Substrate, Polkadot and Kusama, let them shine in Asia! | PW Interview

Helena is the head of Business Development and Operation of Parity for APAC. Her goal at this stage is to take Parity’s technical achievements, such as Substrate, Polkadot and Kusama, to root and grow in the technical community in Asia.

In this interview, Helena talked about her job in Parity, three major goals of Parity Asia this year, and her experience with Parity. She also brought the latest news about Substrate 2.0.

1. Can you tell us how you joined Parity?

I’ve been in FinTech and payments industry for much of my career and have focused on Product Management and Business Development. Joining Parity was serendipity.

Given my background, I have been interested in blockchain technologies and cryptocurrency, paying close attention to the latest trends and developments of this industry since 2015. On one sunny noon at SOMA San Francisco in October 2019, I decided to sneak out from morning-long seminars of San Francisco Blockchain Week and crossed the traffic jammed Bay Bridge to UC Berkeley for a cup of long-missed Bianca Mocha from Caffe Strada, a place full of the memories and laughers with my friends years ago. If it wasn’t the cup of coffee I missed so much, if it wasn’t Caffe Strada was overcrowded, if it wasn’t Parity happened to have a campus event next door, I wouldn’t walk into the door of opportunity and had this amazing hour-long conversation with the folks from Parity and Web3 Foundation, who later become my dear colleagues.

We talked about the challenges of blockchain as a whole; the differences between the blockchain ecosystems of China and the US; the necessity of and possibilities for blockchain as a technology to apply in Fintech; and, Parity’s development strategy in Asia. A few weeks later I received an invitation from Parity HQ to interview for an amazing position to lead business development in Asia.

And on the first day of 2020 I joined this amazing family! I’ve been with Parity a little over four months and I am sure it is going to be an exciting and amazing journey!

2. What is your role and responsibilities in Parity?

I am mainly responsible for business development and operations in Asia. My responsibilities may change depending on the stage of the work. The primary focus of my work right now is to support and ensure that the Parity Asia technology team can carry out their work smoothly.

To use an analogy: Parity is opening up a new front in Asia, so operations and logistics support is my focus. I pave the way, bridge the gap, do everything possible to fight for resources to support the effort to win the strategic high ground. At present, Parity Asia’s goal is to penetrate the developer community and advocate its technologies — such as Substrate, Polkadot and Kusama — to root and grow in the blockchain ecosystem in China and other Asian regions. This requires me to quickly formulate a point-to-face operation strategy and execute it in place. In a later stage I will focus on the business development and partnerships for the Asian market.

The biggest change for this role is learning to embrace and enjoy VUCA: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. This is part and parcel for the entire blockchain industry at the moment and is to be expected when developing a new market. At the same time, this challenge is what most attracted me to this opportunity.

3. What are the main focuses in China for Parity Asia in 2020?

Parity Asia’s China focus is threefold. The top priority is the Web 3.0 Bootcamp focusing on program establishment, team recruitment and incubation. This is a China-based initiative and it has great influence on blockchain startups globally. We are fortunate to work with the world’s leading blockchain investor Wanxiang Blockchain Lab and its New Chainbase to build one of the best bootcamp programs in blockchain. Our goal is to provide the startup teams with the latest blockchain technology; the most useful industry resources; the most grounded business knowledge; and as many fundraising suggestions as possible.

The second initiative is the Web 3.0 Series of Events for blockchain developers, technology enthusiasts and blockchain investors. Quickly adapted from the spreading of COVID-19, Web 3.0 Series is a set of online lectures that have been rolling out once or twice a week since February. These aim to be informative and highly-interactive over a wide range of topics. The content ranges from basic knowledge of Substrate to the latest news from the Polkadot community. The format includes webinar lectures and interactive livestream broadcasting. The speakers come from the Polkadot ecosystem partners to frontline developers in Parity. This inspires the continuous participation and growing enthusiasm from the community.

The third initiative is to offer online courses for developers interested in systematic learning of Substrate and blockchain technology. Parity Asia has plans to launch our proprietary courses with original content and well-designed topics for blockchain developers and technology enthusiasts to gain knowledge.

