Publish July spotlight article

blog/2021-07-12-developer-portal-launch.md

@@ -30,12 +30,14 @@ All this, just a few months before the Alonzo hard fork!
 
 **World’s First NFTAs**
 
-To celebrate the launch, we minted the world’s first NFTAs: 10 Non-Fungible Tokens of Appreciation. 
+To celebrate the launch, we minted the world’s first [NFTAs: 10 Non-Fungible Tokens of Appreciation](https://cardanofoundation.org/nfta/). 
 
 Each of the NFTAs consists of a thumbs-up photo of a Cardano community member approving the Portal. These double as campaign visuals the Foundation uses to promote the portal across the web – while ownership of these campaign assets is transferred to the community members. Scanning the QR code on these NFTAs leads one to the Cardano blockchain explorer, where the transferred ownership can be verified by anyone anywhere. 
 
 What sets these apart even further is that each NFTA is accompanied by a token representing a non-transferable, one time opportunity for a receiver of that NFTA to highlight a topic or project of their choosing on the Cardano Developer portal. We call these Bronze tokens of appreciation.
 
+Click [here](https://cardanofoundation.org/nfta/) to view full list of NFTAs.
+
 Dear Community, good things come to those who wait. We know it took a while, but we sincerely hope it will be worth the wait. We’re looking forward to your contributions, constructive criticisms and, hopefully, thumbs-ups as we keep building towards the social and financial infrastructure of the future with you.
 
 ![title image](/img/devblog/developer-portal-launch.jpeg)

