ESP TL;DR: The Ethereum Foundation’s Ecosystem Support Program and Grants

Transcript

hey econ my name is alfia i'm here from the ethereum foundation ecosystem support program also known as esp i'm here to talk about esp and particularly about grants today so starting with the ethereum foundation itself which has a sort of three-part mission to allocate resources to critical projects to be a valued voice within the hearing ecosystem and to advocate for ethereum to the outside world so esp focuses primarily on that first one allocation it evolves originally out of the ethereum foundation grants program a few years ago partly with the intention of making it

easier and more accessible to seek support from ef by keeping an open channel where people can get in touch with us at the time let us know what they're working on see if we can help and we also try to think about support more broadly than just the financials so we've initiated things like office hours general inquiry form just making it easier to get in touch if you need some guidance if you have questions about what we do or even if it's not something that we can help with directly we might be able to recommend other resources for you to check out if you're just feeling stuck so stepping back um our year so far in 2021 up till now we

have awarded funding to 214 different projects over 14 million dollars across all of the categories that we work in um if you like a lot of details we publish lists in our quarterly updates of all of the projects that get funded and a little bit more about what they specifically focus on and also monthly roundups where we focus in on a couple of projects a month and go into more detail and specifically look at what they've done since they received funding so we're not just writing the check and saying goodbye forever

so we're giving away all this money i know the real question on everyone's mind is can i have some the answer is maybe we do have kind of a specific mission with our allocations we look for free and open source projects things that benefit ethereum we focus on common resources so things like infrastructure standards tools educational resources and things that are not commercial so the work should not be intended to be monetized that doesn't mean that we can't work with for-profit companies we can and often do fund specific work by teams that are working in a for-profit

business but that particular project is focused on a public good or like fits within our future criteria within those criteria grants look a lot of different ways we work with all kinds of people teams and individuals teams is defined pretty broadly anything from a company to a non-profit to just a loose collection of individuals we're working on something cool and also third-party allocators who are we allocate funds to them which they can then use to fund things that might

normally be outside of our scope or sort of outside of our mandate and as far as what projects focus on we might have things at a given time that we're a little bit more proactive about we're thinking harder about if you're curious about that we can you can look at our wish list on the esp website but in general we're really quite open-minded as long as things have the potential to help ethereum thrive and we also deal with projects at any stage and at any scale in terms of the time involved and the scope of work and

the amounts range very widely anything from a couple hundred dollars to things with a lot more zeros on the end and all of these things factor in so if you are working on something that's a relatively small scope that's a month or two time commitment we might award a smaller grant or if there's something that is has a lot of potential that is a little bit out there we might take a chance with a smaller amount and see how it goes and scale up if it seems to make sense later and then you take something like a client team where the scope is enormous the work is endless and you're looking at a time scale of years to

infinity we don't really know and those numbers are obviously going to be a lot higher i've also this year started playing around with these focused grant rounds which let us be a little bit more flexible in terms of how we think about grants so we generally will go out looking for projects within a specific focus area but the parameters might be a little bit different so the criteria might look different or we might be working within you know specific dollar amounts available for grants the application process is separate it's a little bit more streamlined and it'll happen within

a specific window of time so this year we've designed one of those for focused on roll-ups one where we were looking for tools for stakers and most recently esp and the devcon team collaborated on around where we did smaller grants for people organizing community events and meetups so we've seen some really great stuff come in this way so we're definitely planning to do more of these in the future so keep an eye out for something that might be up your alley i will throw up some of the ways that we can keep in touch at the end of the presentation here so those are all our yeses but we do

have some hard no's we will not pump buy or help sell your token and we will not invest in your trading platform we think defy is so great and it just is not what we do we will also not fund your totally unrelated to ethereum business or charity grants are not investments and they're not donations they are meant to help fund work that people would otherwise not be able to do or would not be able to develop as public goods we also mostly steer clear of the application layer and you'll see exceptions to this where maybe the best way to develop a concept

or to experiment with a new construction is to just implement it so that it is a vehicle for research more than an end in itself and the actual product is the insights that come out of that the discoveries and the development of the concept that happens from seeing it working in the real world so that's us if you want to get in touch you can find us at esp.etherium.foundation there's lots of information there a lot more details about what we do and how we do it the guide has a lot of detail about

the actual process of inquiring and applying for a grant we also have the wish list if you're curious about what we are thinking about these days and you can sign up for our newsletter so you can get us straight to your inbox and never miss a thing if you have questions you can always get in touch with us esp ethereum.org and you can follow us on twitter at ef underscore esp we post all of our big news there any opportunities office hours grant rounds coming up and you can also keep an eye on our grantees we like to post updates from them periodically as well thank you all for being here

