The Chainlink Community Grant Program provides financial resources to the many development teams and researchers building a more functional and accessible Chainlink Network. We encourage talented individual developers and development teams to apply to the grant program here, or if you are a researcher and want to collaborate, contact us.

We’re excited to announce that Chainlink Community Advocates Cole Gendreau and Zak Ayesh have been awarded a grant to build Chainlink Academy—a new interactive coding platform and open-source library of resources that allows developers to learn the intricacies of building universally connected smart contracts using Chainlink as a gateway to access real-world data and systems.

As an extension of the Chainlink developer documentation, Chainlink Academy will help onboard new developers starting from scratch who want to build decentralized applications with external inputs and outputs, further reducing the barrier to launching a universally connected smart contract. This resource will be especially critical as smart contract applications continue to disrupt established industries and support completely new ones, attracting more and more Web2.0 developers to the Web3.0 ecosystem.

As part of the grant, Cole and Zak will lead several initiatives and bring key onboarding resources to the wider Chainlink community, including:

• Beginner developer courses that explain the fundamentals of core Chainlink features and test their ability to build applications and run specific tasks, with the end goal of providing users certificates of completion.
• An educational website and open-source resource hub that provides information and training specific to Chainlink, including developer tutorials, interactive coding exercises, step-by-step how-to guides, and more.
• Additional standalone course modules that cover more complex educational and research topics in a digestible format such as Chainlink’s multiple client versions, privacy-preserving oracle technology, and various scaling solutions.

The first course being made available to the community will be an Introduction to Chainlink (introducing distributed ledgers and the oracle problem), with subsequent courses including using Chainlink VRF, Utilizing Price Feeds, and building an External Adapter to access any API.

Both Cole and Zak are long-time members of the Chainlink community and active participants in the Chainlink Advocates Program—an expansive network of talented coders, engineers, and enthusiasts supporting the adoption of universally connected smart contracts by educating new users, hosting offline events, and developing business relationships. Cole and Zak have IT and DevOps backgrounds and have built and tested various Chainlink features, as well as hosted online/virtual meetups in their local communities.

Given their passion for smart contracts and familiarity with all things Chainlink, they make for excellent candidates to support through the Chainlink Community Grant Program, ultimately enhancing the Chainlink Network’s developer experience for all levels and skill sets.

“As a long-time believer in Chainlink and its power to vastly extend the utility of smart contracts, I’m excited to receive a Chainlink Community grant to further accelerate its adoption by new developers,” stated Cole Grendreau. “Through the Chainlink Grant support, we can create a seamless onboarding experience for developers wanting to learn how to build next-generation contracts using Chainlink, both by answering their questions and creating timeless resources that guide them through important coding processes.”

“Chainlink is accelerating the adoption of smart contracts, and will continue to do so as its network functionality continues to expand and the amount of on-chain data it provides grows,” said Zak Ayesh. “I’m thrilled to be awarded a Chainlink grant to generate critical resources necessary to support the influx of new developers coming into the smart contract space, allowing them to launch decentralized applications using Chainlink in a quick and easy manner while still ensuring they are following the best security practices.”

Through the Chainlink Community Grants program, we look forward to continuing to empower more and more Chainlink ecosystem teams and researchers who are both researching and building key tools and infrastructure that accelerate the development of universally connected smart contracts and secure oracle networks. We will continue supporting the community as a key driver of Chainlink’s rapid growth, because only together can we make universally connected smart contracts into the dominant form of digital agreement.

About the Chainlink Grant Program

If you want to learn more about the Grant Program, check out our recent blog post that further expands upon its goals and the criteria for submission. If you would like to participate in the Chainlink Grant Program, please apply here. Chainlink Community Grants are provided in Cash and/or LINK.