You are right that this is an ambitious project and needs lots of talents. Our solution is not an army of software engineers, but rather a combination of excellent core developers, open source, re-use of existing solutions where applicable, and a network of community contributors.
We have about 10 developers already, who have extensive coding experience in blockchain and networking software stack. Our team are distributed between China and US. In addition, we have researchers in universities and research labs such as Dr. Diffie’s Cryptic Labs that are working on the fundamental cryptography and algorithms. These are the key talents form our core developer group.
We will not reinvent the wheels, and will use open source components and existing algorithms in conjunction with our own contribution. We believe in building on the shoulder of giants. In addition, our previous code base in DNA can be used to speed up development in the initial prototype and Proof of Concept phase. Although long term, many of the core components will be rewritten from ground up. But it gave us a sandbox to do key new component development.
We will also strive to build a vibrant open source community, where community developers can contribute to the NKN open source project where they are most interested. This includes not only implementation itself, but also the detailed design. And they can be rewards either in tokens or kudos.