# Ethereum Public Nodes in Costa Rica

## Goal
- Create "Blockchain Validation Centers" in public and private universities, public institutions, and other study centers.

## Objectives
- These centers will serve as the genesis of laboratories to promote education, outreach and research in core Ethereum protocol.
- These centers will strengthen and promote net neutrality.
- These centers will help grow the Ethereum community in Costa Rica.
- These centers will be the tipping point for public institutions to use Ethereum as a mechanism for human coordination.

#### Note:
This initiative is NOT for profit but rather for educational and community purposes. For that reason, these will not be full validating nodes. Validating nodes require high cost capital (32ETH or ~16ETH), they adds additional risk and complexity on managing them.

## Stage 0 (Current State - Ideation Phase)
- Form the core team
- Build the strategy
- Get funding for the first node
- Grant from EF, or
- Personal funds

## Stage 1 - ~$1800
- Start with 1 validator node in the [NIC](https://www.nic.cr/): Costa Rica Internet Exchange Point.
- Already had an initial meeting with the Director who is open to hosting it. It aligns with the internet ethos of: internet neutrality, democracy, decentralization and public good.
- The node can be a "plug and play" node like [dAppNode](https://dappnode.io/) or [Avado](https://ava.do/).
- Goal: get notes and news in national and international media once completed.
- Create a group of "Core Maintainers": from the local industry (i.e. Edenia) or the community (Ethereum Costa Rica)

## Stage 2 - ~$5000
- Create 2 validator nodes in two public universities
- Create a group of maintainers for those universities (students and professors)
- Foster student groups
- Create universities "ETH clubs"

## Stage 3
- Alliances with other institutions outside the blockchain that defend the same values: decentralization, network neutrality, etc.

## Requirements
- Core Team
- Hardware
- Guides
- Maintainers

## Core Team
- [Andy](https://twitter.com/AndyGuzmanEth)
- [Adrian](https://twitter.com/adriangarciaeth)
- Marcos

## Core Roles
- Maintainers & Education Guild: focusing on getting the right expertise to maintain the nodes running.
- Comms & Community Guild
- Alliances & Industry Guild

## Future
- Translate staking guides to Spanish and collaborate back to the staking communities
- Explore build a node from 0
- Create Etheruem protocol courses
- Get local talent join the Protocol Fellowship program for Core Developers.

###### tags: `crnodes`