and i hope we will see you in our inbox hello [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey econ my name is alfia i'm here from

the ethereum foundation ecosystem support program also known as esp i'm here to talk about esp and particularly about grants today so starting with the ethereum foundation itself which has sort of three-part mission to allocate resources to critical projects to be a valued voice within the hearing ecosystem and to advocate for ethereum to the outside world so esp focuses primarily on that first one allocation it evolves originally out of the ethereum foundation grants program a few years ago partly with the intention of making it easier and more accessible to seek support from ef by keeping an

open channel where people can get in touch with us at any time let us know what they're working on see if we can help and we also try to think about support more broadly than just the financials so we've initiated things like office hours a general inquiry form just making it easier to get in touch if you need some guidance if you have questions about what we do or even if it's not something that we can help with directly we might be able to recommend other resources for you to check out if you're just feeling stuck so stepping back um our year so far in 2021 up till now we have awarded

funding to 214 different projects over 14 million dollars across all of the categories that we work in if you like a lot of details we publish lists in our quarterly updates of all of the projects that get funded and a little bit more about what they specifically focus on and also monthly roundups where we focus in on a couple of projects a month and go into more detail and specifically look at what they've done since they received funding so we're not just writing the check and saying goodbye forever so we're giving away all this money i

know the real question on everyone's mind is can i have some the answer is maybe we do have kind of a specific mission with our allocations we look for free and open source projects things that benefit ethereum we focus on common resources so things like infrastructure standards tools educational resources and things that are not commercial so the work should not be intended to be monetized that doesn't mean that we can't work with for-profit companies we can and often do fun specific work by teams that are working in a for-profit

business but that particular project is focused on a public good or like fits within our usual criteria within those criteria grants look a lot of different ways we work with all kinds of people teams and individuals teams is defined pretty broadly anything from a company to a non-profit to just a loose collection of individuals who are working on something cool and also third-party allocators who are we allocate phones to them which they can then use to fund things that might

normally be outside of our scope or sort of outside of our mandate and as far as what projects focus on we might have things at a given time that we're a little bit more proactive about or thinking harder about if you're curious about that we can um you can look at our wish list on the esp website but in general we're really quite open-minded as long as things have the potential to help ethereum thrive and we also deal with projects at any stage and at any scale in terms of the time involved and the scope of work um

and the amounts range very widely anything from a couple hundred dollars to things with a lot more zeros on the end and all these things factor in so if you are working on something that's a relatively small scope that's a month or two time commitment we might award a smaller grant or if there's something that is has a lot of potential that is a little bit out there we might take a chance with a smaller amount and see how it goes and scale up if it seems to make sense later and then you take something like a client team where the scope is enormous the work is endless and you're looking at a time scale of years to

infinity we don't really know and those numbers are obviously going to be a lot higher also this year started playing around with these focused grant rounds which let us be a little bit more flexible in terms of how we think about grants so we generally will go out looking for projects within a specific focus area but the parameters might be a little bit different so the criteria might look different or we might be working within you know specific dollar amounts available for grants um the application process is separate it's a little bit more streamlined and it'll happen within

a specific window of time so this year we've designed one of those for focused on rollups one where we were looking for tools for stakers and most recently esp and the devcon team collaborated on around where we did smaller grants for people organizing community events and meetups so we've seen some really great stuff come in this way so we're definitely planning to do more of these in the future so keep an eye out for something that might be up your alley i will throw up some of the ways that we can keep in touch at the end of the presentation here so those are all our yeses but we do

have some hard no's we will not pump buy or help sell your token and we will not invest in your trading platform we think defy is so great and it just is not what we do we will also not fund your totally unrelated to ethereum business or charity grants are not investments and they're not donations they are meant to help fund work that people would otherwise not be able to do or would not be able to develop as public goods we also mostly steer clear of the application layer and you'll see exceptions to this where maybe the best way to develop a concept

or to experiment with a new construction is to just implement it so that it is a vehicle for research more than an end in itself and the actual product is the insights that come out of that discoveries and the development of the concept that happens from seeing it working in the real world so that's us if you want to get in touch you can find us at esp.org there's lots of information there a lot more details about what we do and how we do it the guide has a lot of detail about

the actual process of inquiring and applying for a grant we also have the wish list if you're curious about what we are thinking about these days and you can sign up for our newsletters you can get us straight to your inbox and never miss a thing if you have questions you can always get in touch with us esp ethereum.org and you can follow us on twitter at ef underscore esp we post all of our big news there any opportunities office hours grant rounds coming up and you can also keep an eye on our grantees we like to post updates from them periodically as well thank you all for being here

and i hope we will see you in our inbox