@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
2+title = "Urbit Grants and Mid-2019 Awards"
4+author = "Galen Wolfe-Pauly & Alex Matzner"
5+description = "Announcing an upcoming Urbit grants program and star awards for Mid-2019."
6+aliases = ["/posts/essays/urbit-grants-and-mid-2019-awards"]
11+
13+We are excited to announce the first developer star gifts of 2019. It’s been far too long since we last awarded our contributors. We got so busy working on things ourselves that we let this program languish — but we’ve got plans to make it much more organized going forward. More on that after the important part.
15+That is, our winners from the past nine months:
19+- Ben `~mirfet-hocbyt` [@bencalder](https://github.com/bencalder)
20+- Max `~ladres-forfex` [@max19](https://github.com/max19)
22+**Ben** discovered the bug in our @p rendering algorithm, nicknamed “the @pocalypse” around the office, and led to a few nights of lost sleep. It was a fantastic find, which was then resolved by **Max** with one of the greatest GitHub comments of all time: “[curious if this works](https://github.com/urbit/arvo/issues/1105#issuecomment-472585937).”
26+- Pyry `~dinleb-rambep` [@pkova](https://github.com/pkova)
27+- John `~dirwex-dosrev` [@jfranklin9000](https://github.com/jfranklin9000)
28+- Assaf `~rophex-hashes` [@asssaf](https://github.com/asssaf)
30+**Pyry** has been a [regular contributor](https://github.com/urbit/bridge/graphs/contributors) to Bridge over the past few months, **John** has been consistently picking up [changes all over the place](https://github.com/jfranklin9000), and **Assaf** found a [security issue](https://github.com/urbit/urbit-key-generation/issues/55) with our hierarchical wallet.
32+Thanks to all of you for helping bring Urbit to life. We don’t make it nearly easy enough to contribute, but all of you clawed your way in and made the system better. Thank you!
34+## Coming soon: Our new grant program
36+As always, we much prefer to talk about working code as opposed to unfinished work – however:
38+Making the process of rewarding contributors is something we’ve thought a lot about over the past few months. We’ve come up with a system that we like, and are hoping to put it up later this summer. It’s probably not perfect, but it’s a step in the right direction. We’ll be able to properly engage in a grant proposal process, post bounties as well as reward people directly with prizes.
40+As always, we prefer to talk about working code instead of future potential — so there’s not much more to say. We’ll say much more later this summer and look forward to hearing your feedback.
42+Please [subscribe to our newsletter](http://eepurl.com/b7x7hj) to make sure you receive future announcements.
44+– **Galen** `~ravmel-ropdyl` & **Alex** `~mignyt-mogseb`