Devcon 8 India: Ethereum DPG, Open AI & Public Goods Hub

Community Hubs
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Devcon 8 India Community Hub Proposal

Hub Name and Topic

Devcon 8 India: Ethereum DPG, Open AI & Public Goods Hub

Theme: Building transparent, verifiable, and community-driven public goods funding systems using Ethereum, open-source infrastructure, libp2p, IPFS, SEER, and open AI.

Community Hub Website: https://eth-seer-dpg-study-group.lovable.app/

Resources and References for the interested participants: Ethereum DPG Study Group | Devcon 8 Community Hub

Road To Devcon Workshop series: https://seer-libp2p-vision-engine.lovable.app/ (please visit the Road to Devcon section)

Focus areas of the Community Hub: Ethereum DPG Study Group | Devcon 8 Community Hub

Project Website: https://seer-libp2p-vision-engine.lovable.app/

Infrastructure Support: Credits for AI model testing and experimentation sponsored by Akamai through https://protocol-mesh-cloud.lovable.app/

Contact emails for joining as a participant: Ethereum DPG Study Group | Devcon 8 Community Hub

Core Topics:

  • Ethereum Digital Public Goods (DPGs)

  • RetroPGF and performance-based funding

  • Open-source sustainability

  • Contribution intelligence and attribution

  • Open AI models and evaluation systems

  • SEER and decentralized AI infrastructure

  • libp2p and IPFS for open coordination

  • Dependency graph analytics

  • Proof of Contribution

  • Open evaluation frameworks

  • Privacy-preserving ecosystem analytics

  • Community governance and funding mechanisms

Summary of Proposal

The Ethereum DPG, Open AI & Public Goods Hub will bring together builders, maintainers, researchers, RetroPGF operators, ecosystem stewards, public goods contributors, AI researchers, open-source communities, and funding organizations to explore how Ethereum can improve the way public goods are funded, evaluated, measured, and sustained.

The Hub is built around the Ethereum DPG Study Group and SEER initiative, combining Ethereum’s public goods culture with emerging open AI infrastructure. Through workshops, research discussions, contribution clinics, funding roundtables, open-source contributor sessions, and practical demonstrations, participants will explore transparent mechanisms for measuring contribution, attributing impact, and supporting sustainable open-source ecosystems.

The Hub will function as a collaborative space where communities can experiment with contribution intelligence, ecosystem analytics, proof of contribution, dependency graph analysis, and AI-assisted evaluation while remaining aligned with Ethereum’s principles of openness, neutrality, privacy, censorship resistance, and verifiability.

Motivation and Rationale

Ethereum’s long-term success depends on a healthy ecosystem of maintainers, researchers, educators, infrastructure operators, documentation writers, security contributors, community builders, and public goods creators.

While Ethereum has pioneered mechanisms such as RetroPGF and ecosystem grants, significant challenges remain:

  • How do we identify meaningful contributions?

  • How do we measure impact fairly?

  • How do we recognize invisible infrastructure work?

  • How do we avoid bias in funding decisions?

  • How can open-source maintainers receive sustainable support?

  • How do we improve transparency in ecosystem allocation?

  • How can AI assist evaluation without centralizing power?

  • How can contribution data remain verifiable and privacy-preserving?

  • How can ecosystem metrics become more transparent and reproducible?

The Ethereum DPG Study Group was created to explore these questions through open research, experimentation, and collaboration.

This Hub will provide a space where communities can collectively investigate better approaches to:

  • Public goods funding;

  • Open-source sustainability;

  • Ecosystem analytics;

  • Contributor attribution;

  • Impact measurement;

  • AI-assisted evaluation;

  • Transparent governance;

  • Open data infrastructure; and

  • Verifiable contribution systems.

The Hub aligns directly with Ethereum’s mission of supporting public goods while helping builders understand how funding systems can become more transparent, accountable, and community-owned.

Why a Community Hub?

Public goods funding is not a topic that can be adequately explored through a single talk.

Meaningful progress requires interaction between:

  • Maintainers;

  • Researchers;

  • Grant operators;

  • Protocol teams;

  • Builders;

  • Funding organizations;

  • Community leaders;

  • Open-source contributors;

  • AI researchers; and

  • Ecosystem participants.

A Community Hub allows these groups to work together over four days through practical discussions, workshops, experiments, and collaborative design sessions.

