Nym Shipyard Academy inaugural graduation

Congratulations to all our new Sailmakers!

Author: Nym

December 20, 20225 mins read

Congratulations to all our new Sailmakers!

After a stimulating and productive six weeks immersing in all things privacy, our inaugural Shipyard Academy cohort has graduated!

We saw over 6,000 sign ups when we launched Shipyard Academy, which is a strong testament to the increased interest in learning about and taking back control of our individual privacy.

Over the course of three stages, participants had access to learning materials, attended a lecture conducted by different Nym core team members, performed tasks and then completed a quiz to test their new-found knowledge. Those who progressed through each stage were rewarded with NYM tokens from an overall prize pool of 115,000 NYM tokens. A quick recap on the stages and the respective themes:

Stage 1 — Nymster: Participants learned the basics of the problems of privacy online, what a mixnet is and how the Nym infrastructure contributes to defeating surveillance capitalism.
Stage 2 — Navigator: Participants learned more about the Nym mixnet, how it relates to the Nyx blockchain, using NymConnect, the token economics and how incentives help to ensure the privacy and security of the Nym mixnet. They also had hands-on experience in spreading the word to others about privacy online.
Stage 3 — Sailmaker: Participants applied their new-found knowledge to privacy-enhance new apps, extend the Nym infrastructure to underrepresented areas, submitted PoCs using Nym clients and/or produced original creatives that localise the issue of privacy and the benefits of Nym for their specific communities.

The Nym core team interacted with the Academy participants through lectures on the basics of Nym, surveillance 101, Nym mixnet tech deep dives, Nym token economics, what privacy means for society and innovation and the cypherpunk history of mixnets. Watch all the lectures here.

The quality of all the people that participated was outstanding and the graduates are truly experts in Nym infrastructure. Together, everyone learned a lot, extended the Nym infrastructure to new parts of the world, and will spread the word about the importance of privacy and the Nym mission, and made new connections with fellow privacy advocates.

Nick Shikhirev — All human beings deserve a right for privacy. Unfortunately current tools can’t cover this demand due to technical limitations. But I believe that Nym can do that. You’re a team of true privacy enthusiasts and it’s an honour to contribute to your mission!

Teckel Trades — I live in Latin America, where serious privacy violations occur frequently, but people are still unaware of this and how to defend their rights. I believe Nym is the future of privacy and everyone should know about it. (Translated from Spanish)

Zosima — The motivation is simple — belief in the power of the project, belief in humanity. I sincerely believe that the project we are involved in is extremely important in the new realities of humanity. (Translated from Russian)

Today, over 200 graduates have demonstrated that they can create the sails that will carry the global Nym community across the digital oceans. They will be invited to apply to become bona fide Nymjas — Nym ambassadors and will represent and organise for the Nym mission of providing network layer privacy to people, organisations and infrastructures across the world.

Some more words from the Academy participants:

Oheka — In an increasingly unstable world where threats to our digital integrity is increasingly felt, it has become essential to be able to protect ourselves: by being educated and by raising awareness around us on this topic, by helping to develop and make known the appropriate tools. Nym is one of these tools.

Pawnflake — Sure online privacy has always been a concern but I always assumed it was just not possible to achieve that privacy easily. Then I found Nym.

[NODERS] Gingah — In these turbulent times we live in, the world really needs projects like Nym. In my mind, Nym should become a movement created by few but promoted by many. I want to be part of many in order to help the few to bring important change to the world.

(Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.)

The impact of Shipyard Academy has been a resounding success and we are excited to see our community expand through our participants, regardless of whether they are Nymsters, Navigators or Sailmakers.

Going into 2023, we will open applications for a new cohort of Shipyard Academy. Follow our socials for the latest updates.

We are always looking for new community members to run nodes and create privacy-enhanced applications on top of Nym. Join our community to participate and keep up to date.