A Blockchain Hackathon for Social Impact! — Now with Prizes!!!!

ConsenSys Social Impact
ConsenSys Media
Published in
4 min readJul 26, 2017

We want you to help us change the world.

Over one billion people in the world do not have an officially recognized identity. More don’t have access to the financial system that most of us depend on to live our lives. Blockchain technology is the infrastructure that will allow us to implement new systems of identity, governance, and interaction. This technology has a tremendous potential to impact our lives and our world.

The Blockchain for Social Impact Coalition (BSIC) was created to address these issues specifically. Now the coalition is holding a month-long virtual hackathon between September 7th, 2017 and October 7th, 2017 — and we want you to join.

The BSIC has chosen four areas for participants to focus on:

  • Financial Inclusion
  • Supply Chain
  • Identity & Vulnerable Populations
  • Energy & Environment

BSIC members will provide expert knowledge and contextual support to participating teams so that they can fully understand the real world problems they are working to solve. Beyond that, participants will have access to a wide range of technical, humanitarian, and business mentors who will help them plan, develop, and expand their projects.

Coalition members have united behind a common goal of leveraging the Ethereum blockchain for the humanitarian sector, and as such are dedicated to providing the participants with their expert support and knowledge. BSIC is hopeful that the hackathon will see the ideation of Proof-of-Concepts capable of eventually being developed into deployable tools used to benefit people across the globe.

While the Hackathon will be conducted virtually, we will also be hosting localized events for teams, mentors, and BSIC members to collaborate in-person. The hackathon will be followed by a conference where teams will be invited to pitch their proof-of-concepts to partner organizations with the hope of finding the investment necessary to continue development of their solutions. Through this model, the Blockchain for Social Impact Coalition aims to shift economic and social paradigms through blockchain technology, increasing the economic, political, and social prosperity of individuals and communities across the globe.

This hackathon seeks to bring together designers, developers, entrepreneurs, and creative technologists to build out ideas that address the challenges explained in more detail on our website. We believe technology should be built by people with different backgrounds and perspectives, and welcome absolutely everyone to join as a participant. We would love to share a diverse, comfortable creative environment for everyone!

Over the course of the coming weeks BSIC will announce additional details regarding the following topics:

  • Participating teams
  • Sponsors
  • In-person events
  • Conference date & location

The Blockchain for Social Impact Hackathon

BSIC is one of the largest groups of organizations working to develop blockchain-based solutions to solve for global humanitarian and impact issues. The BSIC Hackathon is more than just a hackathon, it’s being part of a community of like minded people focusing on creating blockchain solutions to solve the world’s most pressing problems and finding the support network and contacts to do so. As part of the hackathon, we’ll also be providing support from industry-leading developers and experts to support you in your projects.

Prizes

  • Capital: We are offering a minimum prize of $5,000 to the winner of each challenge. This represents a total cash prize pool of at least $20,000 for the hackathon overall.
  • Mentorship and training: We will also be providing Business Development Training for all four winning teams, worth over $10k in advisory services.
  • Visibility: Winners/runners-up will gain exposure through BSIC channels, coalition members’ networks, and more.
  • Pitch opportunity: Winners & Runner-ups will have the opportunity to showcase their solutions (in front of impact investors, NGO’s, philanthropists, charities, etc) at the inaugural BSIC conference in November in D.C.

Thank you for signing up for our Blockchain for Social Impact Hackathon, a.k.a. the first BSIC Decentralized Impact Accelerator. We are super stoked for your upcoming participation, and can’t wait to see what you will build.

Sign up to participate in the hackathon now and stay tuned for more information by following BSIC on Facebook and Twitter.

Like this piece? Sign up here for ConsenSys’ weekly newsletter.

Disclaimer: The views expressed by the author above do not necessarily represent the views of Consensys AG. ConsenSys is a decentralized community with ConsenSys Media being a platform for members to freely express their diverse ideas and perspectives. To learn more about ConsenSys and Ethereum, please visit our website.

--

--

ConsenSys Social Impact
ConsenSys Media

An interdisciplinary team operating at the intersection of blockchain technology and social impact. One of @ConsenSys. Building community at @ethereum4impact.