Participants will be able to:

  • Discuss funding challenges;

  • Compare allocation mechanisms;

  • Explore evaluation methodologies;

  • Contribute to open-source tooling;

  • Review ecosystem metrics;

  • Prototype new approaches;

  • Test AI-assisted evaluation systems;

  • Study dependency graphs;

  • Explore proof-of-contribution systems; and

  • Develop future collaborations.

The Hub is designed as a working space for builders rather than a presentation venue.

Community / Coalition Behind the Proposal

The Hub is supported by an open coalition of contributors from:

  • Ethereum public goods communities;

  • libp2p;

  • IPFS;

  • SEER;

  • Open-source maintainer communities;

  • Public-interest technology organizations;

  • Ethereum ecosystem researchers;

  • AI and machine learning communities;

  • RetroPGF and grants participants;

  • Academic researchers; and

  • Indian technology and developer communities.

The Hub welcomes participation from all ecosystems interested in transparent public goods funding and open infrastructure.

Programming

The programme will balance education, experimentation, research, and collaboration.

Approximately 50% of the Hub’s programming will consist of structured sessions, while 50% will focus on community participation, working sessions, contributor activities, and collaborative workshops.

Programming Formats

Technical Talks

Research, implementation, and ecosystem insights related to public goods funding, contribution intelligence, and open AI.

Workshops

Hands-on exploration of evaluation systems, ecosystem analytics, dependency graphs, contribution attribution, and AI-assisted workflows.

Open Research Sessions

Presentation and review of emerging work related to RetroPGF, ecosystem metrics, contribution evaluation, and public goods.

Contribution Clinics

Helping maintainers and contributors better understand and document their ecosystem impact.

Ecosystem Roundtables

Facilitated discussions between funders, maintainers, researchers, and builders.

Open-Source Contributor Hours

Time dedicated to working on public goods tooling, dashboards, analytics, and ecosystem infrastructure.

AI & Evaluation Labs

Practical sessions demonstrating open AI systems built on SEER and decentralized infrastructure.

Sample Four-Day Programme

Day 1 : Understanding Public Goods

  • Welcome & Community Onboarding

  • Why Public Goods Matter for Ethereum

  • Evolution of RetroPGF and Ecosystem Funding

  • Maintainer Stories and Infrastructure Contributions

  • Open-Source Contributor Hour

  • Public Goods Roundtable

Day 2 : Measuring Contribution

  • Introduction to Contribution Intelligence

  • Dependency Graph Analytics Workshop

  • Ecosystem Metrics and Evaluation Systems

  • PLDG Dashboard Demonstrations

  • Research Clinic

  • Community Discussion on Attribution

Day 3 : Open AI & Evaluation

  • Open AI for Public Goods

  • SEER Vision Engine Demonstration

  • AI-Assisted Grant Evaluation

  • Privacy and Fairness in Ecosystem Analytics

  • AI & Evaluation Lab

  • Open Discussion on Governance

Day 4 : Proof of Contribution & Future Funding Systems

  • Proof of Contribution with Mopro SDK

  • Verifiable Attribution Workshop

  • Future of RetroPGF

  • Public Goods Funding Design Session

  • Open-Source Collaboration Hour

  • Closing Session: Building Better Public Goods Systems

Possible Speakers and Contributors

Organizing Contributors

Manu Gupta

libp2p maintainer and contributor to IPFS, IPLD, and decentralized infrastructure ecosystems.

Topics:

  • Contribution intelligence

  • Dependency graph analysis

  • Open-source sustainability

  • libp2p ecosystem analytics

  • Public goods funding

Johanna Moran

Operations & Strategy Lead, libp2p.

Topics:

  • Ecosystem development

  • Community governance

  • Open-source sustainability

  • Contributor ecosystems

Vishesh Mathur

Director, AIC, NITI Aayog.

Topics:

  • Public-interest technology

  • Innovation ecosystems

  • Open digital infrastructure

Dr. Pritha Gupta

Security Researcher, Germany.

Topics:

  • Trust and verification

  • Security of evaluation systems

  • Privacy-preserving analytics

Deepti Gupta

Tech Lead, SAP.

Topics:

  • Enterprise open-source

  • Infrastructure sustainability

  • Engineering leadership

Anurag

C4GT Contributor.

Topics:

  • Public-interest technology

  • Open-source communities

  • Emerging contributors

Soham Boir

QMeshPy Maintainer.

