Santosh Viswanatham — Travel Grant Report

Introduction

Hi, I'm Santosh, A framework agnostic Frontend Engineer at Marvin. I am based in Hyderabad, India and specialise in using JavaScript to create high-quality software products. At Marvin, I work on building tools for researchers and consultants who are very detail-oriented and take their interviews very seriously. I am also an avid supporter of open web technologies and actively contribute to open source projects.

Key highlights about your participation at the Summit

I had the chance to connect with others in the community and learn from experts in the field during the summit. It was also a great opportunity to catch up with old friends from my time as a contributor at Mozilla.
Each session at the summit was very valuable to me, with a good mix of technical and non-technical topics. One session that stood out to me was "Get Paid. For Real. Right Now" by Sumassembly, which helped me understand the importance of open payment protocols like ILP in today's globalized world. Another session that was particularly useful to me as an engineer and contributor was "Meet your new friend - Rafiki" by Sabene, which provided a thorough overview of Rafiki, a topic that I had been curious about. There were many other informative sessions and stories shared by people from Fynbos, Coil, Tigerbeetle, and more that were very informative.

I also had the chance to work on a project in the hackroom called "Medium Monet," which is a browser extension that allows you to monetize your Medium content through web monetization. I was able to present it to others at the summit and received valuable feedback and insights from fellow participants.
Overall, my participation in the ILP Summit was an incredible learning experience and I was able to make valuable connections and learn from others in the community.

Highlight your key takeaways from the Summit

Attending the ILP summit was a valuable experience for me as it allowed me to learn more about the mission of open payments and the important role that ILP plays in serving underserved communities on a global scale. I was inspired by the other attendees who are working towards building products that can make a positive impact on the world. The summit also gave me insight into how people are incorporating open payments and web monetization into their existing frameworks.
Overall, it was a great opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals who share a common goal of creating a better world.

Indicate topic(s) if any, you thought could have been covered but were not.

I believe that the topics covered at the summit were well-balanced and provided a good mix of technical, growth-related, ILP challenges, and community-focused sessions. Each of these sessions was educational and contributed to my understanding of the subject matter. In terms of the agenda, I wouldn't change a thing.
However, I do have one suggestion for future summits: it would be great to have a full day dedicated to a Hackroom, where attendees can focus solely on hands-on projects and problem-solving. This would be a dream summit for me as an engineer, as it would allow me to fully immerse myself in the technical aspects of the event.

Let us know how you might be interested in participating in ILPSummit2023.

I am very interested in participating in the ILP Summit 2023. I am particularly curious to see how Rafiki and other ILP interfaces will evolve over the coming year, and I believe that attending the summit would provide me with an opportunity to learn, collaborate, and connect with other like-minded individuals who are passionate about this technology. I would also be interested in presenting a talk on any projects or learnings that I have had over the past year that I believe would be helpful for other ILP enthusiasts.

I am excited about the potential of ILP to revolutionize financial transactions and am eager to be a part of its ongoing development and adoption. I was honored to participate in the ILP Summit 2022 and it gave me a clear direction on how I want to get involved with Interledger and its community. I will approach the ILP Summit 2023 with clear, actionable goals and will align my personal goals with those of the organization.

Finally, I would be happy to assist the organizing committee in any way that I can to help make the summit a bigger, better, and more impactful event. Overall, I believe that my participation in the ILP Summit 2023 would be mutually beneficial and I am eager to be a part of it.

What have you done post-Summit to showcase your participation in the Summit?

I wrote my first blogpost on Interledger space about Medium monet -

I got rafiki setup on my machine and play around with it -> https://github.com/interledger/rafiki
My PR's in multiple Interledger Repos finally got merged. Thank you Alex. \o/

Any next steps and/or leads emanating from your participation at the Summit?

As a result of my participation in the summit, I have a few actions to take moving forward.
First, I will reach out to the people I connected with at the summit to continue the conversations and explore potential collaboration opportunities.
Second, I plan to share my thoughts and insights on ILP and Web monetization with the community through writing and speaking engagements.
I will also submit proposals to tech conferences to share my experiences with ILP and web monetization with other communities.
Overall, my participation in the ILP summit has been incredibly valuable, and I am excited to continue learning and sharing my knowledge in the future.

Thank you for taking the time to read. I hope to see you all again soon.