I.Listen to the Talk
Her whole talk — 19 minutes, self-hosted from the ceremony stream. Press play and walk the garden. (In the full ceremony video, her first word is at 1:01:03, after Kartik Talwar’s welcome.)
II.Seeds from the Talk
Nine lines worth planting. Tap any card to hear her say it.
“In a finite game, the game ends when someone wins. In an infinite game, we play the game to continue the game.”
“That is a perfect example of an infinite game — and those who participated were all infinite players.”
“So — can you be an infinite teacher in this garden?”
“One teacher does not teach everyone. They teach their students how to teach — and they become the teachers. And good teachers also learn from their students.”
“True learning can only come from having experience… the best way to learn is by making mistakes.”
“Throwing away six to twelve months of work is always coupled with immense learning.”
“The beauty of a hackathon is that you will not be punished by making mistakes. So make lots of mistakes.”
“Everyone has unique expertise, skills, and even personality that may inspire others.”
“In Japan, reading between the lines is very, very basic. We have an expression: read the air.”
III.The Talk, as a Reading
Lightly cleaned from the live stream, in Aya’s own words. Chapter timestamps jump to the audio; italic notes mark the room — hands, laughter, applause.
1:01:03Konnichiwa, Tokyo
Hello, everyone. Wow — it’s already late. I know you’re tired, and I’m going to give a Japanese lesson for the next twenty minutes. Just kidding. Konnichiwa — konbanwa, mina-san.
I’m thrilled to be here at the first Ethereum hackathon in Tokyo at this scale. It is very big for Japan. Today, I’d like to talk about the power of open learning in the Infinite Garden. I want to share with you how Ethereum is revolutionizing the way we learn and grow — and how you can be part of the revolution by becoming an infinite teacher.
1:02:00The Infinite Game
How many of you have heard of this Infinite Garden? — a scattering of hands This is a vision we use at the Ethereum Foundation, and we’re hoping everyone will be part of it. Let me explain the infinite again. I came up with the idea inspired by the book by James Carse — the word infinite is from “infinite games,” as in his book Finite and Infinite Games.
The vision of the Infinite Garden takes the word infinite from this inspiration, because I believe it describes the beautiful culture of Ethereum.
At the Merge last year — do you remember the Merge? You still remember the Merge? Well, we had another big milestone this week that kind of finished the proof-of-stake work. When Ethereum shifted from proof of work to proof of stake, there were more researchers and developers outside the Ethereum Foundation involved in the execution of that enormous amount of work. All the devs from different client teams worked together. Ethereum understands the importance of client diversity — understands that it is more important than having only one big team succeeding.
That is a perfect example of an infinite game. And those who participated were all infinite players — are all infinite players.
1:04:10A Room of Learners
So how can you play in an infinite game at this hackathon? I understand there are prizes here, supported by great sponsors who just presented — and I think it’s great to motivate people to build. But I would like to suggest something new today. Let me ask you some questions.
Please raise your hand if you identify yourself as a Web3 developer. — hands rise — Okay, thank you.
Please raise your hand if you see yourself as rather a beginner to Web3. — more hands — Thanks for being honest.
Please raise your hand if you are new to Web3 but have expertise in some other domains — programming languages, security, privacy, UX. — a pause — Okay, you’re very humble.
Please raise your hand if you are here to learn. — nearly the whole room — All right — I see almost all hands.
Yes — there are many who are here to learn. I’m also here to learn.
1:05:23Open Learning
ETHGlobal told me that a lot of skilled Web2 developers come here to get into Web3. A hackathon is a great place to learn. And I believe there is something unique about a hackathon in Ethereum that makes your learning experience more special — because this is also a game that is happening in the Infinite Garden.
I know you will be divided into teams, and there are prizes. But it would enrich the quality of the game if each player improves their skill by learning. There will be mentors and speakers who will teach you new things. But wouldn’t it also be fun if hackers here teach each other? Wouldn’t it be fun if teaching and learning happen regardless of which team you are in?
I bet this has already been happening at the Ethereum hackathons. That is because I believe Ethereum has the culture of open learning.
