web3 Warri Arbitrum Universities IRL Events Updates

[charlesfreeborn]

Greetings, Arbinauts!

My name is Charles Freeborn and am the founder of web3 Warri - a community of (and for) blockchain developers, smart contract developers, builders, technical writers, open-source contributors, and tech enthusiasts interested in building the next generation of the internet through collaborative learning, meetups, workshops, hackathons, and conferences.

Our community is committed to fostering the development and adoption of blockchain technology and the growth of the web3 ecosystem.

Description

We received grant approval for the Arbitrum Education, Community Growth and Events rounds on Questbook and so will be using this thread to share updates and reports here.

The web3 Warri community under my leadership will be hosting a series of Arbitrum events across three higher institutions within Delta State of Nigeria between February and March 2024.

Goals of the web3 Warri Arbitrum Universities IRL Events

In line with Arbitrum’s “Initiatives for Institutional Community Growth,” we are hosting a series of university and higher institution events with the following goals:

• 200 attendees per institution leading to a total of 600 attendees across the three different institutions
• Introducing the attendees, majorly of whom are students to blockchain technology and layer 2 with STRICT focus on Arbitrum
• Inspiring the students (and researchers) to take up researching Arbitrum by pointing them to the Arbitrum Research Forum.
• Developing smart contracts on Arbitrum
• Growing the Arbitrum ecosystem through the introduction of programs like the Arbitrum ambassador program for university students

Milestone 1 - Pre-event Setup Report

Since approval, we have started the campaign - online and onsite - by doing the following:

1. Official announcement via a blog post of the series of Arbitrum universities events on the web3 Warri Medium publication page on January 18, 2024

2. Creation of the first university event on the web3 Warri meetup page and RSVP opened.

3. Commencement of the campaign on Social Media - X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn. The campaign will run throughout the three events.
   Here are some campaign posts on X:
   a.) https://twitter.com/web3_warri/status/1748650990016864650
   b.) https://twitter.com/web3_warri/status/1747978724409069912
   c.) https://twitter.com/web3_warri/status/1747975284177973248
   d.) https://twitter.com/charliecodes/status/1747974609826177136

4. The onsite campaign at the university has begun and opening up off-line reservation to allow for those who are unable to RSVP on meetup to still attend.
   See this post here on X

5. The numbers on the RSVPs have been overwhelming in less than a week of opening it up. On the web3 Warri meetup page, for example, the online registration for the first university event is at 81 as at the time of this report, while off-site registration is already at 85. We are thus, opening slots for a waiting list, to allow those who are unable to RSVP to come in, should a free entry ticket holder cancel their reservations.

Acknowlegdement

We are most thankful to @cattin, @Manugotsuka @axlvaz_SEEDLATAM.eth and the @SEEDGov team for reviewing and approving our proposal.

What next?

Keep an eye on this thread as we will be using it to share updates and reports as we execute each milestone.

[charlesfreeborn]

Milestone 2 Report - The Arbitrum University event at the Federal Univerisity of Petroleum Resources, Effurun, Nigeria

On Saturday February 10, 2024, the web3 Warri community under my leadership hosted 170 plus students, developers and researchers at the Federal Univerisity of Petroleum Resources Effurun, Nigeria.

This was the first in the series of Arbitrum events across some select higher institutions within Delta State of Nigeria.

The event was a success, thanks to the @SEEDGov team - @cattin @Manugotsuka @axlvaz_SEEDLATAM.eth for reviewing and approving our proposal at Questbook.

A report on our pre-defined goals

Amongst some of the goals we set out to achieve at this event and in our proposal was to have a minimum attendance of 150 persons and a max of 200 persons comprising students, researchers, developers, and anyone interested in blockchain technology and layer 2 solutions with Arbitrum being the protagonist.

At the Federal University of Petroleum Resources Effurun - FUPRE, Nigeria Arbitrum event, we had 170 plus attendees.

One of the most notable highlights at the event was the technical session facilitated by Charles Chiawka on “building DApps on Arbitrum”

You can find the official photos for the event on this Google Drive and I also wrote about the event on the web3 Warri Medium publication page.

What Next?

The web3 Warri team will be hosting the second university event at the Delta State University Abraka, Nigeria tomorrow.

