by Louise Ivan on August 13, 2021

Over the last 5 months, the Stacks Foundation has invested heavily in growing the global Stacks community via the Stacks Chapters Program. The Chapters Program supports community leaders around the world in onboarding more builders and developers to the Stacks network, increasing access to STX tokens, and educating local communities on our mission of delivering a user-owned internet. Stacks Pakistan and Stacks MENA were the first to join the program in Q42020, providing much-needed support in those regions through the Stacks 2.0 launch. In Q22021, we welcomed Stacks Turkey, Stacks China, and Stacks Korea.

As we continue working openly alongside the Stacks community, we've put together some key information highlighting the impact Stacks Chapters have made thus far. You will also find an overview of each Chapter's goals as well as an evaluation of their progress thus far on each.

Partnership Experts: Chapter leads, GM and Mark, understand the Korean crypto market like no one else. In addition to building a loyal and educated Stacks following and launching their very own community Stacking pool, GM and Mark have managed to help secure a major partnership with Paycoin, and several Stacks integrations. The team manages translations for important content and news for the local community and has clearly educated Korean traders on STX, resulting in impressive trading volume in the region.

Most Reliable Trading Community: In just 6 months, Chapter Leads, Ömür, and Ali have managed to establish the largest trading community within the Stacks ecosystem. Both long-time crypto enthusiasts with a deep understanding of token communities,Ömür and Ali have been able to educate new, and seasoned traders alike, on the merits of holding STX tokens. Their community actively scans the market for growth opportunities for Stacks. Coordinated community efforts like these were what led to opportunities like the Bitexen listing, which resulted in 5 new market pairs, including the very first fiat onramp pair with TRY. Currently, Stacks Turkey started a social media campaign to integrate STX on BTCTurk, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in Turkey.

Education and Amplification: With Betty Xi's leadership, Stacks China has organically grown from dozens to hundreds of active community members. One of the most impactful things that Betty has executed is translating large volumes of important Stacks documentation and media pieces into Mandarin, making Stacks more accessible to local Chinese communities. By offering Clarity tutorials and other developer resources in Mandarin, Betty has made it easier for builders in the Chinese community to adopt Stacks technology. On the media front, Stacks China also continues to make key appearances on major Chinese forums and publications like Bihu, Biba, and WeChat, and built exclusive partnerships with key players such as PANews, BlockBeats, Bihu. Stacks China's work enables Chinese communities to be excited about and actively participate in new Stacks projects such as CityCoins, and it is also supporting Chinese developers to build STX-enabled products such as the betting game vs.btc.us. Additionally, thanks to the support and information provided by Stacks China, various Chinese influencers actively share Stacks-related content on platforms including Youtube and Bihu.

Developer Talent Portal: It's a known issue that the crypto industry is suffering from a talent crunch and Stacks Pakistan is trying to solve this.

The Chapter is on a mission to build an effective community of Clarity developers. To make this happen, Chapter Lead Nabeel Qadeer and Community Manager Syeda Mehak put their community through a community-oriented "Clarity Bootcamp" in which developers and technologists engaged in weekly, in-depth learning sessions about building on Stacks. Those who excel either apply for the Stacks Accelerator Companies for internships, choose to work with a local partner company of Stacks Pakistan, or work to develop smart contracts. A total of 16 talented young blockchain developers have gone through this program so far; 5 are now interning with Blocktech and the remainder are currently developing advanced smart contracts that the entire Stacks ecosystem can utilize.

Builders and Education: Strong developer and founder communities are fundamental to a thriving crypto ecosystem, and these are what Stacks MENA is currently building. For years, MENA Chapter Lead and Founder of Pravica, Mohamed Abdou has been referring entrepreneurs and developers aligned with the mission of delivering a user-owned internet to the Stacks ecosystem. In Q22021, Mohamed organized and facilitated a Stacks Bootcamp that introduced 25+ startups to Stacks; the "winners" of the bootcamp went on to apply for the Stacks Accelerator. This quarter, Stacks MENA aims to develop a mandatory STEM course on Stacks for universities across the MENA region in order to educate the next generation of "Can't Be Evil" developers.

They are laying down the fundamentals as Chapter Lead Abdou is currently in talks with universities in the MENA region to add a mandatory STEM course on Stacks. Stacks MENA organized and hosted the Stacks Bootcamp that introduced 25+ startups to the Stacks ecosystem. The "winners" of the Bootcamp went on to apply for the Stacks Accelerator. Lastly, Stacks MENA is currently in the process of figuring out their quarterly milestones that will help to align their chapter to view progress and judge priorities for their region.

Interested in building a Chapter in your local region? Get in touch with the community that's building a user-owned internet on Bitcoin at community@stacks.org.