1:06:36The Scaffold-ETH Story
Ethereum as a platform is an open-source project, so it is naturally more open. Being open source makes the project more inclusive and transparent; from the learning standpoint, anyone can look at the code and learn many different things. But what I want to talk about today is how the culture of learning has evolved in Ethereum — and how the culture of openness is making learning more effective. I like to call this open learning, and I strongly believe it is an important part of the Infinite Garden.
For example, there are multiple dev tools built by community members that are widely used — and some of them are built for learners. Scaffold-ETH — how many of you know Scaffold-ETH? — many hands — Oh wow, a lot of you. Awesome. Scaffold-ETH gives you instructions on how to build on Ethereum step by step. Our dear friend Austin Griffith — are you here? — Austin is here — This was originally for himself, to onboard devs who are new to Web3 — and he started offering speed-runs: a class where he goes through each step together with a new learner. Now there are many devs who learned with this tutorial.
What is interesting is that those who learned through it became more interested in building learning tools for others to learn. So Austin and his people started BuidlGuidl — a community of builders who are building learning tutorials. There are a lot of stories about how Ethereum learns, but I’d like to use this community as an example, so it is easier for you to see the open learning culture.
The first story is about an open learner and infinite teacher, Shiv*. I heard he is here — I hope he’s here somewhere. He learned with Scaffold-ETH — one of those people who learned through it — and now he is building Scaffold-ETH 2. How amazing is this? — applause; Shiv is found in the room — He’s here! So you can hear the story from him — I’d love to hear the story from you too.
Another great story from this BuidlGuidl community: Calvin from BuidlGuidl went to the 0xPARC community — a community facilitated by the 0xPARC Foundation that is not only supporting different applied ZK projects, but also helping people learn about ZK. He then came back to BuidlGuidl and built a three-part series to teach the next builders how to use a ZK circuit with a smart contract. And what is crazy is that Austin — the original teacher — said almost 90% of what he knows about ZK apps is from using these tutorials made by Calvin.
* Names restored from the audio where the stream was unclear; see the transcript notes below.
1:09:27Teachers Who Learn
I used to be a high school teacher, and I have seen maximized learning experiences when a teacher lets a student become a mini teacher. But the power of open learning in the Ethereum community is even more than that.
By keeping learning tools open, we can have all different types of learning tools — and you are more likely to find something that fits your level and learning style.
1:10:03Three Ways to Learn Here
Going back to open learning and hackathons: I believe hackathons represent the open learning culture of the Ethereum community. Why? Because you are here to learn and teach. You’re not here to make a perfectly complete project within three days. The project might be your start of something important in the future — but the most important part of these three days is that you get to learn something you did not know before, and to share what you already know with others. The knowledge that you gain and give will ripple outwards into the future, and might help others on a similar journey.
First — by making mistakes. I believe true learning can only come from having experience. You can read a book and stuff online to gain knowledge, but you do not really learn until you try it yourself. And the best way to learn is by making mistakes. I know this is a very tough one for Japanese people especially — I also suffered myself, being trained to be perfect.
Ethereum’s protocol design has had this experience many times. Initial sharding and proof-of-stake designs were attempted within smart contracts; only when the researchers got into the architecture did they discover the limitations in efficiency and expressivity of those system-level contracts. When Danny Ryan shared this story with me, he said that throwing away six to twelve months of work is always coupled with immense learning. It informs not only the immediate next item, but research and design on the project for years to come.
Next, you learn by working in a team, obviously. Building something by yourself and building something in a team are very different experiences. Here, some of you will work with people you’ve met for the first time. Each person, I believe, offers very different values to the team. Decisions are not easy to make when working in a team — but that is why the learning is stronger. You learn more when you need to balance multiple perspectives. There will be more than 200 teams made of all the hackers here — if ETHGlobal combined all the learnings from teams at all the hackathons, they would probably have a great dataset for that research.
And lastly, you will definitely learn from the experienced mentors — the experts. There are many amazing experts here, depending on your interests. From EF, for example, Péter, Marius, and others from the Geth team are here; the Account Abstraction team is here. Austin, as I said, is out there — and his people from the BuidlGuidl community are here too. You should definitely talk to them; they are experts in being a teacher.
