This article was published on April 25, 2018

Lightning Labs CEO is giving scholarships to female blockchain developers

Elizabeth Stark and Jimmy Song want to close the gender gap in cryptocurrency and blockchain


Lightning Labs CEO is giving scholarships to female blockchain developers

Lightning Labs co-founder and CEO Elizabeth Stark has announced a scholarship for female blockchain developers.

In a post on Twitter, Stark said that she and Bitcoin developer Jimmy Song have secured several scholarship packages for the upcoming Programming Blockchain seminar, which is scheduled to take place on May 17 and 18 in New York City.

The scholarships will cover the admission fees for the full two-day course, which usually costs $4,000. One thing to keep in mind is that scholarship recipients will be responsible for any travel expenses “to and from the venue.”

Women developers can apply for the scholarship by filling out the form here. The form is rather simple other than a  programming challenge that the aspirants are required to solve.

As Stark has already suggested, those interested in attending the seminar can learn more about the curriculum here.

There is a significant gender gap in the blockchain and cryptocurrency world (though the precise extent of the gap is still a point of contention). Indeed, the Lightning Labs chief herself has previously suggested that the gender gap in blockchain might not be as severe as it’s made out to be.

Still, efforts such as these are appreciable to help narrow this gap and get more women into the field.

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