Hyperledger Regional Chapters are organized groups of community members in different parts of the world that are working together to address contribution barriers in their regions.  For example, contributors from South America working together to translate material into Spanish to help people who don't speak English contribute to the project.

Official Regional Chapters

There are Hyperledger Regional Chapters in the following parts of the world:

Proposed Regional Chapters

These regions have proposed creating a new Hyperledger chapter:

Starting A Chapter

If you are interested in starting a regional chapter, take a look through the following criteria and then reach out to dboswell at linuxfoundation dot org:

  • The region represents a distinct language or geography of over 50 million people
  • There is a clearly defined vision for what the community in that region wants to do to contribute to Hyperledger
  • There is at least one official Hyperledger meetup that is active in that region
  • There are more than 50 people in the region communicating together about the Hyperledger community
  • There are 2-3 people in the area who are interested in acting as leaders for the chapter and are willing to recruit new members, organize regular meetings (both online and in person) and make sure that the group is working toward the goals that are set in the chapter's vision

The timing of when we go live with a new region will depend on finding the right people to take on the leadership role and having local communities that meet these requirements, so there is no roadmap about when we will launch a particular new chapter.

See below for more information about types of activities a regional chapter could do and how the Hyperledger project can support them.

What activities can regional chapters get involved with?

Possible activities for regional chapters to work on include the following, although it should be noted that this will change over time as community members suggest new ways to contribute:

  • Support local events and organize regional events
    • In order to scale our meetup efforts which are currently being supported by one Hyperledger staff member, we can delegate authority to Regional Leads to support meetups in an area.  They would be empowered to approve new city leaders, but would send requests to remove city leaders (based on some bad behavior) upwards to Hyperledger staff.  This additional bandwidth to support meetups will be critical in an effort to ensure a positive experience for all meetup attendees and for raising the expectations we set for meetup organizers.
    • They would also focus on doing things across cities in their region: for example, if there are special guests in the region they can notify the city leaders there and coordinate a "tour".  Or they could run other types of regional events, including bootcamps, work sprints, localization drives, hackathons, etc.
  • Address region-specific contribution barriers
    • Tools: There are examples where tools that are used in the Hyperledger project aren't accessible or used in a region.  For example, community members in China don't use Google Docs so information that is posted there is not available to them.  Identifying these hurdles and working with Hyperledger staff is a very important function.
    • Time zones: Many aspects of the Hyperledger community are time-specific and are not equally accessible to everyone.  For instance, the TSC call happens in the middle of the night for many contributors.  Regional Leads can help address this issue – some ideas have already been floated, such as nominating a rotating list of local community members to stay up late to attend an important meeting and acting as a bridge to give input in that meeting and to take notes back to the local community.
    • Language: Many regions of the world do not use English and this becomes a contribution barrier.  Regional Leads can work with Hyperledger staff to address this.  For instance, we may decide to translate technical and marketing material into different languages so this information becomes more accessible in a region and can be placed in region-appropriate channels.  Learn more about available Translation Opportunities.
  • Other contribution opportunities
    • Collecting local Hyperledger use cases (collected from local press, local presentations, local networks etc) to share with the wider community through blogs posts, the Blockchain Showcase and other appropriate channels.
    • Working with local universities to help them learn more about Hyperledger and to help get students and professors connected to the community
    • Please add suggestions and ideas for other ways Regional Leads could contribute...

What support is available to regional communities?

Support for Regional Chapters include:

  • Infrastructure: We can create a mailing list and chat channel (following the community-NAME convention), meetings and space on the wiki for each region.
  • Official community title: "Hyperledger Chapter Lead" is an official community role that someone can place on their LinkedIn profile.
  • Staff time: When Hyperledger staff members travel, they may be available to work with Regional Leads on activities, such as speaking at events.
  • Training: We can provide discounted access to the Hyperledger certifications that the Linux Foundation offers (details to come soon).  This will help make sure that the Regional Leads are knowledgeable and can act as on the ground mentors for the local community.
  • Swag: We can provide Regional Leads with swag as needed to support their activities.

Note that support will be based on the activity of a Regional Lead.  People who take this role who are not active, or are not representing Hyperledger in an appropriate way, would not be eligible for support and could be removed from this role.


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17 Comments

  1. David Liu

    one of my suggestion is for the Regional Leads, if a certificated badge in LinkedIn could be offer to them, it will encourage them to keep active and identity their contribution. 

    Another point is the region leads could be recommended( or required ) to coordinate with local Technical Ambassador and Speaker Bureau in events or activities. And he is responsible to keep a close community connection. 

    1. David Boswell

      David,


      Thanks for your comments.  I agree that having a badge for Regional Leads could be a great incentive.  I'll add that to the doc.


      And I agree that Regional Leads would also need to coordinate closely with the other Technical Ambassadors and members of the Speakers Bureau in their area.