Do not forget, though, that you as a hacker can be a teacher — because everyone has unique expertise, skills, and even personality that may inspire others.
1:13:57The Infinite Teacher Experiment
And with the spirit of open learning within, allow me to try an experiment through this hackathon. This is a new thing we are trying. We want to ask you to let us know about your learning experiences here — and let us know who was your best teacher. They can be mentors and speakers here, other hackers from your team, or other teams working toward the same prizes. I would like to call them infinite teachers in the Infinite Garden. The Ethereum Foundation will try to share the outcome in some way — to recognize infinite teachers.
The learning does not have to be technical learning. You could receive some amazing wisdom to cope with the pressure or stress of this hackathon — or how to maximize your focus. Even if you’re new to the community, you can already be an infinite teacher too — we all come with a wealth of experience and knowledge that influences how we collaborate to solve problems.
Here’s how you can help: please save this on your phone, and answer the survey that asks who was your infinite teacher — submit it by the end of Sunday. By participating, you will receive an “I learned from an infinite teacher” NFT, designed by our designers. We also have the EF booth — if you have questions, you can ask questions there too.
1:15:34Read the Air 空気を読む
As another message from me — this is the last one — I also like to encourage you to challenge yourself. Try something a little bit outside of your comfort zone.
There are many Japanese hackers here today who are locals. I heard 40 percent of hackers here are locals — which is the size of the hackathons already in Japan, so 40 percent is pretty impressive. — to the visitors — How many of the non-Japanese here feel a connection to Japan? Do you like anything about Japan? — hands shoot up — You raised hands most quickly! What do you like about Japan? — Culture. Language. Do you speak Nihongo? — laughter — Actually, I’m always impressed by how many people are interested in learning Japanese — I’m not even sure how useful Nihongo is! Even within the Ethereum Foundation, we have quite a number of people who can speak Japanese, which is surprising — I always wonder, where do you use it? Anyway — some people might like food, ninja, Nintendo, anime. There are things that Japan can be proud of, it seems.
But I know one thing that Japanese people tend not to be good at: they are not good at telling you what they’re good at. We Japanese are trained not to do that from the very early time of our childhood. Japanese people here may not call themselves experts — forever. However, if you find Japanese hackers tonight, I encourage you to invite one or two of them to your team. And if you find someone who has a background very different from yours, I encourage you to invite them too, whether they’re Japanese or not.
Here’s why I think it’s a good idea. First, in the case of the Japanese, you might discover some subtle talents — something that others do not have. For example, by being born and raised in the country, I was trained to develop intuition. You know the English expression read between the lines? In Japan, reading between the lines is very, very basic. We have an expression called read the air — you have to read something when there are not even lines or words, and that is considered common sense. Gradually, you become very good at reading people’s minds and the things around them. This is also the reason why they can be good team players.
Next — whether they’re Japanese or not — many studies discover that more diversity leads to more creativity. One study tested college students’ creativity at the beginning and end of a semester, and found that students who had dated someone from another country became more creative. — laughter; a few hands — If you have experienced this, you can’t help but reflect on the different circumstances that helped shape the other person’s views. By looking from different perspectives, you end up developing creativity. You also take things less personally when you know the blockers are due to different backgrounds.
So of course, I’m not only talking about Japanese — there is a more diverse set of backgrounds here. I would love to see mixed, diverse teams during this hackathon. If you have not teamed up yet, it would be great if you find new friends and build a team with people with different backgrounds.
1:19:50Two Seeds to Carry Home
That is it. To summarize my two key points today:
Open learning opportunity — find your infinite teacher. Please scan this QR code, save it, and let us know who was your infinite teacher.
And diversity in your team — for creativity.
Thank you very much, and I hope you have a great learning time. Happy hacking, everyone. — applause —
IV.Seven Teachings from the Garden
Distilled from the talk — one ring for each year the garden keeps growing.
Play to continue the game
Finite games crown winners; infinite games grow gardeners. Prizes start the weekend — learning continues it.
Everyone is a teacher
Teach your students how to teach, then learn from what they build. Austin’s ZK knowledge came back to him through Calvin’s tutorials — the 90% boomerang.
