ZK Developer Program

Overview

The ZK Developer Program will be an online educational bootcamp designed to cultivate a new generation of contributors across Latin America.

The program will be open to the entire region, focusing on Spanish-speaking participants, providing a highly engaging and personalized learning experience.

Participation will be open and structured in layers, with student performance evaluated throughout. Only those meeting the established criteria will access the specialization layer, delving into each PSE technology. Additionally, participants showing consistent progress will also have access to office hours with mentors.

As a final layer, the program will encourage contributions to PSE repositories, addressing "first good issues" and collaborating on documentation. All content and classes will remain public and permissionless, following the Ethereum Fellowship Program model.

One goal is to equip participants with foundational cryptography knowledge and open-source development skills. Also, the course equips participants with the skills to integrate advanced cryptographic tools into their projects.

Short Rationale

After completing the first LATAM edition of the PSE Core Program, which yielded significant contributions, we identified the need for continued education in Privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs).

By running the ZK Learning Program, we aim to build on that success, scaling participation across the region, and increasing contributions to the open-source ecosystem.

The primary goal of the ZK Developer Program is to empower developers to use PSE protocols to connect with existing projects or those currently under development.

By fostering hands-on experience with these protocols, we aim to cultivate stronger, well-rounded developer profiles that can contribute to PSE's open-source ecosystem.

Additionally, we seek to provide Spanish-speaking students with high-quality learning resources and access to essential technologies to incorporate advanced cryptographic tools with a focus on data privacy and security.

Project Details

Program Content: The platform will offer a comprehensive introduction to Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs), focusing initially on ZK-SNARKs and ZK-STARKs. Emphasis will be placed on practical development using Circom with CircomLab, Rust with Halo2, and the Cairo and Noir languages for PSE projects.

Additionally, repositories and Good First Issues will be compiled to promote community contributions. Submissions featuring documentation on how to apply PSE projects in practical contexts will receive additional credit. All sessions will be recorded and held without restrictions to ensure broad accessibility for the entire community.

Stages of the Program

Core Components

Relevant Prior Work

The team members are all graduates of the PSE Core Program, with hands-on experience in privacy technologies and ongoing contributions to PSE projects.

Most of them also were selected for learning grants to continue their work on PSE projects, further deepening their expertise in programmable cryptography technologies and open-source contributions.

Besides that, Alex Padilla and Lucila Pastore served as the program coordinators in Ecuador and Argentina, respectively. Their leadership roles have provided them with valuable insights into what worked, what didn’t, and what needs to be modified or improved for the next editions.

This gives our team a unique value proposition: the combination of having both completed the program and coordinated it gives us a comprehensive understanding of how to optimize the learning experience for this new format.

Insights from the PSE Core Program 2024 in LATAM:

• Argentina
• Costa Rica
• Ecuador

Team's experience

Cryptographic Knowledge: All team members possess intermediate-level expertise in applied cryptography, developed through comprehensive training in the PSE Core Program 2024.

Community Involvement: Our experience within the community has been pivotal to our professional development, bolstered by our collaboration with the communities of Ethereum Costa Rica, EThereum Ecuador, and Ethereum Argentina. Following the completion of the PSE Core Program in LATAM, we established Privacy Lab LATAM, where we are actively sharing resources for expanding the world of programmable cryptography.

• Telegram Group
• X Account

Web Development Skills: Competence in both frontend and backend web development.

Diverse Backgrounds: Graduates of the program come from various disciplines, including computer science, mechatronics, software engineering, web development, and mathematics. This diversity of backgrounds enhances problem-solving and fosters innovation.

Team Information

Project Members

• Name: Alex Padilla

  • Discord Username: padimasterec
  • Devfolio Username: padimasterec
  • Github Username: padimaster
  • Role: Fullstack - PM

• Name: Paul Rodas

  • Discord Username: 0xarcano
  • Devfolio Username: 0xarcano
  • Github Username: arkno
  • Role: Senior developer/DevOps

• Name: Carlos Israel Jimenez

  • Discord Username: carlos_israelj
  • Devfolio Username: carlos_israelj
  • Github Username: cijimenez
  • Role: Developer

• Name: Lucila Pastore

  • Discord Username: lucilajuliana
  • Devfolio Username: lucilajuliana
  • Github Username: lucilapastore
  • Role: PM

• Name: Nathalia Barreiros

  • Discord Username: nathbarreiros
  • Devfolio Username: nathbarreiros
  • Github Username: NathaliaBarreiros
  • Role: Developer - Instructor

• Name: Daniel Arroyo

  • Discord Username: daniel0ar
  • Devfolio Username: daniel0ar
  • Github Username: daniel0ar
  • Role: Smart Contract and FE developer

Team Code Repos

Partners that trusted us in the past for collaborations

• Ethereum Argentina
• Ethereum Costa Rica
• ETH Ecuador
• ETH KIPU
• Aztec
• Privacy Guardians
• Web3 Privacy Now
• Women in Web3 Privacy
• Anthalpa Labs
• Ethereum Tegucigalpa
• Ethereum Honduras
• Builder Monastery
• NYM en Español
• FHEnix

Work Done So Far: We have already successfully conducted the LATAM edition of the PSE Core Program, yielding strong engagement and contributions from students.

Technical Approach

• Components (Select all that apply)

  • Frontend
  • Backend
  • Smart Contracts
  • ZK Circuits
  • Machine Learning (ML)

• High-level outline of the main technical components, tech you used and approaches used in the project.

Sponsors (if applicable)

If you are applying for a sponsor project idea or grant, select the sponsors below.

• Push Protocol
• Polygon
• Chainlink
• Brevis
• Orbiter
• ZKM
• Nethermind
• PSE
• AltLayer

What do you plan to achieve with your project?

What is the plan for this project from now on? Do you plan to continue to work on it? Do you want some help? How could we help you?

Lessons Learned (For Submission)

• What are the most important takeaways from your project?
• Are there any patterns or best practices that you've learned that would be useful for other projects?
• Highlight reusable code patterns, key code snippets, and best practices - what are some of the ‘lego bricks’ you’ve built, and how could someone else best use them?

Project Links (For Submission)

https://github.com/Privacy-Lab-Latam-Builders/moodle-web3

Video Demo (For Submission)

Please provide a link to a video demo of your project. The demo should be no longer than 5 minutes.