Topics:

  • Open-source infrastructure

  • Community tooling

  • Developer ecosystems

Additional speakers will be invited from Ethereum Foundation, RetroPGF communities, Gitcoin, Open Source Observer, public goods organizations, academic institutions, and ecosystem funding initiatives.

Audience

The Hub is intended for:

  • Open-source maintainers;

  • Ethereum builders;

  • RetroPGF participants;

  • Grant operators;

  • Ecosystem stewards;

  • Researchers;

  • AI practitioners;

  • Protocol teams;

  • Infrastructure developers;

  • Public goods contributors;

  • Students;

  • Community organizers; and

  • Developers interested in sustainable open-source ecosystems.

India and Local Community Engagement

India has one of the world’s fastest-growing developer communities and a strong tradition of public digital infrastructure.

The Hub aims to connect global Ethereum public goods initiatives with:

  • Indian universities;

  • Student developer communities;

  • Open-source contributors;

  • Public-interest technology organizations;

  • Startup ecosystems; and

  • Emerging researchers.

The goal is to help more Indian contributors participate in Ethereum’s global public goods ecosystem while contributing local perspectives and innovations.

Core Organizing Team

The organizing team consists of:

  • Manu Gupta : libp2p Maintainer

  • Johanna Moran : Operations & Strategy Lead, libp2p

  • Vishesh Mathur : Director, AIC, NITI Aayog

  • Dr. Pritha Gupta : Security Researcher, Germany

  • Deepti Gupta : Tech Lead, SAP

  • Anurag : C4GT Contributor

  • Soham Boir : QMeshPy Maintainer

Collectively, the team brings experience across open-source infrastructure, ecosystem development, public goods funding, AI systems, public-interest technology, distributed systems, security research, and community coordination.

Alignment with Devcon Community Hub Principles

Community-Driven

The Hub is designed around community participation, open collaboration, and shared ownership of ideas.

Marketing-Free

The Hub will not host token promotions, product pitches, sales activities, or sponsored marketing content.

Educational

Every session will focus on practical learning, research, experimentation, or ecosystem improvement.

Open Source

All major discussions center around open infrastructure, open data, open evaluation systems, and public goods.

Bridge Building

The Hub connects maintainers, funders, builders, researchers, AI practitioners, and ecosystem stewards.

Builder Focused

Participants will leave with new tools, methodologies, collaborations, and actionable ideas for strengthening public goods infrastructure.

Special Requirements and Considerations

The Hub requires:

  • Reliable Wi-Fi

  • Power access

  • Flexible seating

  • Presentation displays

  • Whiteboards

  • Collaboration space

  • Workshop-friendly environment

For AI and evaluation demonstrations, access to cloud infrastructure will be supported through credits sponsored by Akamai via Protocol Mesh Cloud.

The Hub does not require extensive staging or branding installations. The desired atmosphere is a collaborative research and builder workspace where contributors can openly discuss and improve Ethereum’s public goods ecosystem.

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From Agent-to-Agent Coordination to Distributed Quantum Services: Exploring an Open P2P Agent Mesh

Hi everyone — I’m Soham Boir, a QMeshPy maintainer and one of the contributors to this hub.

For this hub I would like to explore a research direction at the intersection of open AI agents, peer-to-peer coordination, distributed compute, IPFS, and digital public goods:

What would an open agent mesh look like if agents could discover each other, exchange capabilities and tasks peer-to-peer, and delegate specialized computation to an underlying distributed quantum-service network?

I want to be precise about the current state before discussing the idea.

QMeshPy today has a Distributed Quantum Services architecture in which quantum capabilities can be advertised by service peers, discovered through libp2p, assigned through a planner, and invoked over peer-to-peer streams. It is a research orchestration layer with Qiskit-backed analysis — not a production quantum internet.

A general-purpose decentralized agent mesh is a direction I would like to explore on top of that infrastructure, rather than something I want to claim is already solved.

QMeshPy’s documentation also contains a strategic IPFS/Helia direction for separating computation from content sharing and provenance. That gives us an interesting design space for an agent system.

A possible open architecture

I would like to discuss a stack with several deliberately separate responsibilities:

Agent coordination layer

Agents discover other agents and advertise capabilities, such as analysis, planning, simulation, verification, or access to a specialized compute service.

Instead of one master agent knowing every participant, peers could discover capabilities and delegate tasks through open protocols.

Distributed compute layer

When an agent needs a quantum operation, optimization experiment, or other supported quantum workload, it could delegate that work to the existing distributed quantum-service layer rather than embedding quantum execution inside the agent itself.

