This is an update from the Next Billion Fellowship Program. Applications are rolling and open for cohort 6 beginning in October 2025.

Individuals interacting with an application have a user experience. Collectives interacting with a protocol have a world experience. There are many worlds that the Ethereum protocol touches; places where organizations, communities, or institutions experience trust through coordination. The Next Billion Fellowship is a program to support individuals working on new use cases and improving trust experience within the world computer.

The stories of a global protocol are as diverse and varied as the humans that use it. In this update five Next Billion Alumni share stories about their Fellowship experience, and four new Next Billion Fellows are introduced.

Cohort 5

Mashbean (X: @mashbean) is researching robust digital identity in Taiwan, exploring how civic services and critical public infrastructure could benefit from the same resilient and trustless properties that protocols like Ethereum offer the world.

Sharfy Adamantine (X: @sharfyae) enables environmental stewardship by connecting climate finance directly to local conservation efforts and data at Gainforest. By improving compatibility and functionality of the Hypercerts standard, ecosystem protection can become more economically viable for organizations and conservation communities of all shapes, sizes, and contexts.

Teodor Petricevic (X: @XtXeXo) leads blockchain initiatives at the UN Development Programme. He will map Ethereum-based projects within the UN ecosystem and develop an impact management framework that enables global development organisations – such as UN agencies – to effectively design impact models, measure and analyse outcomes and impacts, and harness the unique properties of blockchain technology to advance global development initiatives.

Robert Cowlishaw (LinkedIn: robert-cowlishaw) is an aerospace engineer pioneering research at the intersection of zero-knowledge proofs, trusted execution, and satellite imagery. He is developing a prototype app that automatically and verifiably triggers emergency response systems after natural disasters. His work includes collaboration with the European Space Agency to activate satellites for monitoring affected areas across political and systemic boundaries.

As we look ahead to the next cohort of Fellows, we’re reminded of the profound importance of narrative in shaping Ethereum’s future. The stories shared by our alumni illustrate how blockchain technology can transcend its technical foundations to become a tool for social change, economic empowerment, and ecological regeneration.

These Fellows exemplify what makes the Next Billion Fellowship unique: the focus is not on technology for technology’s sake, but on the human experience of technology. Each project showcases how Ethereum can address real-world challenges—from polluted oceans to communities seeking economic autonomy, from farmers to international development professionals.

If you are working on a project that showcases stories of tangible and human use-cases for the Ethereum protocol (and the application layer built on it), consider applying for the Next Billion Fellowship. Fellows receive support over 6 months for a small project that represents a unique perspective on Ethereum’s next billion users and their experience.

Do you enjoy solving interesting and challenging problems? Are you interested in getting involved at the most foundational level of the Ethereum protocol?

The Protocol Support Team (EF) is excited to announce that applications are now being accepted for the third cohort of the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship (formerly Core Developer Apprenticeship Program (CDAP))!

With the Merge closing in (58750000000000000000000 ), Ethereum core developers are looking forward to the next steps in the protocol’s development and there is a need for qualified and committed people to help create an increasingly powerful and robust Ethereum network.

Enter the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship.

What is the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship (EPF)?

The EPF is a program designed to onboard developers to the process through which protocol development happens. It is an opportunity to dive deep into the protocol and learn while also working closely with others on the same learning trajectory as well as the core development community.

Core protocol development isn’t easy work, but it is interesting, challenging, and rewarding. Unfortunately, this work also has a very large barrier to entry. It requires a high degree of fluency in the actual protocols themselves. It requires a deep understanding of many different engineering concepts. It requires excellent written and verbal communication skills. The intention of this program is to provide an easier onramp for getting past these barriers, and to provide the initial support and guidance to launch you into working side by side with core devs.

Details

Past Cohorts

EPF has previously hosted two successful cohorts. In that time, past cohort members have:

• Worked on an alternate method of documenting and specifying the Ethereum protocol.
• Researched how we can modify or remove the SELFDESTRUCT opcode
• Helped build ZKSync
• Built out new peer-to-peer networks for the Portal Network.
• Wrote their own implementation of the EVM
• 10 cohort alumni now work full-time on core protocol development and 5 others work in adjacent areas of the industry.