Mistakes are the curriculum
You don’t really learn until you try. A hackathon is the rare place mistakes aren’t punished — so make lots of them.
Keep learning open
Open tools let every learner find their level and their style. One learner’s tutorial becomes the next builder’s foundation.
Diversity grows creativity
Different perspectives de-personalize blockers and compound creativity. Build with someone unlike yourself.
Read the air
Perceiving what isn’t written is a talent. Some teammates won’t call themselves experts — invite them anyway.
Name your teachers
Recognition is water. Tell someone who taught you — it keeps the garden growing.
V.About Aya
The gardener who named the garden.
Aya Miyaguchi 宮口あや was born and raised in Japan. She studied English literature and spent about ten years as a high school teacher — “I used to be a high school teacher,” she reminds the room in this very talk — before joining the crypto exchange Kraken in 2013, where she became Managing Director of Kraken Japan.
In 2018 she joined the Ethereum Foundation as Executive Director — the role she held on stage in Tokyo — and in February 2025 she became President of the Ethereum Foundation. The “Infinite Garden” is her enduring framing for Ethereum: a living ecosystem tended by infinite gardeners, played as an infinite game. Her February 2025 essay, “A New Chapter for the Infinite Garden,” carried the metaphor into her presidency.
For Tokyo, the talk was a homecoming: a Japanese teacher-turned-gardener, opening ETHGlobal’s first event in East Asia, asking a thousand hackers to teach each other.
Verified facts
- Born and raised in Japan; studied English literature; high school teacher for ~10 years.
- 2013 — joins Kraken; later Managing Director, Kraken Japan.
- 2018 — joins the Ethereum Foundation as Executive Director (her title at the time of this talk, and in Kartik’s introduction).
- February 2025 — becomes President of the Ethereum Foundation; publishes “A New Chapter for the Infinite Garden.”
- April 14, 2023 — gives this talk at the ETHGlobal Tokyo Opening Ceremony, ETHGlobal’s first event in East Asia, days after the Shapella upgrade completed Ethereum’s transition to proof of stake.
VI.The Transcript
Kartik’s introduction, the full talk, and his thanks — lightly cleaned from the live stream. Timestamps click through to the audio.
Full segment — “Infinite Teachers in the Infinite Garden” (1:00:20 – 1:21:14)
60:20Kartik Talwar · ETHGlobal:But before we get into the prizes, we want to really take this opportunity, what we have 1,000-plus of you here in this room, to get to know about what this ecosystem means to us and what it means to everybody else that's been in this space for some time. I want to focus a lot more on the culture of Ethereum and how we think about the future moving forward and how we think about Web3 ecosystem and how we would like it to, the direction we'd like it to be in. And that's all under the theme of the Infinite Garden. And to talk about the culture of Ethereum, I want to bring on our very special guest, Aya Miyaguchi, who is the executive director of the Ethereum Foundation, to share more about the culture and what this ecosystem means to all of us. So please give a big round of applause to Aya.
61:03Aya Miyaguchi:Hello, everyone. Wow, it's already late. I know you're tired, and I'm going to give a Japanese lesson next 20 minutes. Just kidding. Konnichiwa — konbanwa, mina-san. I'm thrilled to be here at the first Ethereum hackathon in Tokyo at this scale. It is very big for Japanese. Today, I'd like to talk about the power of open learning in the Infinite Garden. I want to share with you how Ethereum is revolutionizing the way we learn and grow and how you can be part of the revolution
61:53Aya Miyaguchi:by becoming an infinite teacher. How many of you have heard of this Infinite Garden? So this is a vision we use at the Ethereum Foundation, and we're hoping everyone to be part of this Infinite Garden. And I'm going to explain again a little bit about this infinite. I came up with the idea inspired by the book by James Carse. The word infinite is from infinite games as in his book, Finite and Infinite Games. In a finite game, the game ends when someone wins as in normal sports games and others. While in an infinite game, we play the game to continue the game
62:43Aya Miyaguchi:with changing rules and players. The vision of the Infinite Garden has the word infinite from this inspiration as I believe it describes the beautiful culture of Ethereum. At the merge last year, for example, do you know, do you remember the merge? You still remember the merge? Well, I guess we had another big milestone yesterday that kind of finished the proof of stake work where Ethereum finally shifted from proof of work to proof of stake last year. There were more researchers and developers outside of the Ethereum Foundation that were involved in the execution of this enormous amount of work. All the devs from different client teams work together. Ethereum understands the importance of client diversity
63:35Aya Miyaguchi:and Ethereum understand that it's more important than having only one big team succeeding. That is a perfect example of an infinite game and those who participated were all infinite players, are all infinite players. So how can you play in an infinite game at this hackathon? I understand there are prizes here supported by great sponsors who just presented and I think that it's great to motivate people to build, but I would like to suggest something new today. Let me ask you questions. Please raise your hand if you identify yourself as Web3 developer. Okay, thank you. Please raise your hand if you see yourself as rather a beginner to Web3.
