I recently got selected for batch 2022 for Polygon Fellowship’s Builders Track. Here are my answers & the projects that I submitted in my proposal.
Post the application I was invited for a virtual interview, here are the things we discussed
- My web2 journey so far
- What motivated me to explore web3
- What all things I have tried in terms of development in web3
- Why I proposed the following projects in my proposals
- What research have I conducted so far while writing the proposals & am I aware of other people who might be working towards a similar idea
The conversation was mostly fluid and interactive.
Questionnaire
What would you consider to be your standout project? Something which you're really proud of or had fun building
It is difficult to choose a single project, I have fun building a lot of things in my past. I feel, there is one project that I enjoyed a lot though, this was 8086 Microprocessor Emulator. Back in college, while studying Engineering Physics in 2014, I was fascinated to study about 8086 processors. It made me wonder if we could emulate the entire processor in a web browser since computers are much faster now. Using this would enable me to write some assembly code and explore the different types of programs with it mimicking the Silicon Valley era of the 1970s. With this goal of mine, using Javascript I started writing the emulator which would run in a sandbox memory (this included runtime memory, registers & segments) environment & allow emulating all the 8086 opcodes. I ensured that architecture was composable for other emulators to be built in future, while 8086 was the first one to be supported. Each emulator would have a command interface, where each command would take arguments as operands and memory. And each command would either set or get a type of memory (runtime, register or segment). Each command state along with the latest memory snapshot was also saved in the backend so that it can be loaded from any previous predefined state. While tinkering and being able to emulate small programs, this project also allowed me to think at the architectural level.
Why are you applying to the Fellowship and what do you hope to take away from it? [in more than 300 words]
Open source communities have been one of the major reasons for my growth in the past. Back in 2014, I started my open source journey with KDE’s Season of KDE fellowship program and then was admitted to the Google Summer of Code 2015 fellowship program. These two programs have helped me accelerate my career, and build a deeper understanding of software architecture and I expect the same from Polygon Fellowship.
Post the acquisition of my last venture, I have been diving deep into Web3 and running experiments to understand it better. Currently, I am exploring opportunities in web3 where I can contribute or build the infrastructure which will help other DAPPS grow faster. Polygon is the most prominent L2 and with a great Defi ecosystem, can definitely help me with the right mentors to accelerate my learnings and goals. I expect to find such mentor(s) who will accelerate my growth & open doors to new technologies/infra that are in the development stage. My goal is to have a successful project at the end of the Fellowship, a deeper understanding of web3, and solve a real problem faced by others.
Project proposals
My first proposal
My second proposal