Have a Real Impact

Core protocol development is a key role in caring for and improving the multi-billion dollar Ethereum protocol; a protocol that we believe will play a key role in creating a more fair and equitable future for humanity. Want to join us in building a future you can get excited about?

Discover more about the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship.

TL;DR:

We are excited to announce that the applications are now open for the sixth cohort of the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship (EPF6).

The EPF provides a pathway for aspiring protocol developers to make meaningful contributions to Ethereum. In each cohort, a diverse group is assembled to work toward advancing Ethereum’s roadmap during the fellowship. This includes the development of client implementations, testing and specifications, and participating in the latest core protocol research.

With an overarching goal to find eventual placement for fellows in R&D teams working on core protocol development, EPF provides fellows with a unique opportunity to collaborate with other talented individuals, to engage with current Ethereum core developers and fellowship peers, and to make a significant impact on the Ethereum ecosystem.

EPF6 Changes

After reflecting on each cohort, we make minor changes to the program in order to better serve the needs of R&D teams as well as the program participants. For cohort 6, we are inviting more seasoned software engineers to work on specific projects proposed by client teams.

Additionally, we are encouraging participants not quite ready for EPF to participate in the Protocol Study Group as well as to hone their software engineering skills. Our goal is to ensure that fellows ready to make impactful contributions to the roadmap have maximal access to mentors, and to provide a better training experience for aspiring protocol contributors.

Program Details

• Applications accepted through April 30, 2025 – APPLY HERE
• The sixth cohort runs from June through November 2025, with two sponsored in-person events at EthCC in Cannes and Devconnect in Argentina
• Participants will have access to mentors from the core development community
• Select participants will be provided with a monthly stipend to allow them to focus on the program
• Review all the program details in the EPF6 repo
• Study epf.wiki to brush up on your protocol knowledge.

We continue to host some truly outstanding fellows who have made significant contributions to Ethereum, and we’re thrilled to see what the sixth cohort will accomplish. To understand exactly what kind of projects have been worked on and to find inspiration of your own, explore past fellows’ work from previous cohorts.

Applications are now open and will remain so until April 30, 2025. For more information, please review the program details in the GitHub repository. On April 21 at 4:00PM UTC, the EPF team will hold a town hall to discuss the program and answer any questions.

Whether you’re a seasoned software engineer, a promising computer science student, or a researcher with an interest in cryptography and economics, we encourage you to apply!

Things are looking up for Ethereum. Now that The Merge is complete, a huge weight (measured in tonnes of CO2) has been lifted from the Ethereum community’s collective conscience. And the world-at-large is watching to see what this community does next.

Right now the ecosystem has a unique opportunity to show the skeptics what Ethereum can do — how a foundational layer of trust on the open internet can be used to tackle the big coordination problems that we have yet to solve.

The road to Serenity is long, and Ethereum’s impact is still small on the scale of human institutions, societies, or economies. In recent years we have collectively grown quite fond of the term public good, but we must remember that “public” means all 8-billion of us, give or take.

This is why the EF Fellowship Program was created: To give a platform to people working towards the long-term vision of Ethereum as a public good for all humans.

If Ethereum is to be the future of human coordination, we must make sure that future is equitably distributed. With that said, we’re happy to announce seven outstanding individuals who are thinking and working with that long view in mind.

Meet the Second Cohort

If you missed the first cohort, you can read about their projects here!

Each EF Fellow has been selected because they are on a personal quest that represents a possibility for Ethereum-enabled flourishing.

What exactly that means is a bit flexible. Some are expanding Ethereum’s usefulness to a new group of people, or learning firsthand from a community why Ethereum is not useful for them (yet). Maybe the fellow is researching broader challenges that will affect the existing Ethereum community, now or long into the future.

Whatever the project, whomever the fellow, over the course of the next 6 months, they will be driving forward their learning, implementing their project, and generally helping to move Ethereum outwards into this messy, complicated world of people.

