The mentorship program is a structured opportunity to get additional help and resources for your project, guide and groom new talent into active contributors and future maintainers and to grow and hone your own teaching and leadership capabilities.
We have often heard mentors describe their participation as a two-way learning experience where they gain new perspectives, build, and grow together with mentees. It's a shared journey that is collaborative and developmental for everyone involved.
Ready to shape the next generation of LFDT contributors? Review the official guidelines and submit your project proposal directly on the mentorship GitHub repository using the designated issue template. We look forward to seeing your innovative ideas!
Get inspired by the key takeaways and insights generously shared by last year's mentors and mentees.
The key themes we’ve heard include personal and professional growth that extends beyond just code, the human-centered value of open source community and collaboration, and gaining hands-on, meaningful experience contributing to real-world, high-impact projects. The best advice from our past mentees to you is to be proactive, maintain curiosity, and be unafraid to ask questions and make mistakes in public forums used by the open source community.
Dive into the full testimonials from last year's participants below to learn more about their rewarding experiences.
Applications for our 2026 program open on LFX Mentorship in early April—don't miss your chance to join. Find all the essential program details here, including key dates and full application details.
We asked both mentors and mentees from the 2025 Mentorship Program to share their experiences. Read on to learn more about what they accomplished with their projects and how they’ve advanced the community and their careers.
Project: LFDT - Learning Tokens – Connections with online learning platforms
“In essence, ‘Learning Tokens Mentorship 2025’ points to ongoing initiatives using emerging tech (blockchain, AI) to formalize learning recognition, within open-source and research communities, with specific programs from the Linux Foundation and others running in 2025. This has been a three year project. In 2023, we created the Tokens aligned with Token Taxonomy Framework of the Global Blockchain Business Council. During 2024, we developed the connectors with community building platforms like Zoom and YouTube. Last year, we created an SDK to connect with edX, Canvas, Moodle, and Google Classroom. Fifteen mentees got their first opportunity to enter our Open Source community.”
Project: LFDT - Evaluate use of Unikernals for scaling controller & mediator instances in CREDEBL deployments
“As a mentor, I would encourage future mentees to see this program as a platform to learn collaboratively—to share ideas openly, ask questions, and understand different perspectives. Being proactive, validating feasibility early, and working closely with cross-community contributors leads to stronger outcomes. Open source is as much about communication and collaboration as it is about code, and this program offers a great space to grow in both.”
Project: LFDT - BBiniBFT - Integration with Fabric
“Participating in the LF Decentralized Trust mentorship for three consecutive years has been deeply rewarding. As a mentor, I learned that sustained guidance helps ideas mature into real, production-ready systems. Watching BiniBFT evolve - from research to Fabric implementation - reinforced the value of patience, rigorous design, and open collaboration. For future mentors and mentees: treat this program as a shared journey. Be open to feedback, document everything, respect the community, and focus on building trust - not just code - within open source ecosystems.”
Project: Blockchain-Based OAuth 2.0 Authorization in 5G Core Networks with Hyperledger Fabric
“It was a great learning experience for both mentees and mentors. I gained new perspectives from my mentee and co-mentor, and also improved the way I explain complex ideas/topics, and understood the collaborative spirit of open source. Mentorship is not just about teaching, it’s about learning, building, and growing together. For future mentees, come curious, be patient, and ready to engage, it’s a truly meaningful way to be part of something bigger in the open source community.”
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Project: LFDT - Web3j Libraries Full Development Lifecycle
“Working with“open source is a great experience you learn a lot by contributing to real projects, especially with the guidance of a mentor. Linux Foundation projects are highly impactful, used by many people worldwide, and being part of that ecosystem feels meaningful. One key takeaway is learning how professional code reviews and community standards work in large-scale open source projects, which significantly improves your engineering mindset.”
Project: LFDT - BiniBFT - Integration with Fabric
“Joining the LFX Mentorship was a defining chapter for me. I stepped into a world where code meets community, supported by a fostering ecosystem of mentors and the LFX team. Beyond the technical growth, I found a home among fellow mentees.