      Thanks,

      David

  2. Paulo Alberto Simões dos Santos

    Hi David, my suggestions for Regional Leaders :


    1) They need to have some empowerment to create relationship with Local institutions, like Universities, Colleges or others that have interest to learn and develop the HL Community.

    This can create a dynamism to incorporate a very important segment that is the researchers and students using the "connection" with the Institution that they are members.

    2) They need to help develop local training schools with local material and "local" price because it is very difficult and expensive do official trainings on US schools (paid in US$ , for example US$ 1 = R$ 4 ).

    Thanks

    Paulo

    1. David Boswell

      Paulo – this is a good suggestion.  Encouraging connections with universities and colleges is very important.  Will be good to make it clear that this regional role involves relationship building with students, researchers and professors in a region.

  3. vikas pandey

    David Boswell , another good approach/motivation would be providing the Regional leader with training on new features/projects before they are made generally available to all users, both technical and functional, based on skill and interest. That is also a good way to propagate and create a local support ecosystem so that these leaders can answer questions and advise folks in their region. A "win-win" for the leaders and Hyperledger as I see it. 

    1. David Boswell

      Vikas, thanks for the feedback.  I agree that we'd want to support Regional Leaders so that they're aware of the latest technical and community news and updates.  This could involve access to training material and/or perhaps a monthly news update or something else.

    2. Silona Bonewald

      May I recommend the MOOCs.  Very good to get basic understanding of what Hyperledger does.

      The certs are about being an admin of a live system and trouble shooting when it goes down.  They are not for basic knowledge.

  4. Tomomi Yamano

    Hi David,


    I would like to start far east chapter(inclusive China, S.Korea, Taiwan, HongKong and humbly pansuke Japan) and am sure there is already the HL meetup some people are holding sporadically in Tokyo area (which means meeting the criteria above?) 

    Can I reach out to you on this ?  Tomomi Yamano


    Regards,

    Tomomi



    1. David Liu

      Would it overlap the working area of TWGC？

      1. Tomomi Yamano

        David Liu Thanks for pointing out. i did not even notice that. please let me check with them at first.


        1. David Boswell

          Tomomi, thanks for reaching out about the idea of a Far East chapter.  I just responded to your email and am happy to talk more.  As David mentions, we'll want to look at other community activities in Asia and make sure that a new chapter aligns with those efforts.

          1. Tomomi Yamano

            David Boswell Sure. no issue with that. Thanks for your time to respond to me. ^^ 

  5. Arun S M

    With the interest and the outreach possibility we're seeing as part of HyperHack 2020 (Hackathon organized by the India community chapter). There is a possibility to collaborate and have a SEA or APAC wide association. Julian Gordon ^

    1. Tomomi Yamano

      Arun S M I think it sounds like a great idea. ^^ 

      It may be good to have a brief chat on this agenda among all stakeholders after HL global forum week. 

  6. Guillermo Diaz

    Hi David Boswell how are you?, I'm wondering if there is any chapter for Spanish Speaking countries? I live in Mexico City and find out this Meetup https://www.meetup.com/Hyperledger-Mexico-City/ however I see there is no activity since October 2018. So the question to this forum is if you believe there should be a Latin American Regional Chapter that include material in this language and Involves all the interested individuals, organizations, etc. who has as primary native language spanish or there should be better a local in-country chapter for every country who might be willing to create a Chapter?

    In my experience at some Regional positions at Unisys and IBM in the past, there might be useful to have one single Spanish Speaking Chapter, and then, as soon as the Countries begin to be actively involved you can create subgroups and / or separate larger Groups as soon as get their own "traction" by their own.

    I believe that this Hyperledger initiative is so important that should have presence in Spanish Speaking markets since all together we can create an enterprise grade, open source distributed ledger framework and code base, in benefits of the Region.

    I would love to hear your hear your thoughts and comments, and of course I'll be more than happy to help on any initiative around this idea.

    Thanks in Advance and Best Regards,

    1. David Boswell

      Guillermo Diaz I apologize for the delay in responding.  March has been really busy with Hyperldger Global Forum and then adjusting our meetups to run virtual events instead of in person events due to COVID19.

      Yes, I would be very excited to have a Chapter for Spanish speaking countries and would like to talk with you more about that.  I have been speaking to the Latin American Hyperledger meetup organizers recently about doing a virtual meetup in Spanish, so one topic at that event could be about interest in forming a chapter.

      Would you like to email me and we can talk more about next steps? You can reach me at dboswell at linuxfoundation dot org.  I'm looking forward to talking with you more about this.

      Thanks,

      David

      1. Guillermo Diaz

        Hi David how are you, No worries I know that you have been very busy.

        I already sent you an invite and I look forward taking with you, and hope you are doing well and keep safe.

        Best Regards

        Guillermo