Author: jackdenny

Today was our last formal meeting day for the Work Experience program, so we decided to finish on a strong note and go out for lunch together. We met up at the Spring Rolls in Wade Park for a corporate favorite — sushi. It was really nice to see everyone in person and especially nice to meet Greyson face-to-face for the first time. I really enjoyed getting to know everyone a little better and reflecting on the experience we shared these past couple weeks. But, not all the fun is over! We’re planning to play some videogames tomorrow, and we might get a chance to come visit the Lenovo campus once it reopens in July.

Today our main focus was paring down all of our research into a cohesive story that could be told in about 10 slides. Once everyone had been assigned their topics (I got Intro to Blockchain and DApps), we spent the middle of the day making our presentation look professional. During our afternoon meeting, we did a trial run of our PowerPoint for Greyson. He congratulated us on a job well done and said that he had learned a lot from our research. I know I certainly did.

We met up this morning and decided which topics we needed to research to round out our presentation on Blockchain and Digital Asset technologies. Sarah and Rohan took a look at the VR market as a whole and some potential applications of NFTs. Sebastian and I looked at Smart Contracts. I dug deep into not only how they work, but also how they communicate with other parts of the blockchain and outside applications to form Decentralized Apps, or DApps. We met back up in the afternoon to share our findings, and I got to explain the inner workings of Smart Contract hacks, where hackers can walk away with millions of dollars in crypto by targeting vulnerable DApps.

Today, Greyson showed us how most adults like to spend their time on Fridays at work — teambuilding! We all hopped on a Discord call and decided to play Valorant, a newer game which is like a cross between CS:GO and Overwatch. Other than Rohan, we were all first time players, so we weren’t very good. Even so, I think we all had a great time. All in all, it was a very chill day and a fun way to kick off the holiday weekend.

We only had one check-in meeting today, so I spent most of my time researching blockchain technologies. I started with FLO, a cryptocurrency which is build to support any kind of data (smart contracts, digital assets, records) on its blockchain. I then looked into Etherscan, a site which allows you to view anything that has ever happened or is happening on the Ethereum blockchain. My favorite part of this was getting to see Sebastian’s NFTs, listed on OpenSea, on the Etherscan website. It really gave me a great example of how easy it is to access information on a blockchain. During our afternoon meeting, we shared what we had learned, and Greyson challenged us to dig even deeper into our respective topics. My next goal is to understand all of the analytics listed on the Etherscan site.

Today’s main focus was figuring out what story we wanted to tell through our PowerPoint on NFTs. After Greyson gave us some ideas on additional topics to include in the presentation, the four of us met over Teams and decided on a general flow for story we want to tell about the future of digital assets. When we met in the afternoon, we pitched our story to Greyson and he gave us the helpful advice of starting off our presentation with a hook — something to get people interested. We each left the afternoon meeting with more topics to research. I’m currently learning about the Flo blockchain and a service called Etherscan.

During our morning meeting, we each went around and shared what we learned about our research topics from yesterday afternoon. After we shared, everyone asked questions, and Greyson gave us feedback on how to turn the information we found into cohesive PowerPoint slides. He also gave us specific concepts within our findings to research that afternoon.

Before our afternoon meeting, I worked on refining my PowerPoint slides about the differences between Ethereum and Ethereum 2.0, as well as researching differences in the supply systems of various cryptocurrencies. We each shared our new findings during our afternoon meeting and discussed goals for the rest of the WEP. I think by the end of this program, we should have dazzling PowerPoint which reflects a comprehensive understanding of cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and applications of digital asset technologies.

We started off our day getting to know our host, Greyson Davis, who started out at Lenovo 12 years ago in sales and has worked his way up to being the product manager for the company’s gaming division. He told us about what it’s like to work for a big tech company headquartered in both RTP and Beijing, and what it’s been like working from home during the pandemic.

Greyson then introduced us to our area of study for the next two weeks — NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens). I’m very excited for this topic, as NFTs are something I’ve seen in the news recently and something that I have wanted to learn more about. After talking about some of the variations and applications of NFTs, we each set off to research our own topic. Mine was the differences between Ethereum and Ethereum 2.0, versions of the main type of cryptocurrency in which most NFTs are valued. Looking forward to a fun couple of weeks!

Everydays: The First 5000 Days — a compilation of the first 5000 works by digital artist Beeple, which sold for $69.3 million, making it the highest selling NFT to date.