Fellow Introductions

Abhishek Bhattacharya

Abhishek is a co-founder at Brú Finance. Brú Finance works with a partner organization called Whrrl, which provides harvest-time loans to 18,000+ farmers across India. Whrrl uses a permissioned private blockchain, but for his Fellowship project, Abhishek will be overseeing and learning from the launch of a new system to a public chain that utilizes decentralized liquidity for the farmers, and exploring what this system could look like at a global scale.

Gabriela Guerra

Gabriela founded Bloinx, a startup that implements blockchain-based tandas (also known as cundinas, susu, hui, arisan, quiniela, stokvel, and others around the world) – informal savings circles. Gabriela is convinced that blockchain can have real benefit for the unbanked population of the world, and that savings circles are one good starting mechanism. During her Fellowship, Gabriela will conduct pilots in Mexico and Venezuela and use the research to help improve Bloinx for larger scales.

Geoffrey See

Geoffrey is co-founder of startup Poko. He has extensive experience working on the legal and regulatory side of the blockchain, as well as in an entrepreneurial education initiative and the burgeoning field of DAOs. For his fellowship project, Geoffrey will be exploring the interface between DAOs and governments, specifically how governments looking to create new frameworks and legislation can learn about the unique needs and capabilities of decentralized organizations.

Karam Alhamad

Karam is an entrepreneur, fintech visionary, international development professional, and human rights policy advocate. Karam founded ZeFi, an educational platform and community focused on fostering blockchain education and research custom-fit for the Syrian context. For the Fellowship, Karam will conduct research that increases practical and culturally-sensitive understandings of how blockchains can solve problems in conflict settings.

Marcus Alburez Myers

Marcus is a Guatemalan entrepreneur working to address today’s pressing challenges. He is currently a Founder-in-Residence at Europe’s leading accelerator, Entrepreneur First, where he is drawing on the power of web3 to empower marginalized communities. Through his work with Lamina POP, a low-cost housing design project in Guatemala, Marcus will be exploring the real-world barriers to physical asset financing for DeFi, and will apply his findings to develop a possible solution for housing finance.

Mary Davies

As a legal researcher and technologist based in the Cayman Islands, Mary has been exploring a pressing question: If life-extension technology doesn’t pan out over the next few decades, what happens to your crypto when you die? Currently there is no trustless or decentralized solution to this question, and this presents a problem. Mary’s fellowship will explore what new cryptographic mechanisms might enable us to trustlessly transfer assets after death, in a way that is legally compliant.

Mihajlo Atanackovic

Mihajlo is leading the digital transformation journey of one of the world’s biggest non-formal educational youth movements – the World Organization of the Scout Movement with 57+ million members from around the globe. To get the Scout Movement ready for web3, he is embarking on an ambitious project involving digitalising badges, exploring DAOs for different levels of the Movement, and how the scouts might employ novel coordination mechanisms for grassroots organization.

Team Next Billion at Devcon VI

If you’re interested in what the fellows are working on, we hope you’ll check out the Fellow’s talks in person or on live-stream. If saving the world (or trying to) is something you’re into, get in touch with us or tag us on Twitter @EFNextBillion

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P.S. No, it’s not the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship — that’s another fellowship initiative on the other edge of the same frontier. Maybe in the future we’ll do a crossover episode.

TL;DR: The EPF successfully concluded the fifth cohort, Study Group 2025 and is preparing for cohort six (EPF6). Applications will be announced soon, keep an eye on the EF blog! In the meantime, get ready by enhancing your Ethereum protocol knowledge at EPF.wiki and sign up for the newsletter to get notified about announcements.

The Ethereum Protocol Fellowship completed its fifth cohort, culminating with EPF Day at Devcon in Bangkok. Its completion marked 5 months of immersive learning, research and contribution to the Ethereum core ecosystem from a group of talented and dedicated fellows. Client devs and researchers welcomed new contributors, some of which stayed working with them long-term.

Additionally, the second iteration of the Protocol Study Group concluded after 2 months of intensive learning about the core protocol.

To learn more about the EPF program, take a look at some of the past posts and cohort repositories.

What’s new

With each cohort, we gather feedback and learn more about how to improve the experience for both fellows and Ethereum devs. EPF5 brought a few notable changes resulting in a very productive cohort.

