Devconnect ARG: Open Source Community Hub Proposal - Open Source in Web3 and Beyond

Community Hubs
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Open Source Community Hub Proposal: Open Source in Web3 and Beyond

Summary

FOSSASIA proposes an Open Source Community Hub at DevConnect 2025 to explore open source’s vital role in Ethereum and Web3. The hub will bring together developers, maintainers, and contributors to discuss sustainability, collaboration, governance, and open infrastructure, fostering deeper community engagement and contribution to decentralized, open technologies.

Motivation and Rationale

Open source is the foundation of the Ethereum ecosystem from clients and wallets to developer tools and L2 infrastructure. Yet, maintainers and contributors often remain underrepresented in mainstream conversations. This Community Hub aims to spotlight their work, create space for deeper technical exchange, and foster long term contributor relationships.

Enhancing the Attendee Experience

The hub offers a dedicated environment for hands-on engagement, open discussion, and real-time collaboration. It allows attendees to interact directly with maintainers, explore real contribution pathways, and gain practical insight into the open source engines driving Ethereum. For contributors and newcomers, it’s a welcoming space to get involved and ask questions freely.

Complementing the Devconnect Program

While Devconnect features visionary talks and technical deep-dives, the Open Source Hub complements it with sustained, topic focused dialogue and community-led interaction. Instead of a one-off talk or workshop, the hub provides continuity; attendees can drop in throughout the day, follow up with speakers, and build actual collaborations, not just take notes.

Why a Community Hub?

The collaborative nature of open source can’t be captured in a 30-minute presentation. A community hub encourages organic discussions, ad hoc demos, and knowledge sharing between peers at all levels. It creates the conditions for real contribution, community building, and the trust that powers decentralized development something no single talk can deliver.

Implementation

Production Requirements

We aim to create a collaborative and accessible space that encourages dialogue, hands-on participation, and informal engagement. We look for standard provisions such as:

  • Chairs, tables, and open seating layout
  • TV or LED screen for talks and demos
  • Microphones (2 handheld + 1 clip-on/lapel) for speakers
  • Reliable Wi-Fi access
  • Power outlets and extension
  • Wireless headphones for participants

In addition, we plan to source and bring the following:

  • Roll-up banners and signage
  • Portable camera equipment for content documentation
  • Printed materials: self-guide manual, project brochures etc.

Sample Program (Draft Schedule)

Operating Hours: 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Format: Drop-in friendly, with a mix of lightning talks, panels

Daily Schedule

Time Session Type Topic / Activity
10:00 - 10:30 Welcome Informal networking, community hub introduction
10:30 - 11:30 Lightning Talks Open Source in Web3: Clients, Tooling, Public Goods
11:30 - 12:15 Project Showcase Live demos: FOSS solutions, Ethereum infra, contributor tools
12:15 - 13:15 Lunch Meet maintainers, find issues, join GitHub orgs
13:15 - 14:00 Panel Discussion Sustainable Governance for Open Source Ecosystems
14:00 - 15:45 Workshop OSS contributions, hardware & firmware development, open source best practices, etc.
16:00 - 17:00 Open Space Community-led discussions, feedback, and collaboration planning

Team

If you are interested in partnering with us to bring the Community Hub to life and co-submit this proposal, please contact hp@fossasia.org or message @hpdang on Telegram.

Organizers (to be extended)

The Community Hub will be organized by the core team at FOSSASIA, one of Asia’s leading open source communities since 2009. The dedicated team members responsible for the planning and delivery of this hub include:

  • Mario Behling: Open source maintainer and co-founder of FOSSASIA, with nearly 20 years of experience in open source development. He has extensive experience organizing developer events across Europe and Asia.
  • Marco Gutierrez: Open source mainainer and core organizer of the FOSSASIA Summit, with experience managing international community events and technical programs.
  • Hong Phuc Dang: Founder of FOSSASIA and long time open source advocate in Asia, with a strong track record in global community building and contributor outreach.
  • Untari: Developer at FOSSASIA and active advocate for women in tech from Indonesia, contributing to both technical projects and community growth.
  • 2–3 local volunteers: Supporting logistics, on-site coordination, and speaker engagement throughout the event.

Why We’re Best Suited

FOSSASIA has organized over 100 developer events, including the annual FOSSASIA Summit, one of Asia’s largest open source conferences with over 3,000 attendees. We’ve run contributor sprints, open tech summits, hackathon and workshops for a wide range of OSS projects across cloud, Web3, and AI domains.

Our team brings:

  • Strong background in community building, mentorship, and contributor engagement across open source ecosystems
  • Experience organizing multiple Web3-related tracks and workshops within the open source space
  • Operational expertise in running multi-day, volunteer-led community events, including co-hosting the Open Source Hub at Devcon Bangkok 2024
  • Well-connected with the global FOSS community, including active collaboration with Latin American contributors through our many years of participating as a Summer of Code admin organization.

Neutrality & Community Representation

All speakers and sessions will be curated based on community value and technical merit, not business incentives. FOSSASIA is an inclusive and diverse organization, with contributors from around the world. We believe in open participation and cross-borders collaboration.

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To ensure a global perspective, the hub is co-hosted by FOSSASIA (Asia), The Tor Project (Americas), and Open Source Community Africa (Africa) together partners contributing diverse topics and insights from different regions.