64:30Aya Miyaguchi:Thanks for being honest. Please raise your hand if you think you are new to Web3 but have expertise in some specific domains, other domains. Some programming languages, security, privacy, UX. Okay, you're very humble. Please raise your hand if you are here to learn. All right — I see almost all hands. Yes, so there are many who are here to learn. I'm also here to learn. ETHGlobal told me that a lot of skilled Web2 developers come here to get into Web3. A hackathon is a great place to learn. I believe there's something unique about hackathon in Ethereum that makes your learning experience more special because this is also a game that is happening in the Infinite Garden.
65:23Aya Miyaguchi:I know you will be divided into teams and there are prizes but it would enrich the quality of the game if each player improves their skill by learning. There will also be mentors and speakers who will teach you new things. But wouldn't it also be fun if hackers here teach each other? Wouldn't it be fun if teaching and learning happen regardless of which team you are in? That is an example of an infinite game too. So can you be an infinite teacher in this garden? I bet this has been already happening at the Ethereum hackathons and that is because I believe Ethereum has the culture of open learning. Ethereum as a platform is an open source project
66:13Aya Miyaguchi:so it is naturally more open. Being open source makes the project more inclusive and transparent. From the learning standpoint, anyone can look at the code and learn many different things. But what I want to talk about today is about how the culture of learning has evolved in Ethereum. Also how the culture of openness is making learning more effective. I like to call this open learning and I strongly believe this is an important part of the Infinite Garden. For example, there are multiple dev tools that have been built by community members and are widely used and some of them are built for learners. Scaffold-ETH. How many of you know Scaffold-ETH? Oh wow, a lot of them. Awesome, yes.
67:04Aya Miyaguchi:So Scaffold-ETH gives you instructions on how to build on Ethereum step-by-step. Our dear friend, Austin Griffith. Are you here? Is there, yes. This is originally for himself, the onboard devs that are new to Web3 and he started offering speed learn. Which is, he provides a class where he goes through each step-by-step together with a new learner. Now there are many devs who learned with this tutorial. What is interesting is those who learned through it became more interested in building, learning tools for others to learn. So Austin and his people started BuidlGuidl, a community of builders who are building learning tutorials. There are a lot of stories on how Ethereum learns, but I would like to use this community as an example. So it is easier for you to see the open learning culture.
67:59Aya Miyaguchi:The first story from this community is about an open learner and infinite teacher, Shiv*. I also heard he is here. I hope he's here somewhere. He learned, he learned with Scaffold-ETH, like one of those people who learned through it and now he is building Scaffold-ETH 2. How amazing is this? Yay! It's like I think people are really tired. Are you here? Oh yes, he's here. Okay, he's here. So you can hear the story from him. I'd love to actually also hear the story from you too. Awesome. And another great story from this BuidlGuidl community is where a builder from that community learned from another open learning community.
68:49Aya Miyaguchi:Calvin from BuidlGuidl went to the 0xPARC community, a community facilitated by the 0xPARC Foundation now that is not only supporting different applied ZK project, but also helping people to learn about ZK. He then came back to BuidlGuidl and built three part series to teach the next builders how to use a ZK circuit with a smart contract. And what is crazy is Austin, the original teacher said almost 90% of what he knows about ZK apps are from him using these tutorials made by Calvin. I used to be a high school teacher and I have seen maximized learning experiences when a teacher lets a student become a mini teacher. But the power of open learning in the Ethereum community is even more than that.
