GrowSphere at Devcon 8 India
Community Hub Proposal
Learn. Build. Grow.
Summary of Proposal
GrowSphere’s Community Hub is a student built, student run space built around three simple ideas: a peer community hub, a mentoring to internship to job pipeline into the Ethereum ecosystem, and a curated knowledge hub. Over Devcon’s four days, we want to turn that concentration of people and ideas into a structured on ramp for India’s next generation of Ethereum builders.
The Three Primitives
Everything in this proposal maps back to one of three core ideas. The Hub isn’t a loose collection of activities; it’s built around these three pillars.
1. A Students Community Hub, built by students, for students
A physical and social space where student developers, from first years to final years, feel like this is their room at Devcon. Not a satellite booth for a company, but a space designed around student energy, student pace, and student questions.
2. A pipeline from mentoring to internships to job opportunities in the Ethereum landscape
Devcon brings the entire Ethereum ecosystem, founders, protocol teams, DevRel, and hiring managers, into one city for four days. For most students, this is a once in a lifetime concentration of access. The Hub is built to turn that proximity into a real pipeline: structured career guidance, mentor time, and direct introductions, not just passive networking.
3. A curated knowledge hub for students
Ethereum’s learning curve is steep and scattered across docs, Discords, and X threads. GrowSphere curates this into one digestible, India context knowledge layer, through workshops, discussions, and reference material, so a student walks in curious and walks out with a concrete next step: a repo to contribute to, a course to take, or a community to join.
Motivation and Rationale
How does this enhance the attendee experience?
Devcon draws thousands of students and early career builders who are often the most enthusiastic but least resourced attendees in the room. They’re not always sure who to talk to, what to build, or how to turn interest into a career. The Hub gives them a low friction entry point: somewhere to sit, build, ask the beginner questions, and meet people at their own stage.
How does it complement Devcon 8 India?
Devcon 8 in India is a historic moment, the first time this global gathering meets India’s huge and fast growing student developer population. GrowSphere’s Hub is meant to be the connective tissue between global Ethereum and India’s campuses, the layer that ensures a student from a Tier 2 college and a protocol engineer visiting from abroad end up at the same table.
Why a Community Hub, and not a one time talk or workshop?
A single talk creates a moment. A Hub creates a journey. Passport stamps, build tables, mentor kiosks, and roast desks compound across four days, so a student who wanders in on day one can leave on day four with a contribution shipped, a mentor’s contact, and a community to come back to. That kind of compounding only happens with a sustained physical presence, not a thirty minute slot.
How does this support Devcon’s mission of builders of a free, open, private, and verifiable future?
Every activation is designed to turn curiosity into contribution. The Open Build Table pushes students to actually ship something, the open source contribution stamp rewards real code, and the mentoring pipeline connects students to the teams building the protocols and public goods Devcon champions. We’re not asking students to admire Ethereum from the sidelines, we’re trying to give them an on ramp to help build it.
Past experience
GrowSphere is a 1,000+ member independent student developer community that has run large scale student facing tech events in Mumbai, including Road to DevCon 8, Workshops Edition, ColoHacks 2026 with over 100 participants, and a NEAR AI Build Session with around 100 developers. Each of these was run with student volunteer teams, partner communities, and full event logistics, from registration automation to onboarding to physical space design. What we’ve learned along the way is that students engage far more with hands on, low pressure formats like build tables, quizzes, and stamp cards than with passive lecture style formats, and that’s directly shaped this proposal.
Implementation
Requirements from Devcon
| Category | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Display | 1 TV or screen |
| Writing surface | Whiteboard and markers |
| Seating | 4 tables, 20 chairs, or chairs with convertible desks |
| Power | Extensions with at least 20 sockets |
| Branding | Standee banners plus an 8ft by 8ft backdrop banner |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi or plug and play LAN cables |
| Dedicated desks | 2 desk type areas with chairs |
| Kiosks | 2 kiosks: Roast Desk and Career Guidance Desk |
| Consumables | Stamps and ink pads for the Community Passport, 10 stamps across 9 activations |
Programming
Activation line up
- Devcon Community Passport: a physical stamp card, one stamp per activity engaged with (workshop, meeting a new community, networking activity, open source contribution, quiz, and so on), with 10 stamps earning a merch, sticker, or badge reward.
