Welcome to the FAQ section of the PSE Acceleration Program! This section aims to address common questions and provide helpful information to support your journey with us.
As we are in the early stages of building our community and program, we encourage you to ask any questions that you may have on our Discord server. This will not only help you get immediate answers from our team and community members but also allow us to understand which questions are most relevant to our audience. Over time, we will update this FAQ with the most frequently asked questions and their answers.
If you have any questions or need further clarification about the PSE Acceleration Program, please join our Discord server:
Our Discord community is active and welcoming, and it's the fastest way to get in touch with both the PSE team and fellow participants.
As questions are asked and answered, we will periodically update this document to reflect the most common inquiries and provide valuable information to our community. Be sure to check back for updates and join our Discord to stay engaged with the latest discussions.
Thank you for your interest and participation in the PSE Acceleration Program. We look forward to growing and learning with you!
If you come across a “proposal pending” tag, check if the proposal is still in its early stages. In such cases, you may want to submit your own proposal to compete. Conversely, if a proposal has already undergone an interview or evaluation process, the competition window may have closed.
This means you can submit proposals up to this date. However, the timeframe to compete with other proposals may not extend for the full three months. The evaluation process will begin once there are no further proposals submitted within a certain timeframe. It's important to note that your work on the tasks may continue beyond the end of the round, depending on the specific details of the task.
Generally one proposal will be accepted. However,
- you can compete with other proposals during the proposal stage.
- or you can simply work on other tasks
- or all the applicants can form a team
Our selection criteria are tailored for young university students, active technical community members, and early-career professionals in cryptography and blockchain, focusing on those with a strong interest in advancing their knowledge and contributions in the field.
No, simultaneous applications for multiple tasks are not permitted. You are only eligible to apply for a new task once you have reached the final stage of your current task. This ensures focused and dedicated efforts towards completing each task effectively.
Our legal team advises that grantees should not begin work on their grants until they have countersigned the grant agreement. This requirement may affect the acceleration program's timeline. Grantees must wait for the entire process to be completed before commencing their work. If the original starting and due dates become outdated due to this delay, grantees can communicate with their assigned evaluator to establish new, mutually agreeable dates.
If your proposal is submitted very close to the deadline, it will automatically be considered in the next round of evaluations. You are welcome to continue refining and improving your proposal during this time.
Consider the following steps to determine whether to apply for a general grant (ESP) or an acceleration program:
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Is your idea related to programmable crypto (including but not limited to MPC, FHE, lookup tables, ZK, ZKML)?
If yes, proceed to step 2. If no, consider other funding options.
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Are you a student or just starting to learn programmable crypto?
If yes, proceed to step 3. If no, you may be better suited for a general grant.
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Our stipend has a cap of 10,000 USD. Does your project require more funding?
If yes, apply for a general grant. If no, consider our acceleration program.
Note: Our stipend is designed to encourage learning rather than serving as a bounty or salary.
The acceleration program is primarily an educational initiative aimed at "accelerating" practitioners by giving them challenges designed to help them learn and improve. The grants issued as part of the program should not be the primary reason to tackle issues and challenges.
There’s a predetermined pricing rate based on the complexity. There will be more info in a call between applicants and the PSE team after content wise evaluation.
We follow EF PeopleOp's grant amount guideline suggestion that we should not change the amount of payment based on the country in which the person lives except in extreme cases, We set at this pricing rate for that the purpose of the acceleration program is not purely for the contribution but most importantly for learning purpose. This rate is consistent with the target audience framework listed in program repo.
These open tasks are funded by Privacy Scaling Explorations.
The acceleration program typically offers smaller grants and is aimed at beginners who possess the skills to undertake cryptocurrency-related projects. For example, applicants should be familiar with zero-knowledge Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) or have an understanding of cryptography. Our goal is to help these individuals like students or early stage cryptography learner to advance by working on real-world project ideas. In contrast, other grant programs like ESP often require applicants to propose their own ideas, and the grant amounts can vary considerably.