Imagine a bunch of highly passionate and brightest folks in one room and solving the most difficult problems of web3 ecosystem! You might say that "hey, hackathons exist, right!!", well that's true but what if the experience was 2 months of building something! That's what polygon fellowship exactly was!
The people
Clearly what stood out for me was the people I got to interact with, I had discussions on 'Cosmos Ecosystem vs other Layer 1s" for quite a long time and was able to have insights that I did not have before. Everyone were nice and did not make one feel left out during a conversation, but had a great ordeal of patience to explain and often at times argue in order to make a point. This collaborative nature and perhaps the passion for the ecosystem was what made the fellowship stood out. It's crazy how easily we bonded together and became friends. I still feel nothing beats in person communication. Digital is great as ease of communication but it does not replaces the in person interactions that one can pull through.
The Workshops
The second biggest takeway for the fellows during the fellowship was the sessions we had. Some of the things that they said infused so much passion and inspiration in us as a team. We truly had a great time of learning from some of the highly technical CXOs which gave the talk themselves. We also had an opportunity to interact with the OG "Sandeep Nailwal" and ask him questions which was the icing on a cake, especially to people who are very new to the ecosystem.
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The Retreat
All the fellows stayed at "The Paul" Bangalore which had amazing facilities provided to all the fellows. The food was finger licking delicious and stay was really comfortable with all the amenities. The rooms were suites and left the fellows wondering if it can get better than this, and it did with the actual workshops and the ideas / discussions that happened about how as an ecosystem we can grow. The entire atmosphere was filled with a lot of optimism and positivity as compared to how web3/crypto gets looked upon by some of more traditional and orthodox institutions.
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The Online and Mentors
The mentors we connected with, we had long discussions on how we can take our solutions forward from business perspective and do more with our work. We learnt more on how the current ecosystem works and the rational of ideas from not just tech perspective but marketing and business as well. I cam to know of other avenues notably 'Polygon Grants', and different DAOs. This further motivated me to be part of such an exclusive group.
Overall the event was extremely well organised by Devfolio and I have said so multiple times to my friends that nothing of this sort has been done not just in Indian blockchain scene but Indian tech scene altogether. I am extremely grateful to the devfolio team for selecting me as candidature and further enabling my belief.