Starting a Student Society

"Student Societies" under "Hyperledger India Chapter" are organized groups of community members in different parts of the country that are working together to address contribution barriers in their regions. For example, contributions from the student groups in Kerala that are working together to translate Hyperledger Fabric documentation into Malayalam.

Active Student Societies

Proposed Student Societies

Starting a "Student Society"

If you are interested in starting a student society, take a look through the following criteria and then reach out to the chapter leads in the weekly Hyperledger India Chapter meetings.

• The student society can be started either by a university or a group of universities representing a distinct language or geography.
• There is a clearly defined vision for what the community in that region wants to do to contribute to the Hyperledger Foundation.
• There is active community within the society interested in one of open-source contributions, research, community building or similar activities.
• There are more than 10 people in the society communicating together about the Hyperledger community.
• There are at least 2 people in the society who are interested in acting as leaders for the society and willing to recruit new members, organize regular meetings (either online or in person, the frequency of such meetings shall be at least once a month). Make sure that the group is working towards the goals that are set in the society's vision statements. The title for such leadership roles will be either "Student Ambassador" or "Faculty Ambassador".
• Signup on the discord at https://discord.gg/hyperledger and join #india-chapter channel.

Fill out the form under "Proposed Student Societies", and reach out to the Hyperledger India Chapter leads. All decisions will be discussed in presence of the community during the weekly Hyperledger India Chapter meetings. The timing of when to go live will be post decision on the call. See below for types of activities that can be run under the student society

• Support local events and organize regional events
  
  • In order to scale our meetup efforts which are currently being supported by Hyperledger India Chapter volunteers, we can delegate authority to ambassadors to support meetups in an area. This additional bandwidth to support meetups will be critical in an effort to ensure a positive experience for all meetup attendees and for raising the expectations we set for meetup organizers.
  • They would also focus on doing things across cities in their region: for example, if there are special guests in the region they can notify the Hyperledger India Chapter leaders and coordinate a "tour".  Or they could run other types of regional events, including bootcamps, work sprints, localization drives, hackathons, etc.
• Address student contribution barriers
  • Tools: There are examples where tools that are used in the Hyperledger project aren't accessible or used in a region. Identifying these hurdles and working with Hyperledger staff is a very important function.
  • Be bridge between the Hyperledger India Chapter and give input in that meeting, and take notes back to the local community.
• Other contribution opportunities
  • Collecting local Hyperledger use cases (collected from local press, local presentations, local networks etc) to share with the wider community through blogs posts, the Blockchain Showcase and other appropriate channels.
  • Working with local universities to help them learn more about Hyperledger and to help get students and professors connected to the community
  • Please add suggestions and ideas for other ways Regional Leads could contribute...

Remarks

Read through the following instructions carefully and reach out in case of more questions.

Most of the community has been requesting us to setup their own student society in their university/colleges. Note that there can only be one "Hyperledger India Chapter Student Society" and there won't be a duplication. One can express their interest in leadership positions. It is quite common to notice student groups in India, specifically under the engineering forums such as IEEE, which is a community that run on paid membership model. However, Hyperledger Foundation is dedicated to contributing open-source software that addresses multiparty systems/blockchain technology. One can still make a monetary contribution to the Linux Foundation, to get cool community developer experience. Checkout https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about-individual-supporters/.

** Important ** This document outlines a structure for establishing a student society in your college/university. Student societies are part of the Hyperledger India Chapter and are a way for community members in the region to connect with university students and professors to support their efforts with teaching and researching blockchain and distributed ledger technology. This is separate from the "Associate Membership" offered by the "Hyperledger Foundation". Hyperledger Foundation has a detailed documentation at Academic and Associate collaboration. Checkout the associate membership option at https://www.hyperledger.org/about/join. The other path to get noticed is by making open-source contributions, making yourselves noticeable in the community. It is not always the code contributions that gets noticed, there are lot many ways of engagements that will help in overall community growth. These could include but not limited to documentation translation, conducting workshops, technical trainings, organizing meetups etc.

If you would like to get help from the "Hyperledger India Chapter" and "Hyperledger India Chapter Student Society" community experts as part of your student society, then the community resources are available at your disposal. "Hyperledger India Chapter" and "Hyperledger India Chapter Student Society" are community groups run by volunteers, with all intentions of advancement of blockchain technology research, adoption in the region.

Note: **MUST READ**

• These governance framework may change without prior notice. It is requested that audience will adhere to principles listed here. All volunteers are putting in their efforts in the best interest of this august open-source community. In case if any clarifications are needed, reach out Hyperledger India Chapter leads.

• Usage of Hyperledger branding / trademark usage shall follow https://www.hyperledger.org/trademark-usage. Reach out to the chapter leads in case of doubts.

• It is highly advised to run through Hyperledger Code of Conduct and Hyperledger AntiTrust Policy in every public setup. Also, strictly follow these guidelines if you are running a community event.