Hello ICONist,
We’re planning to host an ICON hackathon, we would love to have your opinion about this format. What would you improve ?
Purpose and audience
Our objective is to eventually organize a much larger event bringing together several PRep teams at a Blockchain event, for example. This first hackathon will be a test, an exercise before we prepare for a larger event.
This hackathon will be aimed to “non-ICONist” and will promote the ICON technology. We’re planning to make it as affordable as possible for both Developers, Designers and Marketers profiles. This will be a NON-PROFIT hackathon, we will use funds for a cash prize, a jury, and other things such as food, drinks etc.
We’re expecting attendance from mostly tech students since we’re going to organize it in Hetic, a tech school in Paris with which we have recently entered into a partnership.
We’re aiming early Q1 2020 for this event.
The event content and format
The goal of this event is to promote ICON technologies. We’re going to talk about IISS and how builders of ICON network can fund their projects. The hackathon will be a group task, the group will be constituted by 3-5 people (with at least one representative of each role) :
- Technical part: Developers will have to take their first step in SCORE development, understanding ICON’s blockchain design, and to explore the whole toolkit of ICON developers.
- Business part: Creating a performing business in Blockchain industry is not easy. There are a lot of traps (Tokenize everything, Solving imaginary problem, etc). The goal will be to solve an actual problem with ICON and to pitch it correctly.
- UX/Design part: One of the most critical aspect for Blockchain adoption is User Experience, ensuring that the general public uses this technology must go through a UX revolution, designers will have to understand the UX issues of blockchain technologies in order to succeed.
The masterclass (~1h)
Blockchain and ICON introduction(15min):
We are going to start by introducing basic Blockchain concepts such as decentralization, why is it a critical matter in today and tomorrow’s world , current usecases, etc.
Afterward, we’ll zoom in to ICON with a short background story, the vision, the governance system, etc. The goal is to bring the subject of this hackathon :
“Conceive the pitch of a business working with ICON technology.”
As I pointed out earlier, this challenge will involve 3 different parts. The master class will cover each one of them.
Blockchain business masterclass (15min):
The first masterclass will cover the do’s and don’t about creating a business around Blockchain, a speaker will breakdown the 2017 ICO craze and the mistakes made at the time, quotes several successful Blockchain business model, etc.
Blockchain UX masterclass (15min):
This part will teach contestant about the huge opportunities about improving UX in Blockchain world. The speaker will highlight current problems, highlight possible solutions too, and make a comparison with the developments and adoption of the Internet in the early 2000s.
ICON Score development masterclass (15min):
We’ll teach devs about basics of SCORE development: Structure, best practices, TBEARS, ICONex transaction, examples, etc. We know that it could be hard for developers to build a functional SCORE from scratch. The goal won’t be to build something perfect, more to get started with blockchain logic, trying out TBEARS, broadcasting first TXs etc.
Explaining the evaluation and giving tips to participants
To conclude the presentation, we will be giving tips to Hackathon participants and other things such as:
- Explaining the evaluation notations and form
- Giving them docs and example (a lot)
- Giving them contact in case of questions
Work session (~3h)
After the masterclass, contestant will be able to gather up with their teams and to work on the realization of their proposition. Our team will remain available to answer any of their question, help them in case of technical problem, etc.
The evaluation
The evaluation will take place in the form of 10-15 minutes presentation with a keynote illustratring their work. The notation will be a score base on 20 points with the following:
- Quality and relevance of the pitch and the business plan (6 points)
- UX of the features, relevance and ease of use for the general public, potential UI/interface (6 points)
- Good usage of ICON blockchain, quality and logic of the SCORE (6 points)
- Oral and presentation skills (keynote, speach, did they convince the juries, etc) (2 points)
We’re working on inviting representatives from companies interested in Blockchain tech at these evaluations
Conclusion
After that, we’ll announce winners, give then the prizes, make a brief speech to conclude the event, and then invite everyone to an after work to chill a bit after all this work!
That was the first draft of this event, we would love to have your feedback on it ! What is a good idea, what won’t work, what could be improved etc. Thanks a lot !
So what do you think about that ? We really need your feedback about following points:
- Is this format relevant and a good way to present ICON to tech students ?
- Do you think that 1h masterclass and 3-4h of work are enough for contestants to produce something qualitative enough ?
- Would you add something else to this hackathon ?