Keep an eye on this thread as we will be using it to share updates and reports as we execute each milestone.

[charlesfreeborn]

Milestone 3 Report - The Arbitrum University event at the Delta State Univerisity Abraka, Nigeria

Here is a report of the second Arbitrum university events powered by web3 Warri and under my leadership.

So barely one week after hosting 170 plus attendees at the Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Nigeria. We were on Friday February 16, 2024, at the Delta State University - DELSU, Abraka, Nigeria for the second Arbitrum University event. We had over 200 attendees in attendance, excited about learning about blockchain technology, layer 2, Arbitrum and how to contribute to Arbitrum.

The Arbitrum event at the Delta State University Nigeria is the second in a series of university-focused events, aimed at introducing Blockchain technology, layer 2 with Arbitrum being the protagonist, to inspire the student community — developers, researchers, and anyone — interested in the next generation of the internet to not only take up building on top of the Arbitrum chain, but contribute to the growth of the ecosystem through research.

A report on our pre-defined goals

Every institution has its peculiarity and for Delta State University, the attendees matched our energy.

First, the large turnout was overwhelming for us and even surpassed our goal of hosting 200 people. We ended up having an overflow of people (next time, we will settle for a 500-seater auditorium) and we are glad that the students stayed back and engaged us with questions.

Worthy of mention was the presence of Dr. Abel E. Edje, the head of the Department of Computer Science.

We also noticed a large turnout of female attendees at the event — roughly 35 percent female attendees. It was truly encouraging to see lots of females coming in for the event to learn about Arbitrum.

And yes, the students have asked that we come again - we will have to have conversations with the DAO to see how we can organized core workshops on Arbitrum going forward.

What Next?

The web3 Warri team will be hosting the third and final university event at the Petroleum Training Institute, Nigeria on March 16, 2024.

Keep an eye on this thread as we will be using it to share updates and reports as we execute each milestone.

I wrote about this in a blog post on the web3 Warri official Medium publication page.

Acknowledgement

The event was a success, thanks to the @SEEDGov team - @cattin @Manugotsuka @axlvaz_SEEDLATAM.eth for reviewing and approving our proposal at Questbook.

[charlesfreeborn]

Milestone 4 - The Arbitrum University event at the Petroleum Training Institute - PTI, Nigeria

Group photo with some attendees at the event

Greetings, Arbinauts!

Here is a report of the third and final Arbitrum University IRL events powered by web3 Warri with the grant received from the Arbitrum Education and Community growth category from QuestBook and under my leadership.

So on Saturday, March 23, 2024 we hosted 133 attendees made up of students and developers to the final Arbitrum event at the Petroleum Training Institute, PTI, Delta State Nigeria. The attendees comprised 99 males and 34 females coming together to learn about blockchain technology, layer 2, Arbitrum, and how to contribute to the Arbitrum ecosystem.

A report on our pre-defined goals

As part of the goals we had mentioned in the previous reports, we set out to host these Arbitrum focused events across three select higher institutions in Delta State Nigeria.

For the numbers, we had a goal to host a minimum of 150 attendees per institution. However, at the Petroleum Training Institute, we recorded 133 attendees, a bit short of our minimum target.

Here are the official photos of the event on this Google Drive.

What Next?

For Q2 2024, the web3 Warri team will be hosting deep dive technical workshops/meetups on building and deploying DApps and smart contracts on the Arbitrum chain.

Acknowledgement

We are most thankful to the authorities, the student body, and everyone at the Petroleum Training Institute for the tremendous support given to us at the web3 Warri to make this a reality.

The event was a success, thanks to the @SEEDGov team - @cattin @Manugotsuka @axlvaz_SEEDLATAM.eth for reviewing and approving our proposal at Questbook.

[charlesfreeborn]

Final Report - bringing Arbitrum to over 500 students, developers and researchers

In Q1 2024, the web3 Warri team under my leadership, received a grant from the Arbitrum Foundation via the QuestBook platform. Thanks to the @SEEDGov team for reviewing our application and approving our proposal.

In our proposal, we set the audacious goal of hosting Arbitrum-focused events across three select higher institutions (universities and colleges) across Delta State, South of Nigeria.

