--- title: 'World Experience: Updates from the Next Billion Fellowship' subtitle: 'Next Billion Fellowship Program Update - Cohorts 5 & 6' date: '2025-05-08' author: Team Next Billion category: Next Billion image: https://storage.googleapis.com/ethereum-hackmd/upload_77302928690957d9b97dcda8bd8ddd0f.jpeg --- > _This is an update from the Next Billion Fellowship Program. Applications are open and rolling for cohort 6 beginning in October 2025._ Individuals interacting with an application have a _user experience_. Collectives interacting with a protocol have a _world experience_. There are many worlds that the Ethereum protocol touches; places where organizations, communities, or institutions experience trust through coordination. The Next Billion Fellowship is a program to support individuals working on new use cases and improving trust experience within the world computer. The stories of a global protocol are as diverse and varied as the humans that use it. In this update five Next Billion Alumni share stories about their fellowship experience, and four new Next Billion Fellows are introduced. ### Cohort 3 <a href="https://nxbn.ethereum.foundation/fellowship/Devansh" style="text-decoration: none; display: block;"> <div style=" background: var(--chakra-colors-bg-callout); border: 1px solid var(--chakra-colors-gray-200); color: var(--chakra-colors-fg) !important; border-radius: 8px; padding: 1.5rem; margin: 2rem 0; box-shadow: 0 2px 4px var(--chakra-colors-blackAlpha-100); transition: all 0.2s ease; "> <h3 style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: var(--chakra-fonts-heading);"> 📰 Journalism Impact Certificates </h3> <p style="margin-bottom: 0; line-height: 1.6;"> Through Devansh's marketplace, real-world outcomes from journalism become tradeable impact certificates, creating direct funding paths between positive social change and the reporters who uncover the truth. </p> </div> </a> <a href="https://nxbn.ethereum.foundation/fellowship/Valeriia" style="text-decoration: none; display: block;"> <div style=" background: var(--chakra-colors-bg-callout); border: 1px solid var(--chakra-colors-gray-200); color: var(--chakra-colors-fg) !important; border-radius: 8px; padding: 1.5rem; margin: 2rem 0; box-shadow: 0 2px 4px var(--chakra-colors-blackAlpha-100); transition: all 0.2s ease; "> <h3 style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: var(--chakra-fonts-heading);"> 🇺🇦 Volya: Web3 Through the People's Lens </h3> <p style="margin-bottom: 0; line-height: 1.6;"> Documenting the transformative intersection of war, technology, and social resilience in Ukraine, where crypto has evolved from an emergency lifeline to a paradigm shift in how people relate to institutions and trust. </p> </div> </a> ### Cohort 4 <a href="https://nxbn.ethereum.foundation/fellowship/Guo" style="text-decoration: none; display: block;"> <div style=" background: var(--chakra-colors-bg-callout); border: 1px solid var(--chakra-colors-gray-200); color: var(--chakra-colors-fg) !important; border-radius: 8px; padding: 1.5rem; margin: 2rem 0; box-shadow: 0 2px 4px var(--chakra-colors-blackAlpha-100); transition: all 0.2s ease; "> <h3 style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: var(--chakra-fonts-heading);"> 🖥️ Billboard Protocol for Decentralized Publishing </h3> <p style="margin-bottom: 0; line-height: 1.6;"> The billboard protocol created by Guo transforms digital advertising spaces into community-controlled assets, reclaiming the internet as a place for thoughtful engagement rather than attention extraction. </p> </div> </a> <a href="https://nxbn.ethereum.foundation/fellowship/Lefteris" style="text-decoration: none; display: block;"> <div style=" background: var(--chakra-colors-bg-callout); border: 1px solid var(--chakra-colors-gray-200); color: var(--chakra-colors-fg) !important; border-radius: 8px; padding: 1.5rem; margin: 2rem 0; box-shadow: 0 2px 4px var(--chakra-colors-blackAlpha-100); transition: all 0.2s ease; "> <h3 style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: var(--chakra-fonts-heading);"> 🌊 Fishing for the Commons with Enaleia </h3> <p style="margin-bottom: 0; line-height: 1.6;"> Transforming Mediterranean fishing communities into environmental stewards through Enaleia's blockchain-tracked supply chain for ocean plastic, creating a protocol to regenerate our shared sea commons. </p> </div> </a> <a href="https://nxbn.ethereum.foundation/fellowship/Rebecca" style="text-decoration: none; display: block;"> <div style=" background: var(--chakra-colors-bg-callout); border: 