Regional Chapter

Recently, we added  another regional chapter of the Hyperledger community launched by Japanese community participants. Normally, open source projects emphasize the importance of “upstream” or “mainline” contributions so as to not “fork” the codes and communication. 

However, with the addition of the new Hyperledger Japan Chapter, Hyperledger has now launched six regional chapters. Many community members are gathering around the regional chapters to exchange thoughts and ideas rather than gathering around the mainline mailing lists. Some people might see this as a “fork.”

But the regional chapters play very important roles in helping Hyperledger prosper all around the globe.

“Language” is a huge barrier – how can we be more inclusive to non-English speakers?

Needless to say, the unofficial official language of open source projects, including Hyperledger, is English. To participate in the upstream development, people are expected to be capable of communicating in English. As English is the standard language platform to communicate among the people from different countries and cultures regardless, this is how it should be.

But still this causes issues for non-English speakers to participate in the projects.

First of all, unless the information about the projects (web pages, blogs, news releases, etc.) are translated into the local languages, the projects remain “unknown” in the region. Normally, non-native English speakers won’t read English content day to day unless they really have to. So the projects won’t be noticed by non-English speaking people in the first place.

Even if the projects are noticed by the non-English speaking audience, the next hurdle is understanding the projects in depth. People may want to dig into such things as:

• Technology in detail 
• Upstream development trends and directions (roadmap)
• Existing use cases
• Step-by-step guides of how to implement
• Troubleshooting

In order for all of this information to become available in a local language, it takes a very solid local community and translation ecosystem. But we tend to face the Columbus Egg issue here because, unless the information is translated, it is extremely hard to grow a solid local community.

Above all, “people” matters most. It is important for the non-English speaking community participants to be able to ask questions to someone who can potentially help in their local language. Reading the technical documents and blogs in local languages are very essential steps to become familiar with the technology, but talking to people can strengthen the confidence in the projects and become a very big motivation to start really using and participating in the projects.

Language issues can only be solved by the regional chapters

So the biggest value of the regional chapters is to solve these problems caused by the language barrier.

At the Hyperledger Japan Chapter, we identified the “Chapter Leaders.” The chapter leaders will get together to evangelize the Hyperledger projects in Japan through events, blogs, etc., so the projects are “noticed” by the Japanese industry.

The chapter leaders are planning to bring more and more useful information about Hyperledger projects to the Japan Chapter wiki, so it will become easier for Hyperledger newbies to find out the information (technologies, use cases, etc.). Ideally, the wiki will grow to a one-stop portal where people can  find anything they need.

We’ve opened up the Japanese rocket chat channel as well so people can ask questions and the chapter leaders can answer  in Japanese language. 

Growing a solid regional open source community is not an easy task. It takes an effort to make it happen, and the Hyperledger Japan Chapter launched to take on the challenge. 

All blockchain and Hyperledger enthusiasts in Japan, please come join Hyperledger Japan Chapter! We will welcome you all!

Find us here: 

Wiki: Hyperledger Japan Chapter
Rocketchat: Japanese
Meetups: Hyperledger Tokyo Meetup
Facebook: Linux Foundation Japan
Twitter: Linux Foundation Japan

「Hyperledger Japan Chapter へのご参加お待ちしてます！」

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Have you come across a blockchain hackathon that is run on blockchain? Hyperledger India Chapter organized such an event, HYPERHACK in February 2020.

“All are welcome” at Hyperledger. Hyperledger India Chapter takes the core values rooted in India and believes in “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam,” which translates to “world is one family.” HYPERHACK 2020 was open to anybody available to present their solution in the time the jury requested. The event saw overwhelming participation from across the Asia Pacific.

The winning team’s story is an inspiration. If you have ever felt that you need to learn a lot to start working on Hyperledger Fabric or  on blockchain technology in general, read through what the winning team has to say. Kent Lau and Masato Miyai took on a challenge and, eventually, went on to win the contest.

Kent Lau & Masato Miyai, Winners, HYPERHACK 2020

“In March 2019, Hyperledger ran a bootcamp in Hong Kong and that really enthused me to get more involved in learning Hyperledger Fabric. I spent the whole bootcamp trying to install Fabric because my laptop had many problems. I could not get Docker to run, fabric-samples build-your-first-network (byfn.sh) would not complete the unit tests, and I reinstalled Ubuntu 5 times overnight. These frustrating events led me to corrupt my grub file so that my laptop would not even boot. I felt doomed to blockchain purgatory. I would get stuck in Vim and not know how to get out. 

After the Hyperledger Hong Kong bootcamp and prior to HYPERHACK, I attended a few local hackathons, but I was one of those attendees who no one wanted on their team. My performance was so bad that my teammates told me never to join another hackathon again. I had no programming skills, and I decided that the quickest way to learn about Fabric was to take the Linux Foundation Training course on Hyperledger Fabric Administration (LFS272). Finally, I managed to install and run byfn. I felt confident enough to register for HYPERHACK.

The first round in HYPERHACK merely relied on a PPT, so I chose the topic of supply chain traceability. I was thrilled to be chosen for the final round, and I started adapting the labs from the Hyperledger Fabric Administration course  for the traceability requirements. What I thought would be a straightforward refactoring of byfn did not turn out to be so easy. I tried several different configurations, but I always ended up with problems running the chaincode. Time was running out, and the submission deadline was looming. 

The night before the deadline I had exhausted my ideas and patience for byfn. I clicked basic-network by mistake, and this seemed so much easier. Sure, it was not sophisticated, but the script seems comprehensible. I worked overnight to implement the track-and-trace architecture. There was a lot more that I had wanted to plugin, but I had run out of time. I submitted a simplified but fully functioning network and chaincode.

I had no aspirations for my submission since it was the bare bones of what I had envisaged in my PPT. I gave my teammate the usual platitudes of ‘we did our best’ and ‘it was a good learning experience.’ I did not attend the results announcement because I did not expect to win anything. I was surprised when my teammate messaged me that we had won. I did not believe him because I had never won any competition before. I called him and he assured me that we had indeed won. I still did not believe him until I received a congratulatory message from the HYPERHACK organisers.

Winning HYPERHACK has given me a lot more confidence and motivation to get better at Hyperledger Fabric and even branch out into Hyperledger Sawtooth. Exploring how to use my HYPERHACK prize of Microsoft Azure credits was a steep learning curve, but it has been pivotal for me in figuring out how to stand up a multi-node network of Fabric or Sawtooth with Kubernetes. I have received a lot of new clients and been approached by a number of recruiters due to the high profile of HYPERHACK. I wanted to give back to the Hyperledger community by helping “newbies” learn how to install and run the Fabric tutorials. I now contribute to the Hyperledger Healthcare Special Interest Group and Hyperledger Meetups and update Sawtooth documentation. I am currently focusing on getting certified in Fabric, Sawtooth and Kubernetes. Of course, I will be back for HYPERHACK 2021!” – Kent Lau

Hyperledger India Chapter would like to thank all our sponsors, participants, jury members, and volunteers. Find out all the information from 2020’s edition here in the Wiki.

Hyperledger India Chapter plans to hold  the second edition of the hackathon “HYPERHACK 2021” in March. Saintgits College of Engineering and Hyperledger Social Impact Special Interest Group have joined together in co-organizing the hackathon this year. Find out all the information here in the Wiki.

Looking forward to seeing all of you participate in the hackathon!

If you have any questions about the event, feel free to post to the Hyperledger India Chapter’s mailing list where community members involved with this event will be happy to help: https://lists.hyperledger.org/g/community-india-chapter/