On December 19, PANews reported that Chaincode Labs in New York awarded 17-year-old Ishaana Misra the inaugural Bitcoin scholarship, making her the youngest core code contributor in the 15-year history of Bitcoin technology. The scholarship was selected from a pool of 232 global applicants and covers her tuition for one year, renewable annually to potentially support her entire undergraduate education.
Misra started programming at the age of 12 and entered the Bitcoin space after reading the Bitcoin whitepaper before high school. She self-taught C++ and transitioned from running nodes to contributing to the Bitcoin Core codebase. Misra stated that the Bitcoin community values results over age, making it particularly welcoming for young developers.
Adam Jonas, CEO of Chaincode Labs, stated that this scholarship aims to encourage young people to engage in Bitcoin open-source development and provide them with experience and educational support.
