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This is a draft document for the creation of a new community contribution opportunity.  Please feel free to edit and leave comments.

Why

We are considering this role because Hyperledger Regional Chapters are organized groups of community members in different parts of the world are offering to help us in ways that we don't currently support and there are regional specific ways people can contribute to Hyperledger.  We've seen this so far in China where local community members are helping work through contribution barriers faced in that region.  Other regions also have barriers – to pick just one 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 face a language barrier when contributing to a predominantly English-oriented project.

What

contribute to the project.

Official Regional Chapters

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

• Hyperledger Africa Chapter
• Hyperledger Brazil Chapter

• Hyperledger India Chapter

• Hyperledger Italian Chapter
• Hyperledger Japan Chapter
• Hyperledger Latinoamerica Chapter

Proposed Regional Chapters

These regions have proposed creating a new Hyperledger chapter:

• Hyperledger Arabia
• Hyperledger ASEAN
• Hyperledger Australasia
• Hyperledger Central and Eastern Europe
• Hyperledger Francophonie
• Hyperledger Mediterranean and South Europe 
• Hyperledger Turkey

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 We are proposing to create a new structure in the community called Regional Chapters that would be run by Regional Chapter Leads.  Activities for this role can 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 boot campsbootcamps, 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 contributions opportunitiescontribution 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...

Where

We would not immediately put all cities into regional chapters, but would start with a few regions early on and grow from there.  Regions will need to be defined, but we can sketch out likely areas for where we will want Regional Leads:

•     Short term: India, Japan, Africa, South America (and China – which already has a form of Regional Chapter in place)
•     Mid term: Australia, Eastern Europe, Israel, Persian Gulf
•     Long term: North America, Korea, SE Asia (Singapore, Thailand, etc), Western Europe

The timing of when we go live with a new region will be highly dependent on finding the right people (2-3 leaders for each region) to take on this role, so the list above is a starting point for thinking about where we will create regions. 

How

How to support these Regional Leads is the big question.  Finding coordinators doesn't seem to be the challenge – we're thinking through this process because we have people in different regions (India, South America, Africa, Australia, etc) approaching us and expressing interest in this type of contribution. 

What support is available to regional communities?

Support for Regional Chapters Some ways we can support the Regional Leads 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.  Without this infrastructure the only way we've been connecting people is through emails I send to people in the same region with the subject 'Building the Hyperledger community in NAME'
• Budget and Travel Support: We could allocate a portion of the Marketing budget towards funding things that would help these Regional Leads pull something together.
• 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.Staff time: We can make ourselves available to Regional Leads when we travel so that they can organize a tour with staff members.  We can involve Regional Leads in other aspects of our work as appropriate – for instance, would it make sense to have language representatives in the Marketing Committee call to help us bring our marketing efforts to non-English speakers?
• Training: We can provide free or 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 a swag pack when they join so that they can have a Hyperledger shirt to wear when representing the community and so that they can have swag to take to events that they organize and support.
• Other ideas for support..
• swag as needed to support their activities.

Note that support will need to 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 .  Details of the criteria for measuring the impact and success of Regional Chapters will need to be determined so that leads understand what the expectations are for this role.  This is a process that would be best done with an early group of Regional Leads who help us pilot and expand the programfrom this role.