  • The Tor Project: The Tor Project develops free and open source software to advance privacy and freedom online. Best known for the Tor network and browser, the organization works globally to defend human rights and enable anonymous, censorship-resistant communication. As a nonprofit, the Tor Project collaborates with communities, researchers, and developers to build tools and infrastructure that empower users to control their digital lives. Meet Roger Dingledine at the Open Source Hub to learn more about their work. https://www.torproject.org/
  • Open Source Community Africa: OSCA is for open source lovers, enthusiasts, advocates and experts within and across Africa with the sole aim of increasing the rate of credible contributions by African software developers, designers, writers and everyone involved in the sphere of technology to open source projects both locally and globally, changing the perception of Africans from just the billion users to the next billion creators. We currently achieve this through the following vehicles; OSCA Chapters in local regions in Africa, Open Source Festival and through featured open source projects. https://oscafrica.org
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We also had a discussion with @Kilgore (Powerhouse) and are open to teaming up with him, along with other community partners such as ETH Kipu and Ethereum Argentina, to make the hub a reality.

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Hello @hpdang and co-organizers,

Thank you for applying to organize a Community Hub for Devconnect ARG! Your proposal has now entered the voting phase.

In the coming days, the Devconnect team will review all submissions and select the ones that best reflect the spirit of the first Ethereum World’s Fair. Selected proposals will be announced during the week of September 8. After that, we’ll move into a collaborative phase to refine each Hub’s concept, programming, and production needs.

We appreciate your contribution to shaping the first Ethereum World’s Fair.

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Thank you for putting this together @hpdang. Looking forward to the feedback @OrnellaWeb3 :blush:

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Hi @hpdang and Open Source Hub community,

Thank you for submitting your proposal for Community Hubs. As mentioned in our announcement post, your proposal has been selected to be part of the first Ethereum World’s Fair! Kudos :tada:

Your submission stood out for its diverse, collaborative approach and unique programming. We can’t wait to see your ideas come to life at Devconnect, and we’re here to support you along the way. As part of the selection process, I’ll be reaching out to coordinate a preparation sync, support new collaborations, share programming deadlines, and define production needs.

Also, since there is a lot of synergy with the Open Source Community Hub @Devconnect ARG proposal it would be great to have @Kilgore also participate in the discussion. Let’s coordinate!

Congratulations once again, and thank you for your contributions to the first Ethereum World’s Fair!

With gratitude,
Ornella & the Devconnect team

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This is wonderful news! Thank you so much! We are excited to begin planning, and we’ll definitely reach out to Kilgore and other partners to collaborate and bring the Open Source Hub to life.

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If you are building or contributing to open source projects in Ethereum, we would love to hear from you! Join us at the Open Source Hub and share your work with the community. Check out our Call for Speakers for details https://eventyay.com/e/ce66b6d4

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Hi @hpdang thanks for putting all of this together! A few of us at Argot would like to apply! In went through the speaker application but couldn’t find the section on where to specify format and topic. Would you be able to help me out?

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Hi @SchmittLea after you add the speaker information, return to the CFS page and add the session as the next step. Thank you!

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We (GCC — Global Chinese Community of Universal Digital Commons)would love to join and co-build the Open Source Community Hub, and give a talk about what we do and why we champion open, open-source public goods across Ethereum and beyond.

Who We Are

  • A community + grant collective focused on funding open-source, privacy, and security public goods, running recurring open grant rounds with peer review.

  • Our past support spans: open-source security & education (white-hat tools, auditing), privacy and anti-censorship research, decentralized infra (PBS/MEV education), plus open data and developer tooling.

What We’d Bring (pick one or mix & match)

  • Lightning Talk (15–20 mins)
    Funding Open-Source Public Goods in Ethereum: From Proposal to Deployment
    Takeaways: turning “public goods” into an executable grants program; evaluation templates; lessons learned; how to avoid one-off, event-only funding.

  • Panel (45–60 mins)
    Sustainable OSS Funding × Governance: Turning One-Time Sponsorship into Long-Term Contribution
    Maintainers, foundations, and community ops discuss transparency, incentive design, Sybil resistance, and contribution metrics (bounties, badges, RPGF, etc.).

  • Hands-On Workshop (60–90 mins)
    Contributor Onboarding Clinic: take newcomers from zero to first PR—repo conventions, issues → task routing, review flow, and “first-contribution UX.”
    OSS Funding Lab: participants leave with a submission-ready funding proposal (goals, milestones, acceptance criteria, metrics) + templates.

  • Open Space / Maintainership AMA (30–45 mins)
    Maintainers’ Pain Points: live problem list → “fundable solutions” and matching channels.

What We Can Contribute

  • Templates & process kits: open-sourced grant forms, scoring rubrics, contribution claiming, and Sybil-resistant flows (localized, multi-timezone ready).

  • Network effects: connect APAC/LatAm maintainer and contributor networks to convert on-site energy into sustained post-event contribution.

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Hi, you are more than welcome to join us. Our program is pretty much set at the moment but we can try to make an arrangement, please add your ideas here https://eventyay.com/e/ce66b6d4/cfs

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thx so much! :slight_smile: we’ve already filled in the speaker info. Looking forward to your approval whenever you have time. Thanks again :slight_smile: