in the right direction to bring more diversity into the ecosystem and we hope to continue to conduct such initiatives in order to bring more women and non-binary folks and work towards an equitable future.
Here's what our fellows have to say 👇
Post the completion of the fellowship, we've had some enthusiastic fellows contribute to the ecosystem and put their learnings to the test in the Web3 ecosystem since the fellowship ended.
- Shirin Siddiqui, Mounica Sruthi, and Atulya Arya, took part in the Warpspeed Hackathon, a Web3 hackathon organised by Lightspeed Ventures in collaboration with Devfolio.
- Sneha Mishra is continuing to work on her fellowship project and has applied for an ETHIndia Grant.
We hope that this program will inspire more women and non-binary folks to get involved in the space by providing them with the opportunity to learn more about it. Our goal is to help you get your foot in the door and start building skills that will allow you to contribute meaningfully to the ecosystem.