69:41Aya Miyaguchi:One teacher does not teach everyone. They teach their students how to teach and they become the teachers. And good teachers also learn from their students. By keeping learning tools open, we can have all different types of learning tools and you are more likely to find something that fits your level and learning style. Going back to open learning hackathons, I believe hackathons represent the open learning culture of the Ethereum community. Why? Because you are here to learn and teach. You're not here to make a perfectly complete project within three days. The project might be your start of something important in the future. But the most important part of these three days is that you get to learn something you did not know before and to share what you already know with others. The knowledge that you gain
70:32Aya Miyaguchi:and give will ripple outwards into the future and might help others on a similar journey. So let's think about how you actually learn them here. First, by making mistakes. I believe true learning can only come from having experience. You can read a book and stuff online to gain knowledge, but you do not really learn until you try it yourself. And the best way to learn is by making mistakes. I know this is a very tough one for Japanese people especially. I also have suffered myself by being trained to be perfect. If you have developed before, you probably have experienced the importance of making mistakes. Ethereum's protocol design also had this experience many times. Initial sharding and proof-of-stake designs
71:23Aya Miyaguchi:were attempted to be implemented within smart contracts. Only when the researchers got into the architecture, they discovered the limitations in efficiency and expressivity of those system level contracts. When Danny Ryan shared this story with me, he said that throwing away six to 12 month of work is always coupled with immense learning. It informs not only the immediate next item, but research and design on project for years to come. The beauty of a hackathon is that you will not be punished by making mistakes. So make lots of mistakes and believe that is only helping your learning. Next, you learn by working in a team, obviously. Building something by yourself and building something in a team are very different experiences.
72:13Aya Miyaguchi:Here, some of you will work with people you've met for the first time. Each person, I believe, offers very different values to the team. Decisions are not easy to make when working in a team, but that is why the learning is stronger. You learn more when you need to balance multiple perspectives. You see from all the DAOs out there and how hard it is to have a good decision-making system even with additional support with technology. So there will be more than 200 teams made out of all hackers here. So if ETHGlobal combined all the learnings from teams at all the hackathon, they will have probably a great dataset for that research. Soon. Yes, yeah, okay.
73:05Aya Miyaguchi:And lastly, you will definitely learn from the experienced mentors, experts. There are many amazing experts here, depending on your interests. Like some sponsors also presented their expertise. From EF, for example, Péter, Marius, and some others from the Geth team are here. The Account Abstraction team is here. Austin, I just said, he is out there, but also his people from the BuidlGuidl community are here too. So you should definitely talk to them. They are expert in being a teacher. And as well as other mentors that are here to support you. Do not forget though, that you as a hacker can be a teacher because everyone has unique expertise, skills, and even personality that may inspire others.
73:57Aya Miyaguchi:And with the spirit of open learning within, allow me to try an experiment through this hackathon. This is like a new thing we are trying. We want to ask you to let us know about your learning experiences here. And let us know who was your best teacher. They can be mentors and speakers here, other hackers from your team, or other teams working toward the same prizes. I would like to call them infinite teachers in the Infinite Garden. The Ethereum Foundation will try to share the outcome in some way to recognize infinite teachers. The learning does not have to be technical learning. You could receive some amazing wisdom to cope with the pressure or stress of this hackathon, or how to maximize your focus. Even if you're new to the community, you can already be an infinite teacher too,
74:48Aya Miyaguchi:as well as we all come with the wealth of experience and knowledge that influences how we collaborate to solve problems. Here's how you can help. Please save this on your screen. your phone and answer the survey that asks who was your infinite teacher. Submit it by the end of Sunday. By participating in this survey, you will receive and I learned from an infinite teacher, NFT, that's designed by our designers. Then we also have the EF booth. If you have questions, you can ask questions there too. As another message from me, this is the last one. I also like to encourage you to challenge yourself,
75:41Aya Miyaguchi:try something a little bit outside of your comfort zone. There are many Japanese hackers here today who are locals here. I heard 40 percent of hackers here are locals, which is the size of hackathons already there in Japan, so 40 percent is pretty impressive. How many people here, non-Japanese feel have a connection to Japan? Do you like anything about Japan? You raised hands most quickly. What do you like about Japan?