This is a report of how we were able to host, spread the message of blockchain, Ethereum, and Arbitrum as a layer 2 solution, and inspire over 500 students and developers combined, across the three select institutions.

Our Predefined Goals

We shared our goals for this series of events in our earlier reports. You can find them here

It is worth repeating however that some of the goals included:

1. Having a minimum attendance of 150 people in each institution with a cap at 200.
2. Introducing the attendees to blockchain technology, Ethereum, and layer 2 with STRICT focus on Arbitrum
3. Inspiring the students to take up research on Arbitrum leading to the growth of the ecosystem.

The strategy - penetrating each institution

To achieve the goal of hosting the Arbitrum event, we had to be strategic in our campaign per institution. To reach an attendee number of at least 150 people, we had to be proactive both online and onsite across each institution.

Here’s a summary of the strategy we employed in achieving the goal

Onsite Campaigns on campus

onsite campaign at one of the classroom of the Federal University Petroleum Resources, Nigeria

1. Working closely with the student union body as partners, enabling us to reach a large number of students on campus.
2. Working closely with the school authorities - the various departmental heads like the department of Computer Science, the dean of the student affairs.
3. Working with the different tech communities on the various campuses.
4. Working with the school authority and student body to pick a date that is most feasible and won’t disrupt the school’s academic calendar. For example, in one of the institution, we had to host the event on a Friday as recommended by the school.
5. Securing a venue for the event inside the institution. Why? Because we wanted the attendees to be most comfortable in their environment without the need for them to travel outside of campus for the event.
6. Classroom campaigns - where we went with handbill invitational fliers specifically printed for the event.
7. Bill board at strategic locations in the schools, informing the student community of the Arbitrum event.
8. Volunteers and teams were also set up in each school. These volunteers helped us tremendously in achieving our goals since they are members of the institutions.

onsite campaign at one of the classroom of the Federal University Petroleum Resources, Nigeria

Online campaigns

We were also strategic in our online campaign for the events - like running Twitter campaigns, blog posts like this, including LinkedIn.

The Numbers - A breakdown for each school

We had a total of 513 people combined from the three institutions and here is the breakdown in the numbers.

Institution one event - the Federal University of Petroleum Resources - FURPE, Nigeria

Event date: Saturday February 10, 2024.

We had 170 people in attendance. Male attendees were 125, while female attendees were 45.

Institution two event - the Delta State University Abraka - DELSU, Nigeria

Event date: Friday February 16, 2024.

We had 210 people in attendance. Male attendees were 185, while female attendees were 85. We also had the honor of the presence of the head of the department of Computer Science and some lecturers of the Delta State University at the Arbitrum event. It is also interesting to note that this was the very first Web3 event in the institution.

Institution three event - the Petroleum Training Institute - PTI, Nigeria

Event date: Saturday March 23, 2024.
We had 133 people in attendance. Male attendees were 97, while female attendees were 36.

How we Grew the Arbitrum Ecosystem

A look at the Sessions at the Event

One of the major goals for us in hosting this series of events was to grow the Arbitrum ecosystem. With carefully crafted sessions, we achieved this goal.

Here is a look at the sessions/topics we covered

• Introduction to blockchain technology
• A look at layer 2 - Case study Arbitrum
• Building DApps on Arbitrum - a technical deep dive
• Getting started and Contributing to Arbitrum.
  • Arbitrum Research
  • Arbitrum Ambassador Program
  • Building Open Source Tools on the Arbitrum Chain

Attendees Feedbacks and Going Forward

We were blown away not just by the number of attendees we recorded at each event, but also by the enthusiasm, the willingness to learn more about Arbitrum and the shared common theme among each institution.

All schools asked that we come again - this time, hosting technical workshops on how to build DApps on the Arbittum chain.

It is also worth noting that we saw tremendous growth in the number of the web3 Warri community. As at the time we applied for the grant we were less than 150 members. Today, we are over 350 members who have signed up to join the community.

Going forward, we will be organizing technical deep dives and hackathons for members of the community.

Acknowledgement

We are most thankful to the @Arbitrum DAO, the Arbitrum Foundation, Questbook for this initiative. Special thanks also to @SEEDGov team - @cattin @Manugotsuka @axlvaz_SEEDLATAM.eth for reviewing and approving our proposal at Questbook.