Web3 Hackathon summary

We've already written about organizing a web3 hackathon, so it's time to turn words into action!

On the 3rd of December, we hosted our first web3 Hackathon and a fifth hackathon in general. As huge blockchain enthusiasts, we were extremely excited about this one, and it turned out we weren’t the only ones.

We changed the original idea of hosting the event internally and invited people out of the company too. One participant came to us from Poznań, 300 km from Warsaw, which showed us that the interest in web3 is big, and it was a good call to open up the event.

We also didn't impose on the teams what product they should create, as we had planned originally. So instead, we gave the teams a free hand, which turned out just great.

Preparations

Before the Hackathon, we sent all the participants materials about web3: case studies, valuable resources, and essential blockchain-related terms like DAO, Smart Contracts, or Crypto Wallets. We also sent a technological introduction to Blockchain, including programming languages, frameworks, and infrastructure.

Once we were all gathered in the office, we started forming teams. We prepared paper cards with different competencies, such as programming, design, marketing, or management, and asked participants to choose those that best describe their skills.

Then we matched the received competencies to complement each other, and on this basis, we formed project groups. Each of them was a mini-startup, ready to launch a technology project.

The teams dispersed to their workplaces at 3 pm and started working on their blockchain ideas.

The Ideas

DAO-based Educational Platform

The first idea was a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) related to an educational platform. The platform's goal was to level the playing field for young people who cannot afford courses, certificates, or private schools and help them choose proven and reliable resources.

The platform's challenge is that many courses on the market have little liability. Often people publishing online courses have shady competencies, but they can advertise their product well and attract customers in this way.

The platform, founded pro bono by a group of business mentors, aims to solve this issue. It's a repository of reliable knowledge endorsed by people with proven competencies. Since the DAO manages the platform, all mentors impact it; they verify the uploaded content and watch what courses are added to the repository and by whom.

The system runs autonomously; it goes into the hands of people and is controlled by smart contracts.

Blockchain portal with ethical job offers

The second product was based on two employment issues. The first is that the younger generation has a more idealistic and less capitalist approach to work than previous generations. Today's teens are increasingly concerned about the employer's mission—they want to work for companies that contribute to some greater good.

The second issue is employers' online reviews, which are often fake. Some job review portals even issue fake negatives and then call companies, offering them paid accounts so that they can delete bad reviews. Painful, isn't it?

The answer to the above challenges is a job board, where employees and employers primarily define their values, not the proposed or expected salary.

In addition, the platform has a transparent system for evaluating employees and employers. The process is done through blockchain transactions, so you can be sure that the opinions are real.

DAO to the IT learning platform

The idea for the third platform came from the fact that there are many professional online and offline courses, e.g., for scrum masters or product owners, but they differ in scope and are not equally approved by employers.

The platform solves this problem: it's managed by the DAO, which includes the IT companies that honor specific courses and the trainers and training companies that create and run those courses. Both groups set a certain learning standard on the market and make it easier for employees to choose courses worth taking.

Thanks to this platform, employees can easily check which courses actually have a business value, i.e., they are respected by specific companies on the market.

The Process

Our goal was to recreate the actual process of releasing a technological product, so each team first had to define a problem in the market that a web3 solution could solve. Then, they did market research to see if there was already a similar solution, and when it turned out that there wasn't, they started creating a backlog of use cases and user stories.

We divided the project into three sprints. There was a break between each sprint to eat, rest and plan the next steps.

Notably, each team also had to define a project success criterion; will it be a finished product, a product mock-up, or a presentation? Our goal wasn't to run a race; we primarily aimed to educate and learn about the technological possibilities offered by web3 and to have some fun exploring this area.

Summary

The Hackathon lasted 18 hours; the last team finished at 3 am. Within this time, we managed to create three exciting blockchain projects.

• The first one ended with a presentation,
• The second group implemented front-end and connected it to a cryptocurrency wallet,
• The third team managed to implement a smart contract.

Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Soon we will present the fruits of our hackathon work, so be ready and expect more to come!