Spanish Education Plan by Polkadot Mexico: Building the Next Generation of Mexico Developers
Polkadot México is proposing a 4-month structured education initiative targeting university developers in Mexico. We will produce Spanish-language technical content for the ecosystem, deliver an 8-day in-person workshop at a top Mexican university, run weekly online sessions with active developer communities, and close with a 48-hour hackathon with a $5,000 USD prize pool. Total ask: $45,308 USD, paid in milestones.
Why Now?
The bounty closures and the ecosystem's shift toward Products for People created a real gap in LATAM particularly for Spanish-speaking developers who represent the largest untapped region for Polkadot by native language. While we were quiet during that transition, we were not idle. In July 2025, we ran a workshop at Universidad del Valle de Puebla (UVP) titled "The Future is Web3 and It's Built with Polkadot", co-organized with GDG Puebla. 40 students showed up to a computer lab, worked through practical exercises, and left 40 forks on the GitHub repository:
Repo-Workshop 28 commits, hands-on exercises, full workshop materials.
That event is the proof of concept for everything we're now proposing to scale.
On the competitive side: Ethereum, Solana, Stellar, and Monad are all running structured in-person initiatives in Mexico right now Stellar House CDMX, Monad Blitz CDMX, Solana Apex, Ethereum Mexico. Polkadot has no equivalent answer in the region. Every month without a structured presence is ground ceded to other ecosystems.
We are looking to propose a major initiative
1. Spanish-Language Technical Content Hub
A dedicated website hosting all program materials: module slides, lab guides, video tutorials (5–8 per module in Spanish), interactive guides, and evaluation tests. Inspired by OpenGuild's model for the Asia-Pacific community, this becomes a permanent reference point for the Spanish-speaking Polkadot community one centralized hub that prevents information from being scattered across platforms. All content will remain publicly accessible long after the grant ends.
Note: All content will be created organically by us, without using AI to generate the material itself. In today's era of Artificial Intelligence, AI-generated content is losing value with audiences. We will use AI to automate workflows or create tools that help us generate value in the right way.
2. Three Technical Modules
Module 1 Polkadot and the New Internet (Conceptual foundations of the ecosystem):
Covers the evolution from Web2 to Web3, Polkadot's architecture (Relay Chain, Hub, Parachains, Rollups), wallets, DOT tokenomics, Agile Coretime, OpenGov, and an ecosystem overview (Moonbeam, Hydration, Acala, Peaq). This is the introductory module, accessible to anyone coming in with no prior Polkadot experience.
Module 2 Smart Contracts on Polkadot:
The core technical module. Compares EVM vs PVM, explains the Dual VM Stack, and teaches how to deploy Solidity contracts via REVIVE using Remix, Hardhat, and Foundry. Also covers smart contract security, the fee model, XCM at a conceptual level, precompiles, and deployment on Paseo Testnet. This is the most hands-on module, where participants write and deploy real code.
Module 3 Parachains, JAM, and Advanced Development:
The most advanced module. Introduces the Polkadot SDK and runtime architecture, how to obtain Coretime and deploy a parachain, Elastic Scaling, PAPI as the TypeScript API for DApps, and an introduction to JAM and RISC-V. Closes with a final DApp build integrating the full Polkadot stack.
3. Online Community Sessions
Weekly sessions (2/week) delivered by Brandon (Polkadot México), leveraging the audience of Devs + AI, a growing developer community co-founded by Brandon and Pasho, a Polkadot hackathon veteran (Sub0, LATINHACK). This community is actively onboarding web2 developers into AI-assisted development exactly the profile of curious, builder-minded developers who are ready to discover Polkadot and start building on the network.
4. 8-Days In-Person Workshop at a Mexican University
Target: Tecnológico de Monterrey or UNAM. Daily 3-hour sessions covering all three modules (24 total hours), with async Discord support between sessions. Students who complete all 8 days receive:
- Physical certificate issued by the university
- The same certificate delivered on-chain via a Smart Contract on Polkadot AssetHub
5. 48-Hour Hackathon
Held at the university at the close of the workshop series. Participants build real products on Polkadot or Kusama, focused on solutions for LATAM users. $5,000 USD prize pool distributed across 6 places (USDT/USDC on Polkadot Asset Hub). Projects tracked via Notion/Taika. Full professional photo, video, and live coverage.
Our Team
Erick Ramos: Project Director & Coordinator (Educational Support).
Brandon: Blockchain Developer / Senior Technical Instructor (EVM, Polkadot SDK).
Javier Eli: Technical Support / Facilitator Instructor (Vara Network hackathons experience).
Armando Castro: Instructional Designer / Content Creator.
Amaury Lopez: Community Manager / Communications.
Rodrigo: Events & Logistics Coordinator.
Danyiel Colin: Mentor & Judge (Hackathon)
We've spent years building the Polkadot community in Mexico. We participated in Talent Land 2025, the largest technology event in Latin America, and maintain active relationships with academic directors at universities and emerging local communities. However, we wanted to take this step after the Sub0 event in November, but the sudden change slowed us down for a while to assess the Polkadot ecosystem. This initiative aims to successfully implement the Spanish-speaking community, and in Mexico, we can be an example for all of Latin America. We're not just looking to hold meetups or events like those done before, but rather to implement an educational plan to attract new talent and retain them at Polkadot.
Payment structure: Milestone-based. Monthly reports in OpenGov. Operational expense receipts and invoices provided for all purchases. Any unspent surplus returned to the treasury.
Our work won't end in four months, as we'll keep the community active remotely and carry out online initiatives with universities, but we need to adapt content focused on the region and at the same time the website will help us to boost a new Spanish-speaking community.
We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions, and feedback. Our channels are open for anyone in the community who wants to collaborate, audit, or contribute to this initiative.
Comments (5)
Requested
Proposal Failed
Given the current lack of a clearly communicated and updated roadmap, and the absence of meaningful public alignment or communication from core development teams, it is not possible to reasonably evaluate the long-term direction or expected impact of new funding proposals within Polkadot governance.
In this context, allocating additional treasury resources becomes speculative rather than strategic, as there is insufficient transparency regarding priorities, execution timelines, and overall ecosystem direction.
Until a coherent and publicly articulated roadmap is provided, accompanied by consistent technical and strategic communication from core contributors, I do not consider it responsible to approve further expenditures.
Therefore, as a default position under the current conditions, my vote will be NAY on all proposals.
What we see is still a mix of workshops, courses, community sessions, and hackathons. These are process outputs, not product outputs. After multiple rounds of funding, there is still no clear evidence of durable products—such as long-term tools, sustained platforms, or measurable developer retention that translates into real ecosystem usage.
Without that, it’s fair to question whether this is genuine ecosystem building or just repeated cycles of “busy-looking” activities.
Put simply, if there are no verifiable downstream outcomes, education spending risks becoming recurring consumption rather than compounding investment.
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