1px solid var(--chakra-colors-gray-200); color: var(--chakra-colors-fg) !important; border-radius: 8px; padding: 1.5rem; margin: 2rem 0; box-shadow: 0 2px 4px var(--chakra-colors-blackAlpha-100); transition: all 0.2s ease; "> <h3 style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: var(--chakra-fonts-heading);"> 🌍 Commitment Pooling as Social Technology </h3> <p style="margin-bottom: 0; line-height: 1.6;"> Exploring how blockchain-based commitment pooling can revitalize indigenous economic practices in Ocean View, South Africa, transforming social contracts into tools for community resource coordination. </p> </div> </a> ### Cohort 5 **Mashbean** is researching robust digital identity that preserves civic services and public goods through decentralized infrastructure, empowering communities to maintain their digital sovereignty under threat of censureship, capture, or control. **Sharfy** enables environmental stewardship by connecting climate finance directly to local conservation efforts. By improving compatibility and functionality of the hypercerts standard, ecosystem protection can become more economically viable for organizations and conservation communities of all shapes, sizes, and contexts. **Tedor** will research and develop an impact measurement framework that enables international institutions like UNDP to accurately measure, evaluate, and harness the unique properties of blockchain projects for global development initiatives. **Robert** is pioneering research at the intersection of zero-knowledge proofs, trusted execution, and sattelite imagery to create resilient systems for monitoring and responding to natural disasters across political and systemic boundaries. As we look ahead to the next cohort of fellows, we're reminded of the profound importance of narrative in shaping Ethereum's future. The stories shared by our alumni illustrate how blockchain technology can transcend its technical foundations to become a tool for social change, economic empowerment, and ecological regeneration. These fellows exemplify what makes the Next Billion Fellowship unique: the focus is not on technology for technology's sake, but on the human experience of technology. Each project showcases how Ethereum can address real-world challenges—from polluted oceans to communities seeking economic autonomy, from farmers to international development professionals. The stories of Ethereum's impact will continue to evolve as new fellows bring their unique contexts and insights to the ecosystem. This living collection of human experiences helps us understand not just what blockchain can do, but what it can mean for communities worldwide. If you are working on a project that showcases stories of tangible and human use-cases for the Ethereum protocol (and the application layer built on it), consider applying for the [Next Billion Fellowship](https://nxbn-fellowship.paperform.co/). Fellows receive support over 6 months for a small project that represents a unique perspective on Ethereum's next billion users and their experience.
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Griffin Ichiba Hotchkiss
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The Dark Forestry Department

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Studying and documenting grassroots adoption of blockchain and other decentralized applications within the Ukrainian community

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Piloting Journalism Impact Certificates, a new blockspace frontier

The following is an update from Next Billion Fellow Devansh Mehta and his initiative VoiceDeck I began my next billion fellowship with a simple question: can we get journalism outlets to record impact from their stories onchain? I had published stories at the investigative newsroom Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and also worked for 5 years at community media outlet CGNet Swara. Both newsrooms bemoaned the lack of a feedback loop between creating tangible outcomes from their stories and generating revenue. So I began to explore how blockchain can be applied to an existing financing mechanism in the social sector: outcome based funding. The most prominent outcome funding instrument is social impact bonds, where an investor provides upfront capital that is repaid with interest by the outcome funder if targets are achieved. Since taking off in 2010, there have been only about 300 impact bonds raising around 750 million USD to serve 2.5 million people globally.

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