76:31Aya Miyaguchi:Yes. Culture, language. Do you speak Nihongo? Ah, so this. Yes. Actually, I'm always impressed how many people actually are interested in learning Japanese because I don't know how useful. Nihongo, even within the Ethereum Foundation, we actually have quite a number of people who can speak Japanese, which is surprising. I always wonder, where do you use it? But anyway, some people might like food, Ninja, Nintendo, anime. There are things that Japan can be proud of, it seems like. But I know one thing that Japanese people tend not to be good at.
77:25Aya Miyaguchi:They are not good at telling you what they're good at. We Japanese are trained not to do that from the very early time of our childhood. Japanese people here may not call themselves expert forever. However, if you find Japanese hackers tonight, I encourage you to invite one or two of them to your team. If you find someone who has a background very different from yours, I encourage you to invite them, whether they're Japanese or not. The reason why I think it's a good idea. First, in the case of Japanese, you might discover some subtle talents, something that others do not have. For example, by being born and raised in the country, I was trained to develop intuition. You know the English expression, read between the lines. In Japan, reading between the lines is very, very basic.
78:20Aya Miyaguchi:We have an expression called read the air. You have to read something when there are not even lines or words. And that is considered as a common sense. So gradually, you become very good at reading people's mind and things around them. This is also the reason why they can be good team players. Next, whether they're Japanese or not, there are many studies that discover that more diversity leads to more creativity. One study tested college students' creativity at the beginning and the end of a semester. They found that students who had dated someone from another country become more creative. Have you experienced this? People who are raising their hand. You said no.
79:12Aya Miyaguchi:Okay, so you can help. If you have experienced this, you can help but reflect on different circumstances that have helped shape the other person's views. And by looking from different perspectives, you end up developing creativity. You also take things less personally when you know the blockers are due to different backgrounds. So of course, I'm not only talking about Japanese as their more diverse set of backgrounds here. I love to see mixed diverse teams during this hackathon. If you have not teamed up yet, it would be great. If you find new friends and build a team with people with different backgrounds. That is it. To summarize my two key points today, open learning opportunity, find your infinite teacher. Please scan this QR code and save it and let us know who was your infinite teacher
80:04Aya Miyaguchi:and diversity in your team for creativity. Thank you very much and hope you have a great learning time. Happy hacking, everyone.
80:15Kartik Talwar · ETHGlobal:Thank you so much. It's a really important and amazing message. And that's exactly how this entire community is set up. One thing that surprises us but also something we're very happy about is the fact that most of the mentors that we get for ETHGlobal Hackathons used to be previous hackers. They get to see the joy and how they can contribute more into the ecosystem and get hundreds and thousands more people to be part of this space and stay in this space. And that is the actual network effect that ETHGlobal has, which is it inspires more people to contribute and give back to the community, whether it's through being a partner or being a mentor or even volunteering. And this message and the way this whole community plays an infinite game is how we get to be
81:08Kartik Talwar · ETHGlobal:even bigger as an ecosystem. So thank you so much, Aya, for those amazing thoughts. And the last thing I'll do is talk about all the prizes that a lot of you have been waiting for.
Transcribed from the public ETHGlobal stream with Whisper ASR, then lightly cleaned. Obvious machine-transcription garbles were restored from context — Scaffold-ETH, BuidlGuidl, Austin Griffith, 0xPARC, the Geth team, the Account Abstraction team, Nihongo, James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games, ETHGlobal, QR code, sharding, DAOs, ecosystem. Shiv* is the name as heard in the audio (consistent with BuidlGuidl member Shiv Bhonde, maintainer of Scaffold-ETH 2 — plausible but unverified). The raw transcript is preserved in the production files.
VII.The Garden’s People
Everyone named on this page, credited with gratitude.