That keeps “agent reasoning” and “compute execution” as separate concerns.

Artifact and provenance layer

For future work, IPFS/Helia could provide content-addressed artifacts for things such as circuits, experiment inputs, execution metadata, result packages, benchmark definitions, or reproducibility records.

An agent could then return not only “here is my answer,” but also references to the artifacts from which the result was produced.

Ethereum / public-goods layer

I do not think every agent message or compute request needs to be put onchain.

A more interesting question for this hub is where Ethereum actually adds value: contribution attribution, public registries, attestations, funding, reputation, governance, or proofs relating to publicly useful research artifacts.

Questions I would like to work on with Devcon attendees

  • What is the minimum protocol an agent needs in order to advertise a capability and discover a suitable peer without depending on a centralized agent directory?
  • How should an agent determine whether another peer is authorized or trustworthy enough to receive a task?
  • How should agents express compute requirements — capability, cost, expected quality, timeout, provenance requirements, privacy requirements — independently of a particular compute provider?
  • How can we make the result of delegated computation inspectable or reproducible rather than asking users to trust an opaque agent response?
  • Which information belongs in libp2p messages, which artifacts belong in a content-addressed system such as IPFS, and which commitments or attestations, if any, belong on Ethereum?
  • How do we avoid replacing one centralized API with one centralized “orchestrator agent”?
  • Could the resulting schemas and protocols become reusable open infrastructure for other public-good compute networks rather than being QMeshPy-specific?

A Devcon working session

I would love to turn this into a collaborative architecture session rather than a product presentation.

For example, we could start with:

Agent A → discovers Agent B → delegates a task → Agent B requests a specialized quantum service → service peers execute the distributed plan → execution artifacts are produced → a verifier/Agent C inspects the result.

Then we could design the minimum open messages or objects required along that path, for example:

  • AgentCapability
  • ComputeRequest
  • ServiceRequirement
  • ExecutionReceipt
  • ArtifactCID
  • VerificationAttestation

Those names are only starting points, not a proposed standard.

The public-goods question I find most interesting is whether we can produce a small, implementation-neutral specification and reference experiment that other decentralized-compute or open-agent projects could reuse.

I would be particularly interested in collaborating with people working on libp2p, IPFS, open agent protocols, Ethereum attestations, decentralized AI, reproducible science, public-good infrastructure, or distributed compute.

What would you want such an agent-to-compute protocol to guarantee before you would trust another peer to execute work on your behalf?

Project implementation:

Technical and roadmap documentation:

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A Note on MeshKit and Its Role in Public Goods Infrastructure

One of the practical tools we want to introduce participants to during the Hub is MeshKit, an open-source SDK we have been building that makes it easier for developers to build applications on top of IPFS and their own decentralised storage infrastructure without depending on managed cloud services underneath.

For the public goods ecosystem specifically, this matters in a concrete way. A lot of the tooling built around contribution intelligence, dependency graph analytics, ecosystem metrics, and evaluation systems still relies on data being stored and served through centralised infrastructure. That creates quiet dependencies that are easy to miss but important when you care about verifiability, long-term availability, and censorship resistance of public goods data.

MeshKit gives developers a straightforward path to storing contribution data, evaluation outputs, proof of contribution records, and ecosystem metrics on IPFS through their own nodes, with built-in client-side encryption so sensitive data never leaves the device unprotected. The same unified interface works across Node.js, browser, mobile, and server environments, so teams do not need to maintain different storage logic for different contexts.

The MeshKit MCP server extends this further for teams building AI-assisted evaluation workflows. It exposes IPFS upload, retrieval, pinning, and IPNS operations as tools that open-weight AI agents can call directly, meaning your evaluation agents can read from and write to decentralised storage without routing through any third-party API. For a Hub focused on transparent and verifiable public goods funding, having AI evaluation infrastructure that is itself open and self-hosted feels like an important piece of the picture.

We will have time during the Hub to walk through both in practice and help teams think through how to integrate them into their own public goods tooling.

Resources
NPM Package:

https://www.npmjs.com/package/@ipfs-meshkit/meshkit

MCP Server:

https://www.npmjs.com/package/@ipfs-meshkit/mcp

GitHub: GitHub - IPFS-Meshkit/meshkit0: SDK Version of meshkit for Ethereum agentic and web3 projects · GitHub