Milestone 4 Report: Polkadot x EasyA Hackathons at Harvard and in London (#60DaysOfPolkadot)

Hey Polkadot friends!

We’re delighted to present our proposed referendum for successfully completing the final milestone (Milestone 4) of our #60DaysOfPolkadot Developer Crash Course and Hackathons series. Over the past 12 months, we have worked tirelessly to bring this vision, which started off as just ideas coming from different teams in the Polkadot ecosystem, to life. Hackathon winners from our campaign have won grants to continue building in the Polkadot ecosystem and over 43,000 developers have now learnt about Polkadot via the EasyA app. Overall, we’ve been absolutely blown away by the momentum which we’ve generated with #60DaysOfPolkadot, and we couldn’t be more excited to share with the community the full wrap-up report. 

We’re committed to growing the Polkadot ecosystem, and see a huge opportunity to build on the massive success we’ve seen in 2023. We’re already planning how we can make 2024 the stand-out year for developers to launch their projects in the Polkadot ecosystem, especially as developer-focused features such as agile coretime come to life. 

This referendum will cover the prize money for winners of the Harvard and London in-person hackathons, as well as the in-app challenges. We have included a full report with all the milestones (including this one) here.

Background context

This proposed referendum is the fourth milestone in a detailed, multi-phase initiative that started under Gov1. Details for this milestone were discussed in our original discussion post here, with the precise milestone and allocation breakdown here. Our first milestone was approved here, our second milestone was approved here, and our third milestone was approved here.

In our previous referendum, two frequently asked questions were:

1. Where are the hackathon teams now; and
2. Why not go to the events bounty

We have addressed all the questions the community have asked in our full report. However, if you would prefer a more concise version, we summarised them in our previous successful referendum. In summary, our hackathon teams are now thriving and actively contributing to the Polkadot ecosystem! The below are just three of the awesome teams that came out of our awesome Harvard and London Polkadot hackathons:

a. Flybloc: http://www.flybloc.com/ 

Created by Harvard PhD Yefei Jin, Flybloc came out of our Polkadot hackathon at Harvard. Since the hackathon, they have successfully recruited even more stellar team members, and now have one of the strongest teams we’ve ever seen: their successful previous exits are valued at over $1 billion. Their CTO is a former VP at Algorand, and their team has deep experience building successful startups. They are building the future of Web3 brand engagement, leveraging AI. They have received grant funding from Massachusetts-based non-profit Qubic labs, and will be raising venture capital funding.

b. DotIAM: https://www.dotiam.com/

Led by Tom Rowbotham, a full-time software engineer at one of the UK’s fastest growing startups, Gousto, DotIAm first launched their idea for decentralised KYC built on Polkadot at our Polkadot hackathon in London. They have now been successfully executing on their roadmap, and have received grant funding from Astar via the Unstoppable Grants.

c. Aegis Protocol: https://www.aegisprotocol.io/ 

Harvard Computer Scientists Ethan Tan and Douglas Yang first launched Aegis Protocol at our Polkadot hackathon at Harvard, winning first place. They have continued to build on it since, making huge progress over this summer, connecting with ecosystem teams and projects to iterate on their vision to build decentralized dispute arbitration to safeguard crypto users. They have now added two members to their team (from MIT and Duke) and are planning to raise venture capital funding for their startup, alongside applying to join accelerators. Their deck is publicly available here: https://docsend.com/view/vihm997vknj43gtv

Progress Summary

We have now completed all our milestones, successfully executing the roadmap the Council approved under Gov1 at the start of 2023. We not only achieved all of our target metrics, but exceeded them by far, teaching over 43,000 new developers about Polkadot, attracting over 550 developers to our two IRL hackathons in London and Boston, and much more!

We began by bringing together all the Polkadot ecosystem teams who were excited about getting involved and increasing the number of developers building on Polkadot as well as their own protocols. These included Parity, Moonbeam, Acala, Astar, Composable, Gear, OAK, KILT and OriginTrail. We then discussed with each of them in detail over numerous in-person and online meetings what they saw as being the biggest challenges for developers, and how we could solve them. We also held numerous focus groups throughout the #60DaysOfPolkadot to gather their feedback and test our hypotheses on real developers.

Once we had gathered these data points, we then set out integrating them all into a comprehensive Polkadot developer journey, teaching new developers first about how Polkadot works, and then about the different parachains as well as projects in the ecosystem. We implemented these into the EasyA app with a brand new, custom design especially for Polkadot, and launched them to our community and beyond. 

