Hello Gitcoiners🙋🏽‍♀️, I’m Karla Obakpolor, aka KarlaGod, I’m the Founder of Crypto Smart, and Lead Partner at B<>rder/ess, and here’s my story and the progress report of my contribution to Public Goods in web3.
I started my company Crypto Smart in 2021, as an asset management company to help people in my country get into crypto, smartly, without losing their money to volatility or bad timing in the Crypto Market, r from treating Crypto like a Ponzi.
Our strategy was one of research, educate then act. So we’d research what Crypto Assets to buy, educate our clients on what to expect with market volatility, and then how to buy them, how to protect their wallets, etc.
We never held client assets, we mostly educated and advised clients, we also helped businesses set up trading departments in their institutions.
As time went by I also wanted to build a Blockchain Product that could help clients do this without having to go through the manual processes of signing up with us, booking a meeting, etc. I wanted us to build different dApps that cater to savings needs, DeFi Education needs and Crypto Asset management needs.
I quickly found out that there was a dearth of web3 developers in my environment, most devs didn’t understand or even like web3, and some others weren’t interested in it at all because they had lost money to crypto and didn’t understand that Blockchain and Crypto were 2 different things.
It took me 6 months to get developers who were interested in exploring web3 and teach them to work in a team together and to understand dev tooling in web3. By the end of those 6 months, I thought to myself, “What if I do this same thing that we’ve done internally for Crypto Smart, externally?”, and at that time my CTO Primidac had decided that he would be willing to teach other young people, and this decision we both made was the catalyst for establishing B<>rder/ess.
So B<>rder/ess is the Tech Not-For-Profit arm of Crypto Smart, and Crypto Smart allocates 25% of her resources to make sure B<>rder/ess runs.
And that’s how I got into Public Goods - …by mistake 
2-Year Progress Report of B<>rder/ess and my Public Goods activities
The following is a chronological account of B<>rder/ess Impact in the web3 space, since our inception, I’ll also drop some sidenotes on some fun details.
JUNE 2022 - We started B<>rder/ess Developers Programme
https://x.com/cryptosmartnow/status/1541722734828441601?s=20
We had over 30 persons apply to learn tech skills
JULY - SEPTEMBER 2022 - We had our first On-Boarding session
https://x.com/cryptosmartnow/status/1543987727762427908?s=20
We had our first introductory class on operating systems
We started morning and evening classes
We had two daily sessions thrice a week
SEPTEMBER - NOVEMBER 2022
By September 2022, Algorand gave us a grant which we used to open a physical hub for physical classes, meet-ups, and mini hacker house activities.
Started Physical classes at the hub
We started preparations for B<>rder/ess 1.0 Web3/Tech Event
OCTOBER 2022 - We started the B<>rder/ess Volunteer Community
https://x.com/cryptosmartnow/status/1578684835287035904?s=20
NOVEMBER 2022 - We had the B<>rder/ess 1.0 event with over 1038 persons in attendance
You can watch the event, and also see the progress report on our website here.
HAPPY NEW YEAR
JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2023 - We collaborated with our Government’s arm for IT infrastructure, NITDA to bring Blockchain Education to Port-Harcourt City.
We had 3 Physical Meet-Ups at the hub educating young and older people in Port-Harcourt who were interested in learning about web3.
Meet 1
Meet 2
Meet 3
MARCH 2023
We started our second Cipher Session
Apart from the first Cipher Session that took 6 months, every Cipher Session lasts for 1 Quarter.
APRIL 2023
We got introduced to the Gitcoin Ecosystem (Best thing that happened to us, you’d see how this affected our progress in the next Ciphe Sessions).