My biggest takeaway? Open source thrives on human connection. I learned that my voice matters in the upstream world just as much as my code.
To future participants: lean into this family. It’s a catalyst for both your skills and your spirit, proving that when we build in the open, we grow together. This is where your story begins.”
Project: LFDT - Extensible Library of DLT Connectors for Hyperledger Cacti
“The simple and smaller task can grow to an enormous scale and become hard, and something that appears big can actually be easy and small. This mentorship taught me how to break down problems, ask the right questions early, and iterate openly. I gained hands-on experience collaborating in an open-source community, navigating large and complex codebases, conducting reviews, and communicating across different time zones. My biggest takeaway is that learning happens fastest when you stay curious, proactive, and unafraid to make mistakes in public.”
Project: LFDT - Fablo: Testing, documentation, and ensuring feature parity across Fabric v2 and v3
“Participating in the LFDT mentorship was one of the most impactful six months of my career. I didn’t join to learn a new language or framework. I joined to contribute meaningfully to a production-grade open source project used by real teams. My biggest takeaway was learning how mature open source development actually works, including design discussions, trade-offs, reviews, and long-term maintainability. Working closely with experienced maintainers raised my engineering standards and shifted how I think about impact. This program turns contributors into professionals.”
Project: LFDT - Learning Tokens – Connections with online learning platforms
“Participating in LFDT was a deeply grounding experience. The mentorship helped me think beyond code focusing on problem clarity, design trade-offs, and long-term impact. My biggest takeaway was learning how open-source work values communication, ownership, and community as much as technical skill. I gained confidence in navigating large codebases, proposing meaningful changes, and collaborating asynchronously with global contributors. For future participants: be proactive, ask thoughtful questions, and treat mentorship as a two-way learning process.”
Project: LFDT - Building a Snowflake Connection for AIFAQ
“This LFDT mentorship program taught me that building production-grade AI systems requires balancing innovation with governance. Working on the Snowflake-AIFAQ integration, I learned that real enterprise solutions demand more than just functional code , they need security (RBAC, row-level isolation), scalability (Snowpipe automation), and maintainability (modular architecture). My biggest takeaway: open source thrives on documentation and collaboration. Contributing to Hyperledger showed me how to write code others can extend, not just use. Technical insight: vector embeddings and RAG pipelines seem complex until you break them into clear stages: ingestion, preprocessing, retrieval, generation. Start small, iterate often, and always ask questions early.”
Project: LFDT - Fablo: Testing, documentation, and ensuring feature parity across Fabric v2 and v3
“Participating in this program was a great learning experience. I gained hands-on experience working on real open source projects, improved my technical skills, and learned how to collaborate effectively within a distributed community. The mentorship helped me understand best practices in communication, code reviews, and project planning. My biggest takeaway is that open source is not just about code, but also about teamwork, consistency, and learning from feedback.”
Project: LFDT - Blockchain-Based OAuth 2.0 Authorization in 5G Core Networks with Hyperledger Fabric
“I learned that mentorship isn’t just about the final code or project completion, but about the journey of learning and curiosity. Participating in this program was a highly rewarding experience, offering hands-on exposure to open source and real world implementations. The mentorship improved not only my technical skills but also my communication and documentation skills and encouraged me to ask questions without hesitation, no matter how small, while receiving friendly and helpful responses.This mentorship taught me to handle challenges while being okay with them to come up during the process.”
Project: LFDT - Multi-Agent RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) for AIFAQ
“Open source gives you something corporates never will: transparent vision. This isn't "complete tasks, get certificate, move on." A side project I built at 2 AM became an official LFDT lab because Bobbi and Gianluca saw potential, not just code. I went from debugging PRs to meeting Linus Torvalds in Korea, Red Hat's CTO in Japan, incredible minds from CNCF, Grafana, OpenSearch. Here's the truth: you're not just learning frameworks, you're learning how real builders think, work, and trust each other. Show up with ideas. Push boundaries. Open source rewards the people who dare to build something that matters. I went from AIFAQ mentee to GitMesh lab leader for LFDT.”