These developer challenges were a massive hit. Today, over 43,000 builders have started learning about Polkadot in the EasyA app, and that number is still rising. 

With the EasyA in-app challenges in full swing, we created massive awareness on social media via the #60DaysOfPolkadot hashtag. Developers shared their journeys and what they were finding most exciting about Polkadot, and before long we had grown a loyal following around this hashtag. This got them extremely excited about our Harvard and London in-person hackathons. 

Here’s a summary of our hugely successful in-app challenges:

1. Developers starting crash course: 43,000+
2. Developers completing crash course: 37,000+
3. Crash course completion rate: 86%

#60DaysOfPolkadot taking Twitter by storm

Our two spectacular in-person hackathons at Harvard University (USA) and London (UK) were more successful than even our wildest dreams. 

Hundreds of developers lined up around the block for our Polkadot London Hackathon

Here’s a summary of our two hackathons:

Polkadot x EasyA Hackathon at Harvard (17-18 June, 2023):

1. Hackers: 300
2. Final dApps/projects created: 35
3. Colleges/companies represented: 45
4. Social media impressions: 1.5M+

If you want to see a video of what it looked like, check out the highlight reel here!

Polkadot x EasyA Hackathon in London (24-25 June, 2023):

1. Hackers: 250
2. Final dApps/projects created: 36
3. Colleges/companies represented: 38
4. Social media impressions: 1M+

The lines for the hackathons literally stretched down the road and around the corner outside the venue. Here’s the video of what it looked like IRL!

Our intense preparation with the #60DaysOfPolkadot in-app developer campaign attracted the very best developers to attend our two IRL hackathons. As a result, at the hackathons we had founders backed by a16z and YC, with multiple previous exits under their belts, as well as professional software engineers all coming together to create some of the best projects we’ve ever seen. Students came from top institutions like Harvard, MIT, Yale and Brown, and even travelled across the country to be there, from UChicago, Georgia Tech and Stanford. These students are the key to unlocking the next generation of Web3 builders, and they were inspired by the opportunities unlocked by Polkadot. As you will see below, many of these brilliant teams are continuing to build on Polkadot after the hackathon.

We would like to express our deepest thanks to the teams from the Polkadot ecosystem who came to share their knowledge too, such as Kevin Neilson (Developer Relations at Moonbeam), Dave Bean (COO of Gear), and Kahori Razzell (UX at Astar). 

There’s so much more to share about how amazing these hackathons and in-app challenges were, but this is just the executive summary so we’ll keep it short! In summary, the in-app challenges drove a massive groundswell of attention towards Polkadot, and inspired developers to turn out IRL and join the Polkadot community at our two hackathons at Harvard and in London.

KPI Report

 

There’s so much more to share about how amazing these hackathons and in-app challenges were, but this is just the executive summary so we’ll keep it short! In summary, the in-app challenges drove a massive groundswell of attention towards Polkadot, and inspired developers to turn out IRL and join the Polkadot community at our two hackathons at Harvard and in.  

Full Progress Report

 

We hope the executive summary got you excited about #60DaysOfPolkadot and that you want to learn more about it! If you want to see the projects that were created at the hackathons, the bios of the hackathon teams, and how the in-app challenges helped ensure this was such a massive success, then read the full report!

 

This full report has further details on the above, as well as the pictures, precise budget allocation, more KPIs, and everything else!

 

Milestone 4 Requested Allocation Breakdown Summary

 

This milestone covers the costs for prize money awarded to the winners of the two in-person hackathons at Harvard University and in London, as well as the prize money for the winners of the in-app developer challenges. This total, including distribution of the prizes, is $65,000. Further breakdown of the prize money and costs are included in the full report.

 

As explained above, details for this milestone were discussed and approved under Gov1 in our original discussion post here, with the precise milestone and allocation breakdown here. For context, our first milestone was approved here, our second milestone was approved here, and our third milestone was approved here. This is the fourth and final milestone of our originally approved proposal.

 

If you have any questions at all, please do feel free to comment them on the referendum directly! We’re honoured to have brought so many talented new builders to the Polkadot ecosystem, and can’t wait to build on these successes in 2024!

 

-- Phil, Dom (EasyA Co-Founders) and the EasyA Team!