Gitcoin Beta Round
Project Link
JUNE 2023
3rd Cipher Session
We had our 3rd Cipher Session
1 Year Anniversary
1st Anniversary
Fun Facts about B<>rder/ess’ 1 Year
Gitcoin Citizens Round
Project Link
Post
AUGUST 2023
Gitcoin Grants 18 Round
Project Link
Post
B<>rder/ess 2.0 Preparations
Started Activities for B<>rder/ess 2.0
SEPTEMBER 2023
Announced 500 Tech Scholarship Campaign for the 4th Cipher Session
Opened Public Sponsorship of Students to B<>rder/ess
We started a statewide campus Tour for B<>rder/ess Developers’ Program in Rivers State
You can see them on our website
OCTOBER 2023
Created a B<>rder/ess Twitter Account to run B<>rder/ess activities separately from Crypto Smart
Classes for the 4th Cipher Session Began
We had Ethereum Nigeria Community have an event at B<>rder/ess
We Kicked off B<>rder/ess Tech Clubs in 8 Universities in Nigeria
NOVEMBER 2023
We had B<>rder/ess 2.0
We had the first Learn-A-Thon series in the B<>rder/ess Tech Club
Hosted Lets Build DAO meet-up at the B<>rder/ess Hub
We got into 3 Gitcoin Rounds
Progress Report Between GG18 and GG19
Gitcoin 19 Rounds
Post
Project Link
Public Goods Africa Rounds
Post
Project Link
Arbitrum Citizen’s Rounds
Post
Project Link
Announced the Byte 11:23 Hackathon in Collaboration with AyaLabs
We reached 50+ Classes in the 4th Cipher Session
See the Picture sessions here for bothe virual and physicla classes
DECEMBER 2023
[Progress Report on Our Tech Club’s activities]
(https://x.com/BorderlessDev/status/1731636976221040924?s=20)
Announced 500 Tech Scholarship campaign for our 5th Cipher Session
Had a Starknet Cairo Bootcamp with B<>rder/ess Developer Community
HAPPY NEW YEAR
JANUARY 2024
Held a Skill session with the B<>rder/ess Community, it was held by one of our community members who had a copywriting skill to share with the community, and he did it.
Had a media training session for B<>rder/ess Community members interested in acquiring media skills including, Video Shoots, Video Editing, Graphic designing, motion graphics, etc.
We started GreenPill Port-Harcourt
Announced the winners of the BYTE 11:23 Hackathon
Announced B<>rder/ess October 2023 Cipher Session Graduation
We had a Deep Dive Session with Covalent’s Gold Rush Kit
We had a Explain It Like I’m 5 series on Public Goods and web3 with all our Tech Clubs and communities.
Community members were taught to use Gitcoin Passport and how to participate in Public Goods and Governance activities in different chains.
Our B<>rder/ess web3/Tech Club University of Nigeria Nsukka held their first Meet-Up for the year.
FEBRUARY 2024
B<>rder/ess Hosted a Founders Meet and Greet sponsored by AWS Partners to help New Start-Ups access Cloud Credits.
Gave a progress report on our B<>rder/ess activities
Hosted an interview session with Coinnews Extra at the B<>rder/ess Hub on Tech, web3 and Crypto Smart.
Hosted a Public Goods and Building on Arbitrum workshop in collaboration with Muntala
Brief summary of our Oct 23 Cipher Graduation Ceremony
B<>rder/ess Tech Club UNN participated in the Archway Hackathon in their University
Posted the Registration stats of the January 2024 Cipher Session
Had a session on Contributing to Public Goods in Gitcoin
Had a Build on Bitcoin DevRel session with Rootstock.io
NEXT QUARTER GOALS (Q2 2024)
- To run a B<>rder/ess Community Round on Gitcoin Grants Stacks
- Build the B<>rder/ess Native dAPP for EduFi in web3
- Strengthen the B<>rder/ess Tech Club communities
- Open a 2nd B<>rder/ess Physical Hub in another University
Q3 GOALS
Will be updated, but mostly we’d be doing everything we usually do and also going through research for DAO processes and more.
Q4 GOALS
- Start off the process of making B<>rder/ess Dev a DAO
- B<>rder/ess 3.0
This is a working document, I’d constantly update it to show the progress of the B<>rder/ess Dev program activities.