- Open Build Table: tables, chairs, power, Wi-Fi, whiteboards, a “Build Something Here” sign, and one or two volunteer mentors on rotation. A no agenda space to sit and ship.
- “Where Are You From?” Wall: a large India and world map where visitors pin their city, state, or country and answer what they’re building, turning into a living, visual map of the community by day four.
- Group discussion sessions: peer led discussions between student community members on Ethereum topics, career paths, and project ideas.
- Mini workshops: short, focused sessions on Ethereum and Web3 fundamentals and tooling, run in rotation across the four days.
- Quizzes: Ethereum and Web3 trivia and technical quiz rounds, gamified through the Passport.
- Career Guidance Desk: one on one slots with mentors and industry folks on internships, resumes, and career paths into the Ethereum ecosystem.
- Block Builder: a physical game that illustrates the longest chain rule, making a core Ethereum concept tangible and fun.
- LinkedIn, tech portfolio, and X roasts: a light, high engagement desk where students get honest, constructive feedback on their profiles and portfolios from mentors and volunteers.
Sample daily program (9 AM to 6 PM)
| Time | Block |
|---|---|
| 9:00 - 9:30 AM | Welcome and Passport onboarding: explain the stamp system, the map wall, and the build table |
| 9:30 - 11:00 AM | Open Build Table (ongoing all day) plus Mini Workshop #1 |
| 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM | Group discussion session, student led topic |
| 12:00 - 1:00 PM | Career Guidance Desk open, Roast Desk open |
| 1:00 - 2:00 PM | Lunch and networking block, informal mixing at the Build Table |
| 2:00 - 3:00 PM | Quiz round, gamified and stamp eligible |
| 3:00 - 4:00 PM | Mini Workshop #2, rotating community or partner led |
| 4:00 - 5:00 PM | Block Builder game sessions plus Map Wall check ins |
| 5:00 - 5:30 PM | Career Guidance Desk, second slot |
| 5:30 - 6:00 PM | Daily closing: stamp tally shoutouts, next day preview |
Programming across all four days is a collaborative effort. GrowSphere will co-host sessions with partner student communities and protocol teams to fill workshop and discussion slots, and will keep the proposal thread active on the Devcon forum to bring in more contributors and co-hosts.
Alignment with Devcon’s focus
- Open source ethos: the open source contribution stamp and the Open Build Table
- Community bridge building: the Map Wall, group discussions, and cross community stamp activity
- Core protocol understanding: the Block Builder game, mini workshops, and quizzes
- Builder pipeline: the Career Guidance Desk, mentoring, and direct industry connects
Audience
Who is this Hub for?
Primarily student developers and early career builders: undergraduate and postgraduate students across engineering and computer science backgrounds, especially those new to or curious about Web3 and Ethereum, along with student community organizers from dev clubs, GDG on Campus chapters, Microsoft ambassadors, Google ambassadors and hackathon communities who want to bring what they learn back to their own campuses.
Specific groups we want to engage:
- Students from Tier 2 and Tier 3 city colleges who rarely get access to global Ethereum events
- Existing student tech communities, including GDG on Campus chapters, Microsoft ambassadors, Google ambassadors, and hackathon collectives across India
- Women and first generation tech students exploring Web3 as a career path
- International student attendees, to make the Map Wall and group discussions genuinely global
Connecting with India’s Ethereum and open source community
GrowSphere is based in Mumbai and already embedded in India’s student tech ecosystem, through GDG, Apache Kafka, Near AI, Google, Microsoft, and partnerships with communities like NEAR Legion, Arq, and GRYD. The Hub is built on these existing relationships rather than cold outreach, so the pipeline into India’s Ethereum and open source community is already active going into Devcon.