4. What particular help and support will Parity Asia provide developers?

Based on their current situation and knowledge, developers can decide which of the three initiatives mentioned above work best for them. I described the support and help available in the previous question, so I won’t go into details here.

5. Who are the best suitable audiences to Web 3.0 Series from Parity Asia?

Parity Asia’s Web 3.0 Series is very wide-ranging set of lectures. There is basic knowledge about Substrate and Polkadot suitable for general public audiences. There are also live sessions for experienced blockchain developers to discuss detailed technical questions with frontline core engineers in Parity. It also provides opportunities for blockchain investors to obtain the latest news and technical information from Polkadot. We strongly recommend you to check out the events of the month. Don’t miss events you like!

6. What are some new features and functionalities in Substrate 2.0? Can you share the latest updates on development and a possible release date?

Substrate has reached the major milestone of version 2.0. The framework is designed for building optimized, scalable, Polkadot-compatible blockchains and comes with even more modules and features, alongside enhanced API stability and versioning so teams can build blockchains with even greater ease and flexibility.

Substrate 2.0 comes with over 30 pallets to help you build your blockchain. A few examples of Pallets include:

• Randomness collective flip enables low-influence random values based on previous blocks.
• Democracy is a pallet for enabling on-chain voting mechanisms for swift, binding, and transparent governance by stakeholders.
• EVM is a pallet that replicates the functionality of the Ethereum virtual machine, allowing EVM applications to be quickly ported to a Substrate chain.
• The Treasury pallet provides a way to add funds to a “pot” that can be used for funding activities however the network likes.
• Off-chain workers are a set of pallets that allow you to integrate data safely and securely onto your blockchain, ideal for Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices or real-world data inputs via oracles.

Currently, Parity is stabilizing the Substrate 2.0 Alpha. We will soon close down new feature submission to the codebase (may accept API changes, depending on the change) for the final stability test. Parity is also fixing the discrepancy of Substrate 2.0 on Kusama. Once the above mentioned two items are done, Parity will be able to roll out Substrate 2.0. There is no definitive time of the release yet.

7. What is your experience working at Parity?

Parity’s culture is very unique and fascinating to me. If I have to put it into words, it is geeky, open and innovative! It is very technology-driven, but that’s not much of a suprise. This is a challenge for non-technical people like me to be immersed in such a deep technology culture. I’ve had to learn and absorb as many technical knowledge points and concepts as possible in a short period of ramp-up time, and have a general understanding of the ecology of Polkadot. This job definitely gives me a steep learning curve and for that I appreciate Parity a lot.

Openness is the concentrated expression of trust, equality, decentralization, and globalization in Parity’s culture. Over the course of a single week, the colleagues that I met and video chatted with came from 8 different countries! Working in Parity has been a great experience in globalization, which is very different from the typical 9-to-5 corporate culture.

The last is Innovation. Parity accepts differences and encourages change. You are given a clear goal, but no explicit instructions. There is a clear vision, but no ready path to reach it. Oftentimes, to progress forward, I am learning to mobilize all of my knowledge and skills to explore, try, learn and improve to achieve my goals.

8. How can developers to contact Parity Asia?

Parity has been adhering to the principle of 100% open source from day one, so our entire organizational culture is decentralized, open, and flat. Parity Asia upholds this cultural core with an open and embracing attitude towards developers and provides various open contact channels to developer communities.

First, developers can get in touch with us through the programs organized by Parity Asia, such as Web 3.0 Bootcamp and Parity Substrate Builders Program.

Secondly, through Parity Asia community organizations such as the official Wechat accounts of Polkadot China（Wechat id：web3_polkadot） and PolkaWorld (Wechat id：polkaworld), we share our latest news and give timely updates on events. Developers can get in touch with the team members of Parity Asia during the event and stay connected.

Thirdly, we also welcome developers to contact us through our ecosystem partners. Polkadot already has close ecosystem partners in China, and developers can contact us through referrals from these third-party partners.

Finally, we welcome developers to contact us directly at ParityAsia@parity.io to share your ideas, thoughts and dreams!

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