Recently, I applied for Co-Learning camp 11 by Hackquest to learn Gaia which is based on Python & Artificial Intelligence. I was approved and given a spot, and in this blog I will share my journey of diving into something new just before 2024 ends.
What is Co-Learning camp?
It is an initiative by Hackquest to encourage newbies in Web3 to learn and gain skills in tracks which is usually two weeks long and has courses which needs to completed within this time and is self paced. It is done along with a groups of folks focusing on same track.
The rules are simple. There are 4 townhalls, 4 discussion calls which one needs attend and has to submit proof in Zealy. There are also a lot of posts that’s need to be done in X for which there is exp which helps one to rise in the leaderboard and there is separate prizes for the top 3.
Every notifications are shared through email once accepted, so keep an eye on the inbox!
Day 0
Day 0 was the day there was Townhall 1 and I got to know about the camp details, it was like an orientation session for the selected attendees. The actual learning journey starts from Day 1.
Day 1
On the first day, I focused on the introduction to Web3. Though I know the difference between Web1.0, Web2.0 and Web3.0, it was interesting to get to know the evolution of each. While each of them solved a problem, a second one rises as per our requirement.
Web 3.0 itself has various tracks to cover key areas such as GameFi, DeFi, SocialFi, NFT, DAOs, DID, IT.
GameFi stands for Game Finance
Defi stands for Decentralised Finance
SocialFi stands for Social Finance
NFT stands for Non Fungible Tokens
DID stands for Decentralised Identity
IT stands for Infrastructure Track
Also, Web3 is still in research phase and I believe it has great potential to make changes in the future Internet.
Day 2
Second day was about learning Blockchain technologies such as the Distributed Ledger, data structures, hash functions, encryption and consensus algorithm.
Imagine this, a person having complete authority and control over data can get corrupted but if the data is distributed among thousands of people, it leaves very less scope of corruption and tempering with data. This principle is used for decentralization and to maintain it, a lot of research and works needs to be done.
Data structure of blockchain has been divided into block and transaction. Each block is divided into header and body and each block has the hash value of the previous block so it can form a chain in a specific manner.
Moving on with the hash functions which is used to securely store data and the most advanced standard of it is SHA3. I also learned about symmetric and asymmetric encryptions, their differences and pros and cons. And over the lessons, it has been explained really great with the example of Xiao Ming and Xiao Hong being the sender and receiver and how with the help of Digital signature technology, it solves the problem of verifying the sender.
I also learnt about the various Consensus Algorithm and how they works. PoW, PPoS, PoS DPoS, PoH, PoAuth are some of them. Honestly salute to the ones who came up with the ideation of PoW.
Day 3
I have been dealing with wallets since the mid of this year (2024) and though the process of creating one looks simple, a lot of works goes on behind the scenes. There are also various wallets as per need with each serving its own purpose.
Software wallets - web, mobile, desktop
Hardware wallets
Paper wallets
Custodial wallets
Multi signature wallets
To keep wallets safe and secure, there are some practices which users should remember such as keeping multiple backups of private keys, turning on MFA, staying vigilant, distribute assets to reduce risks, storing in hardware wallets, etc.
Moving on, I got to learn the various applications of blockchain in details such as BTC, ETH and smart contrcts, DAOs, NFT and DeFi.
Day 4
There was townhall 2 on the fourth day. Other than that, I completed with the basics of Gaia by revising the concepts of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Neural Network, LLMs, AI agent and Prompt Engineering.
Day 5 - 7
I created a schedule for my learning progress and after I found that the tracks can be completed within 5 more days, I decided to take a break and instead focus on the terminologies in the Web3 space. Thankfully Hackquest has a glossary dedicated to it and on the fifth day I completed a-f, sixth day I completed g-p and on seventh day I completed q-z.
Company
Aditya joined as well in this learning journey and we both opted for GAIA track. Even though he was sick, he made a comeback and I am glad he rose in the positions in leaderboard. True example of learning with dedication.
Resources
If someone’s looking to kickstart their journey, I would highly recommend the Web3 basics Learning track from Hackquest and would definitely say to explore the Hackquest platform.
Concluding note
You can check my X posts to get an idea and follow me as well as I keep sharing experiences of new challenges and learnings. See ya in the part 2 of this blog soon!
#LearnwithHQ #14DaysOfLearning Kartikey Garg