Prior to EPF5, we organized the first Protocol Study Group which ran for 10 weeks leading to EPF5. Over those 10 weeks, students participated in a curriculum designed to educate about all areas of the protocol. This led to a much smoother onboarding, as many fellows came ready for EPF with more knowledge and resources.

The other major change to EPF5 was the duration, extended from 4 to 5 months, giving fellows an additional month to refine their projects and aim for bigger scopes.

Similarly to past cohorts, we hosted EPF Day at Devcon to close out the cohort. However for EPF5, we also organized an additional EPF Day near the beginning of the cohort during EthCC in Brussels. This event gave fellows an opportunity to meet each other and mentors and present the projects they will work on through the cohort.

EPF5 Stats

Applications for the fifth cohort opened in May 2024. After reviewing over 300 applications, 20 participants were awarded initial stipends to participate in the fellowship working on core R&D projects. Because the program is open, an additional 25 participants joined permissionlessly. After the 5-month period and over 500 weekly updates, we concluded the cohort with 30 active fellows at EPF Day in Bangkok.

EPF5 Projects

Altogether, fellows proposed and contributed to 30 projects, with mentors from various client and research teams, including Grandine, Prysm, Lighthouse, Besu, Nimbus, Nethermind, Geth, Teku, RIG, and Reth. These projects not only represent a valuable learning experience but meaningful contributions to the Ethereum core ecosystem. You can learn more about project outcomes in final reports and presentation recordings from EPF Day.

All of the program resources can be found in the EPF5 repository, with the majority of the activity in /development updates and proposals in /projects. As an active part of Ethereum’s open research, all EPF projects and resources are free and open-source.

Protocol Study Group Continues

The Protocol Study Group is back for 2025! With a renewed format, beginning with a 2 week intensive convering the existing resources and followed by 6 additional weeks of new lectures from core developers. Combined, we have created even more comprehensive curriculum with dedicated focus on each part of the execution and consensus layer.

This is not just a pre-cursor program to the EPF but a comprehensive curriculum for anyone wanting to learn more about Ethereum’s core protocol. Materials and recordings from Study Group sessions are always available as a structured learning experience, together with a collaborative wiki built by independent contributors. Whether you are getting ready for the fellowship or just want to learn about some aspect of Ethereum, epf.wiki contains all resources you need.

Next Cohort Soon

We are gearing up for the sixth cohort of the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship. For anyone interested in diving into Ethereum core development, stay tuned for the application announcement later in April with a cohort starting in June. To get notified, join the EPF mailing list.

Meanwhile, you can get ready by ensuring a foundational understanding of the Ethereum protocol (epf.wiki and previous cohorts are a great place to start), publically contributing to open-source projects, especially existing projects in the Ethereum ecosystem, and giving some thought to the type of project you may like to work on.

Ethereum is a living entity, distributed across time and space, accessible through our screens and communication devices. What gives it life are the myriad human relationships that have become intertwined with the roots, branches, and leaves of the Ethereum state tree. This single tree encodes immense value, digital property, and dapp utility — not an insignificant slice of human activity.

But the humans who currently give Ethereum life do not represent all humans — many gaps across cultures, nationalities, and class must be bridged. The use cases and novel solutions that have so far been developed and advertised and touted by web3 builders do not yet represent the true potential of Ethereum to enable human flourishing — we have not yet scratched the surface of possibility space.

We believe that the visionaries are out there. We believe that those who understand and work against coordination failure can see glimpses of hope. They have levers with which they intend to move the world, and Ethereum could be their fulcrum. For Ethereum to reach the next billion humans it must become useful not just for the techno-optimists, but for everyone on this messy, complicated, human planet.

Fellowship

We believe that it’s possible to use Ethereum to improve the lives of billions of people. But we need more than just technology — we need new ways of thinking about how humans interact with each other and with their environment. We need new stories to tell, new visions for a better future, and new ways of expressing our values in code.

The Next Billion Fellowship at the Ethereum Foundation is a search for stories: Stories that inspire us to focus on the important things, to find balance and fairness in the way we go about solving our problems, and to push deeper into the mysteries of human cooperation.

