EDU Chain Semester 1 Hackathon Comes to an End
Education on-chain has gained traction over the past six weeks, thanks to all the developers who participated in the first-ever hackathon event for EDU Chain.
4,600 developers signed up, and 725 of those followed through to submit a BUIDL on the DoraHacks event page.
But don’t let the title fool you; while the event might be ending, the developers and their relationships with EDU Chain are just getting started.
So, what’s next?
Judging
While the devs can now take a well-deserved nap after the submission deadline has passed, the EDU Chain hackathon squad has their work cut out for them.
Over the next two weeks, they need to narrow down 725 dApps to just 40 winners.
Judges will select the dApps they believe will bring the most value to EDU Chain across six tracks: Infra, DeFi, Learn, Earn, EduFi, and Miscellaneous.
Semester 1 Finale
The Semester 1 Finale is our take on a demo day. Instead of handpicking a small number of teams to pitch, we want to adopt a more inclusive approach by inviting everyone who submitted a dApp to the event.
Taking place on September 4th at 1 PM UTC, this event is a chance to connect with other builders on EDU Chain, talk about your experiences, and discuss how you will advance your project from BUIDL to a full-fledged EDU Chain dApp.
If you submitted a BUIDL, check your email for event details. We’ll see you soon!
Winner’s Announcement
Then on September 12th, it’s time to meet the crème de la crème of developer talent.
We’ll reveal who climbed to the top of the ranks and secured the prize money.
Winners will go down on record as EDU Chain’s OG developer talent — the ones who supported us before there was TVL and who helped establish the on-chain education network.
Open Campus Incubator (OC-I)
Hackathon winners will join a selection of handpicked teams in the Open Campus Incubator (OC-I), a 12-week, remote incubator program designed for high-impact developers building on EDU Chain.
OCI will support participants as they look to gain traction and secure investment for their projects.
Onboarding starts September 16th.
EDU Chain Micro-Grant Program
It’s not all about the winners, though. We recognize that it’s not just the top 40 who have put blood, sweat, and tears into EDU Chain over the last six weeks, and we want all 4,500 developers to keep building!
From our experience, dApps that just missed out on prizes but are fine-tuned with more hard work after the event are typically the dApps that break out and become the superstars of the chain — and that’s why we want to help you get there with the micro-grants.
The EDU Chain Micro-Grant Program is designed to support innovative projects and initiatives building or looking to build on EDU Chain.
Ideal for new developers just hearing about EDU Chain who want to start early for the Semester 2 hackathon or someone who participated in the Semester 1 hackathon and is interested in taking it to the next level before the Semester 2 hackathon arrives.
More details on the micro-grant program will be released later this week.
Points Program
If you’ve made it this far into the article, well done, because you’re about to get some alpha.
We’re preparing to launch a new OC Points program that will help developers drive user acquisition on their dApps.
This will go live during the testnet, so keep your eyes peeled for more information.
Semester 2
And finally, we’re planning to go even bigger and better for the Semester 2 Hackathon later this year.
Thanks to our Semester 1 developers, we now have some of the infrastructure and DeFi dApps necessary to launch EDU Chain. So, it’s time to shift gears to Learn and Play.
You can build across the same Semester 1 tracks — Infra, DeFi, Learn, Earn, EduFi, and Misc — and also Play. For the new Play track, we’re looking for dApps related to gamified learning, GameFi, or SocialFi. The largest prizes will be awarded for Learn and Play dApps.
With a $300k prize pool and building momentum, we’re setting high expectations for the outcomes of EDU Chain’s next hackathon.
EDU Chain, developed by Open Campus, is the first blockchain for education, designed for consumer-facing education apps and on-chain education finance. A Layer 3 platform built on Arbitrum Orbit, that’s home to DApps spanning learning, DeFi, education finance, AI, gaming, recruitment, and more.
