The DeWi ETL Network Overview dashboard in Metabase, July 2021.
Helium
I’ve been involved with the Helium peer-to-peer telecommunications network since 2020.
Helium Foundation
I was a board member of the Helium Foundation from its start. It started in 2020 as the Decentralized Wireless Alliance (DeWi), a non-profit to steward the network, and became the Helium Foundation in March 2022 when Helium Inc. renamed itself Nova Labs and handed over the Helium trademark.
My board work focused on scaling network governance and public data. The public data part was DeWi ETL, a public copy of the Helium blockchain database with Metabase dashboards at etl.dewi.org, which ran from 2020 to 2023.
Hotspot onboarding by maker per day, August 2021.
Data credits spent per 1° grid square, July 2021. Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Catching stalled price oracles, July 2021.
Community Organizing
Helium Community Call
I helped organize and run the weekly Helium Community Call, an open forum for network participants to discuss proposals, updates, and community matters.
A FreedomFi slide shared on the community call, February 2021. Slide by FreedomFi.
HIPs (Helium Improvement Proposals)
The Helium network is governed through an open proposal process called HIPs. Anyone can submit a proposal, and the community votes on changes to the network.
From 2020 to 2022 I led community governance and acted as HIP Editor. I shepherded, edited and merged proposals in the HIP repository, and marked them approved and deployed. I wrote or co-wrote two HIPs:
- HIP 7: Managing the HIP process, which set up how proposals get written, discussed and approved
- HIP 19: Third-party manufacturers, co-written with four community members, which opened the network to hotspots from makers other than Helium Inc.
Annotated HIP 19 manufacturer application pull request by ehnatow for TEKTELIC.
Writing
I’ve written about Helium on my blog: