Kernel: A Peer-Learning Environment

Public Good Projects Discussion
1

Kernel is building critical, public web3 infrastructure — an open peer-learning environment built to increase trust between participants on trust-minimized foundations.

Starting with Genesis Block in May 2020, Kernel has run seven “blocks”, learning with more than 1,800 Kernel fellows who have built 200+ web3 projects (more here).

Each block has been ~300 people in size, lasts eight weeks, and is oriented around Kernel Fellows having a transformative learning experience in a peer-to-peer environment.

Amongst many other (immeasurable) contributions, Kernel Fellows have gone on to start 100+ crypto projects which have raised a combined $50MM.

The preceding seven blocks have forged a community of learners, and we intend to nurture it into perpetuity. We are creating open source tools and patterns to:

  1. Make Kernel one of the best learning environments on the internet and
  2. Help foster a plurality of related learning communities, over time, well beyond KERNEL.

Funding Sources: So far, Kernel has predominantly been funded by grants, raising ~$1mm in funding. This has been supplemented with dues from Kernel Fellows. Contributors to date include Celo, Filecoin, Optimism, Gitcoin, Octant, The Graph, Anoma, and Climate Collective.

Use of Funds
Our primary use of funds is building Kernel as a perpetual, open, peer-to-peer educational environment. To-date, 80% of funds have been used to pay for salaries of 4-7 active Kernel stewards, and we expect a similar percentage going forward.

Alongside necessary SaaS tools, Kernel has crafted a variety of our own, web3 tools which also require some upkeep. We have committed to keeping open all the tools we use to craft an increasingly principled web with each person and project which spends time in Kernel.

Some of these patterns include:

  • Kernel Blocks - how may the partially cohort-based, partially continuous pattern that is KERNEL propagate in healthy, open, enjoyable ways?
  • Convo - a simple web app to organize intentional gatherings and great conversations
  • Book - a eight module, hyper-linked digital book which guides Kernel programming and serves as a model for other Kernel-like environments
  • Honour - a weird system of social credit for use in peer-learning environments, starting with our own

Each of the above is open source, modular, home-cooked, and represents a different part of Kernel. Each intends to extend and be a part of other educational environments, so that other people may use these patterns in their DAO’s, their communal spaces, and their digital and physical homes.

Team

The Kernel team has been together for two years and have established Kernel as a premiere educational experience in crypto.

2

Thanks @vivek for creating a discuss post. I sent you a message with some more details that would be useful for readers to have (e.g. a Discord username). Where would you say most of the community discussion occurs around Kernal? This could also be useful information to include.

3

Sure thing. I am @vs77bb on Discord.

Discussion in Kernel is currently mostly happening within Kernel Blocks, which are our 8 week programs where we bring together 250 learners twice a year. The next block begins in January, and there will be a variety of conversation at that point.

In the meantime, our syllabus is entirely open-source, as is the code to the sub-systems we use to run Kernel as an open, peer-learning environment.

4

Greetings all, here are some holiday updates from Kernel.

As a reminder: Kernel is building critical, public web3 infrastructure — an participatory peer-learning environment dedicated to building a better web, together.

Our stated goal between Epoch One and Epoch Two was to launch Kernel Block 8. We have done so, and we are incredible excited for the new beginnings!

  • On October 4th, we announced applications for Kernel Block 8
  • We received 258 applications for the block, and completed a decentralized ‘Searching’ and ‘Nominating’ process involving 40+ existing Kernel Fellows to help us select KB8
  • A part of this process included hosting 25 KB8 Intro Convos from November 9th – December 21st, through which 147 applicants were nominated to join KB8 via a personalized, peer-based introduction to Kernel

Next up is the beginning of the block on January 12th, 2024. It will run during Epoch Two, from January 12th – March 12th, 2024. We expect the 150 KB8 Fellows to work on a variety of crypto projects and to, hopefully, be meaningfully impacted by the people and ideas encountered in KB8.

At the end of the program, we expect ~50 KB8 adventures to showcase – highlighting their meaningful progress in Q1 2024. We look forward to sharing their stories in Epoch Three!

Funding Sources
Since Epoch Two, Kernel has received a $15K grant from the Ethereum Foundation to run a public goods track in Kernel, which we think Octant may participate well in. This will be run sometime in the first half of 2024, dates incoming.

We also have received dues from KB8 Fellows, ranging from $100 - $500 per participant (there is also a full scholarship for those who need). So far, these total roughly $10,000 across USDC and ETH contributions.

We continue to use funding we received towards funding 5 stewards to work on Kernel (3 full time, 2 part time), and to run two Kernel Blocks a year into perpetuity. Our team is well positioned to a) run Kernel blocks, b) maintain the Kernel Services which enable the blocks and c) support Kernel Fellows, past and present, focusing primarily on the current Kernel block.

We look forward to sharing more about KB8 and the work done in our next update.