We are looking for changemakers, visionaries, and pragmatists. We are looking for stories that represent the best of ourselves, to better imagine a world in which we take the tools at hand, roll up our sleeves, and begin the long and difficult work of pulling the world out of a coordination death spiral.

It’s okay to start with experiments, pilots, and research. Stories of invalidated hypotheses, underestimated challenges, and misaligned incentives are extraordinarily valuable in the quest for new systems of change. We are still at the beginning of a very long journey into unknown territory — map-making is a difficult and worthwhile endeavor.

Fellows could be working as individuals, or as part of a bigger organization. Some fellows might be building directly, designing and testing new technologies that work to solve age-old problems. Others might have a special interest in a particular human context, researching and sharing their findings with other builders in the Ethereum community to help them design better solutions. There are no strict requirements for a Next Billion Fellowship project save one: earnesty.

Next Billion Fellows should be on a personal quest. The Fellowship is neither the beginning nor the end of their journey, but it may provide some support that enables a fellow to get closer to ambitious objectives. Whatever the project, whomever the fellow, the quest must be rooted in the interest of public good.

Call for applicants

We want to aid you on your quest!

Next Billion Fellowship cohort 3 will begin in late June 2023. If you are working to make a difference in the world using Ethereum, please visit our website and submit your application by April 28, 2023. We’ll review all submissions and select applicants who have ideas that can have a big impact on humanity through Ethereum-enabled solutions or protocols that align with public good objectives.

The Fellowship Program provides mentorship from relevant experts, access to resources from the Ethereum Foundation & Ethereum community, financial support, and opportunities for networking and media exposure.

Next Billion

Team Next Billion at the Ethereum Foundation works to find the enablers and blockers of Ethereum’s next billion users. We scout the edges of public good possibility space looking for new use cases, contexts, and communities that indicate how Ethereum might become a tool of and for the next billion.

If you’re interested in talking to us about something outside the scope of the Next Billion Fellowship, contact us here or send us a DM on Twitter @EFNextBillion.

TL;DR:

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Greetings, Ethereum community!

We are excited to announce that the application period for the fourth cohort of the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship (EPF) is officially open!

The EPF is an initiative aimed at supporting the development of Ethereum’s core protocol by providing a pathway for aspiring protocol contributors to gain the experience needed to make meaningful contributions. This program is specifically tailored toward developers and researchers who have an unyielding passion for Ethereum, its community, and the possibilities of decentralized technology.

In each cohort, we seek to assemble a diverse group of fellows who will work to advance Ethereum’s technology during the four month fellowship. This includes everything from the development of client implementations, testing and specifications, and participating in the latest core protocol research.

The program provides fellows with a unique opportunity to collaborate with other talented individuals, to engage with current Ethereum core developers and fellowship peers, and to make a significant impact on the Ethereum ecosystem. Whether you’re a seasoned developer in the blockchain space, a promising computer science student, or a researcher with an interest in cryptography and economics, we encourage you to apply!

Details

• Applications accepted June 1st through June 18th, 2023 – APPLY HERE
• The fourth cohort runs from July through November 2023, culminating with an in-person event at Devconnect in Istanbul
• Participants will have access to mentors from the core development community
• Selected participants will be provided with a monthly stipend to allow them to focus on the program

The EPF is fully permissionless program. Anyone is welcome to participate in the program with the same benefits and support offered to the selected fellows. A portion of the stipend budget is allocated to rewarding active permissionless participants.

In the past cohorts, we’ve had some truly outstanding fellows who have made significant contributions to Ethereum, and we’re thrilled to see what the fourth cohort will accomplish. To understand exactly what kind of projects have been worked on and to find an inspiration for your own, you can read about fellows’ work from the first, second and third cohorts.

Applications are now open and will remain so until June 18, 2023. For more information, please review the program details in the GitHub repository. On June 12th at 4:30PM UTC, the EPF team held a town hall to discuss the program and answer any questions.

Together, let’s continue to build the future of Ethereum. We can’t wait to see what you’ll create.