Codex Student Program

About Status

Status is building the tools and infrastructure for the advancement of a secure, private, and open web3.

With the high level goals of preserving the right to privacy, mitigating the risk of censorship, and promoting economic trade in a transparent, open manner, Status is building a community where anyone is welcome to join and contribute.

As an organization, Status seeks to push the web3 ecosystem forward through research, creation of developer tools, and support of the open source community.

As a product, Status is an open source, Ethereum-based app that gives users the power to chat, transact, and access a revolutionary world of DApps on the decentralized web. But Status is also building foundational infrastructure for the whole Ethereum ecosystem, including the Nimbus ETH 1.0 and 2.0 clients, the Keycard hardware wallet, and the Waku messaging protocol (a continuation of Whisper).

As a team, Status has been completely distributed since inception.  Our team is currently 150+ core contributors strong, and welcomes a growing number of community members from all walks of life, scattered all around the globe.

We care deeply about open source, and our organizational structure has minimal hierarchy and no fixed work hours. We believe in working with a high degree of autonomy while supporting the organization’s priorities.

About Codex Student Program

The Codex Student Program (CSP) is aimed at Master and PhD students looking to gain experience and do research and development in one of the domains of interest related to the Codex project. The grant is intended to help students gain visibility on their field of interest and at the same time allow them to learn about common research and development practices that should be beneficial for their continuing careers.

Research Topics

There are two main projects we are working on, one is about data availability sampling (DAS) in collaboration with the Ethereum Foundation and the other one is related to the Codex decentralized storage platform. More specifically, the CSP aims to do research and development in, but not limited to:

• Data Availability Sampling for scaling blockchains
  
  
  • Large scale simulations of distributed systems
  
  
  • Peer-to-peer overlays and communication protocols
  
  
  • Statistical testing and property verification
  
  
  • Data visualization and analysis
  
  
  
  


• Decentralized storage solutions
  
  
  • Erasure coding optimizations for large-scale distributed storage
  
  
  • Proof of data retrievability and other storage related proofs
  
  
  • Game theory in the context of incentivized storage
  
  
  • Storage performance measurement and testing
  
  
  
  

Eligibility

This program is available to Master and PhD students officially enrolled at a universit, pursuing their M.Sc. or Ph.D. in the field of Computer Sciences or a related field.

The Grant

The CSP is very flexible and adapts to different levels of experience as well as to different lengths. The following numbers are just indicative, as the final stipend might slightly change depending on the student experience as well as to adapt to differing regions’ cost. For an officially enrolled PhD student, the CSP offers a stipend in the range of $2,000/month (full-time equivalent).

In addition, the CSP might also offer some mobility grants to attend meetings and related conferences that are within the scope of the research field of the internship.

Research Methodology

A member of the Codex team will be assigned as supervisor of the student for the duration of the CSP. Students will be invited to participate in weekly meetings to discuss the progress done and raise questions or concerns.

A clear end-of-CSP deliverable will be given to the student depending on the length and complexity of the project. This could be a software, a report, a talk, among others.

Application

To submit your application, please fill this form providing the following documents:

• Up-to-date Curriculum Vitae


• A cover letter expressing your research interests


• Proof of enrolment in your university


• Reference letter from one of your university professors

Applications will be evaluated a few weeks after submission. Students passing the initial evaluation will be contacted to pass a short interview.