The Bitcoin foundation will hold the first of a series of roundtable discussions for developers in Boston next month.
The organisation, which has recently narrowed down its activities, said the event is for developers interested in deepening their technical expertise to support the future development of Bitcoin Core.
Gavin Andresen, chief scientist of the Bitcoin Foundation spoke about the need for the event, saying:
“The biggest challenge for bitcoin startups right now is finding technical talent who understands the blockchain technology. Whatever your skill level or interest, this event will give you a solid grounding in Bitcoin Core and how you can contribute.”
The event, titled Devcore Boston: Developing the Developers, will be held on 11th February at District Hall, 75 Northern Avenue, Boston.
Devcore Boston will include a ‘Quick Hacks’ workshop, training and certification, consulting sessions with law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, panel discussions with leading technical experts, an in-depth Q&A with Bitcoin Core developers and networking opportunities.
Sean Neville, CTO and co-founder of Circle, the title sponsor of the event said: “Bitcoin’s ongoing maturity toward massive mainstream volume depends on attracting more people to code, test, debate and generally innovate in its open meritocracy,” adding that “these roundtables help developers cross that threshold”.
Shift in focus
The news comes after the organisation declared that it was going to wind down its education, outreach and public policy initiatives as it turned its focus to core development in November last year.
This decision followed the publication of three surveys conducted by the Bitcoin Foundation, which focused on businesses, individuals and the general public.
Fourty-four percent of the Bitcoin’s Foundation’s individual members supported the trade organisation’s decision to focus more on core development, constituting 106 out of a total of 230 respondents.
Fifty-two percent of individual members said that supporting the development of bitcoin’s open-source technology, was to them, the most important part of the organization’s work.
Additionally, similar findings were found in the community and business member surveys, with 56% and 44% of respondents respectively supporting core development.
Disclaimer: CoinDesk is a supporting sponsor of the event.