blog/2021-07-26-july.md

@@ -0,0 +1,93 @@
+---
+slug: 2021-07-26-july
+title: "July Spotlight Interview"
+author: Cardano Foundation
+author_title: Developer Spotlight
+author_url: https://github.com/cardano-foundation
+author_image_url: https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/37078161?s=200&v=4
+tags: [nft, interview]
+description: "July Spotlight Interview"
+image: https://developers.cardano.org/img/og-developer-portal.png
+---
+
+![title image](/img/devblog/nftmaker-background-img.png)
+
+For the July edition of the Spotlight article, we interviewed one of the creators of NFT-MAKER, Patrick Tobler. 
+<br />
+
+**_Hey Patrick! Happy to connect today and learn more about the NFT-MAKER project! Can you tell us how the project started and what is the problem that you were addressing?_**
+
+Hey! Thank you for having me - it’s an honor.  
+Back then, when Native Tokens first arrived, and Spacebudz introduced the concept of NFTs to Cardano, I quickly realized that there is no simple way for non-technical people to create their own NFTs on Cardano. So I decided to partner up with Fahim, our designer, and together we built the first version of [nft-maker.io](https://www.nft-maker.io/). Our goal was to focus on the User Experience and make the NFT creation flow as easy and accessible as possible.
+
+<br />
+
+<!-- truncate -->
+
+
+**_What are the most important things about NFT-MAKER?_**
+
+The main feature of the current version of the NFT-MAKER is uploading your images and creating NFTs in 3 simple steps. Once these steps are completed, the NFT is automatically being sent to your wallet. This whole process of going from an image to an NFT usually takes less than 2 minutes.
+<br />
+
+**_Going forward, how will NFT-MAKER make an impact in the crypto space or on the world?_**
+
+Now that I’ve graduated from university, I will be working full-time on bringing the next version of the NFT-MAKER to life. For this purpose, we’ve started a company here in Germany called yellow house GmbH. 
+
+Our mission for the future of the NFT-MAKER is very clear: We want to make NFTs accessible to everyone. 
+
+For this purpose, we’re building multiple applications that will allow everyone to easily create, sell, trade & buy NFTs on Cardano. The main focus for this will be Version 2 of the NFT-MAKER, which will be a decentralized NFT marketplace. 
+
+We will be pushing the boundaries of what NFTs can be by making access to them more accessible, better, and cheaper.
+<br />
+
+**_What are your accomplishments so far, and what are you most proud of?_**
+
+One statistic that I recently learned about makes me particularly proud is the following:
+
+The NFT-MAKER is directly responsible for over ⅓ of all Token policies on Cardano.* Of course, this does not mean that we’ve minted the most NFTs or Tokens on Cardano but what it does mean is that the NFT-MAKER is currently the Cardano application with the most individual users (excluding wallets). 
+
+This makes me so proud because it shows that our approach of putting the user first and lowering the entry barriers is working. So many users' first “real” interaction with a dApp on Cardano was through the NFT-MAKER. 
+<br />
+
+**_What are your accomplishments so far, and what are you most proud of?_**
+
+To this date, there is no easier way to create NFTs on Cardano. We’re committed to improving this experience even further and building the most accessible decentralized NFT marketplace, not only on Cardano but in the whole crypto space.
+<br />
+
+**_What is the future of NFT-MAKER? For example, what new things to come, and what will it mean for the overall project?_**
+
+Besides the previously mentioned decentralized NFT marketplace, we’re working hard on a tool we call NFT-MAKER PRO. This tool will allow professional users to utilize our backend services for their projects easily. Furthermore, by simply accessing our services, everyone will be able to build their large-scale NFT projects, marketplaces, or applications. The idea here is to become the backbone for many dApps and make the integration of NFTs as easy as possible.
+
+![title image](/img/devblog/nft-maker-img.png)
+
+<br />
+
+**_Tell us about your team. Who are the people behind NFT-MAKER?_**
+
+Our team consists of three people: Fahim, Peter and myself (Patrick).
+We all met during high school and have quickly become close friends. Ever since it has been our goal to start a company and work on awesome projects together, now, this is finally becoming a reality!
+
+[Fahim](https://twitter.com/fahhh1m) is our designer, so everything you see on our website or social media was somehow touched by him. He specializes in UI/UX design and has a passion for making music in his free time.
+
+Peter describes himself as the person between User Experience and Technology. He has a strong programming and hardware background but is also excellent at optimizing the product and making it easily accessible.
+
+And lastly, I, [Patrick](https://twitter.com/Padierfind), am responsible for everything that has to do with the actual technology behind the NFT-MAKER. As a recent Computer Science graduate and Cardano Stake Pool Operator, I have a strong background in the technical aspects of Cardano. I’ve been in the Cardano space since 2017 and have even written my bachelor thesis about building a dApp on Cardano.
+<br />
+
+**_Which partnerships have you engaged so far, and which ones are the most impactful?_**
+
+We’ve been in talks with many amazing projects, companies, and potential partners. Most of which we can not yet speak about because of various Non-Disclosure Agreements. But great things are coming to NFT-MAKER and Cardano!
+
+Two of the most meaningful publicly announced partnerships have been with [The Hoskinsons](https://thehoskinsons.com/)** & [unsigned_algorithms](https://www.unsigs.com/) NFT projects. Both of these projects have brought a lot of innovation and new ideas to the Cardano ecosystem and have set new standards for the world of NFTs. We’re incredibly proud that they’ve both used our NFT-MAKER PRO services to mint & sell their NFTs. By working with them, we were able to build, improve and test our PRO services in a controlled environment, and it is fair to say that NFT-MAKER PRO would not exist without them.
+<br />
+
+**_Thank you for your time! Do you have anything else to add?_**
+
+Thank you for having me! Just thinking about what Cardano has allowed me and many others to accomplish in such a short time makes me unbelievably grateful. This space & community is changing the world every single day. For this, I just want to thank every single person who participates in the Cardano ecosystem in some way.
+<br />
+
+*It is NFT-MAKER’s claim that as of the time writing this article that NFT-MAKER is directly responsible for over ⅓ of all Token policies on Cardano.
+
+**The Hoskinson’s is a collection of unique, limited-edition NFT trading cards commemorating the Cardano platform.
+