Team
Organizing team
| Sr. No | Name | Role | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dev Kanojiya | Operations & Logistics Lead | On-ground setup, volunteer coordination, technical infrastructure, scheduling, and ensuring smooth execution across the Hub. |
| 2 | Ashish Parab | Career & Mentoring Lead | Runs the Career Guidance Desk, coordinates mentors, industry connects, and helps attendees navigate SDE careers, AI, and the future of tech. |
| 3 | Aman Soni | Community & Outreach Lead | Cross-community engagement, partner/community onboarding, developer outreach, and connecting student builders with relevant ecosystems. |
| 4 | Devendra Chaudhari | Activations Lead | Runs technical activations, AI/Gemini-focused activities, hackathon-style challenges, and interactive builder experiences. |
| 5 | Harman Saini | Build Table Lead | Manages the Open Build Table, technical mentoring, hackathon-style activities, and helps builders with scalable AI/full-stack systems. |
| 6 | Omkar Mahadik | Programming Lead | Owns the daily schedule, technical workshops, AI/ML discussions, speaker coordination, and partner community programming. |
| 7 | Yash Chaudhari | Design, Media & Branding Lead | Social media, video editing, visual content, event coverage, banners, promotional assets, and overall digital visual identity. |
| 8 | Aditya Sabnis | Hub Lead & Coordination | Overall Hub coordination, Devcon liaison, speaker coordination, event planning, community engagement, and on-ground operations. |
Why this team is best suited
The team is drawn directly from GrowSphere’s existing leadership, organizers who have already run large scale student events, including Colosseum 2026, ColoHacks 2026, and two editions of Road to DevCon 8, Workshops Edition, one open to students across Mumbai and one hosted on the DBIT campus, with hundreds of attendees, live logistics, and coordination across multiple communities. Along the way, we’ve built working partnerships with near.ai, Apache Kafka, and XR Guild, bringing their teams in to run sessions and mentor students directly. This isn’t a first attempt at community organizing, it’s an extension of what GrowSphere already does at scale, with a growing network of technical partners to draw on.
Neutrality
The Hub will not promote any specific token, protocol, or commercial product. Organizers’ personal or team project affiliations, such as individual hackathon projects, will not be pitched, marketed, or platformed at the Hub. The space exists solely for students to learn, build, and connect. Any partner community or company involved in Career Guidance or workshops, including near.ai, Apache Kafka, and XR Guild, will be there in an educational or mentoring capacity, not a sales one, and all sessions will be reviewed by the Hub Lead for neutrality before scheduling.
Connection to the community
The organizing team is directly embedded in the communities this Hub serves, as founders and leads of GrowSphere with over 1,000 student members, as GDG Organizer, AWS SBCL, XR Guild Mumbai Co-Lead, Google Student Ambassador, and Microsoft Student Ambassador. Running Road to DevCon 8 both as an open Mumbai wide event and as a dedicated DBIT campus edition means the team already knows how to organize at both a city scale and a campus scale. This isn’t an outside team parachuting in for Devcon, it’s the same team students already know from campus hackathons and workshops throughout the year.
Languages
The team can support content in English, Hindi, and Marathi, and will actively recruit volunteer contributors from partner communities across India to extend this to additional regional languages for workshops and discussion sessions.
Why This Hub Matters: Impact Alignment
Current alignment
Right now, most Indian students encounter Ethereum through scattered YouTube videos, Discord servers, and the occasional hackathon, with no structured path from curiosity to contribution. GrowSphere’s Hub closes that gap at the one moment when the entire ecosystem is physically present in India. It turns a four day event into a repeatable on ramp, from community to mentorship to pipeline to knowledge, that students can act on immediately rather than just admire from a talk.
Future alignment
Every stamp, build table conversation, and mentor introduction is designed to outlast Devcon itself. Students leave with a community in GrowSphere and its partner networks, a contribution record through the open source stamp, and direct contacts from the Career Guidance Desk, the seeds of ongoing involvement in Ethereum long after the event ends. GrowSphere will carry these connections forward through its existing 1,000+ member community and future events, turning a one time Devcon interaction into a long term pipeline of Indian student builders into the Ethereum ecosystem.
Why this benefits both students and industry
For students: structured mentorship, real open source contribution experience, direct career pathways, and a peer community that continues past Devcon.
For industry and protocol teams: early access to a motivated, pre filtered pipeline of student talent, sourced, vetted, and warmed up by a team that already runs India’s student developer events at scale.
Important Links
POC
- Ashish Parab: ashish.parab@growsphere.site
- Aditya Sabnis: aditya.sabnis@growsphere.site
