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tags: hackathons, tezos

title: Hackathon Strategy Proposal
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# Hackathon Strategy

## Introduction

Hackathons are a great tool serving many possible purposes, from onboarding talent to your project, engaging and collecting feeback from communities, to testing features and the development of viable use cases.

When bringing people together in hackathons to collaborate, innovate, and strategise one needs to offer them a structured and user friendly experience by providing the right tutorials, mentorship and tooling.

In the Tezos ecosystem several hackathons have been organised in the past. From initial conversations we have had with people from different entities, we understood that they encountered a diverse set of problems that prohibited them ensuring a smooth experience both for participants as for the organisers. Also, the organisers wheren't sure whether the outcome of the hackathon had served the effort put into it.

## Why do hackathons matter
### Potential outcomes

**Developer engagement**
For technological projects, hackathons help establish two-way conversations between those that develop the technology and users. This feedback loop will give the opportunity to build and improve based upon actual needs and increases developer adoption, which is crucial for the health and viability of the project.

**Talent acquisition and onboarding**
Hackathons play a critical role for new talent acquisition and onboarding new Dapp teams and users, in order to increase Dapps build on Tezos and the network effect of the blockchain.

**PoCs and viable use cases**
Hackathons are great to innovate in many different directions. Whether it are use cases for certain industries, direct solutions for problems or when certain areas need to be explored like development within legal and regulatory boundaries, hackathons offer the possibility to experiment and gain concrete insights in a preset timeframe.

**Community building, partnerships and awareness**
Hackathons are events with active participation of the community, potentially increasing their level of engagement and commitment to the project. As well, a bigger target audience and awareness can be attracted by including publicly available talks and networking opportunities. Furthermore, hackathons are a great opportunity to partner with industries and explore mutual beneficial use cases.

## Proposal

In order to improve hackathons organised around the Tezos blockchain, we propose the following route:

***Q4 2020** Exploration phase*

We will start with a short research phase in order to understand the specific challenges people have encountered when organising hackathon in the Tezos ecosystem. Also, we will widen our scope by speaking with organisers of other blockchain hackathons and (non)blockchain hackathons, in order to avoid tunnel vision.

**Deliverables**
- A list of problems and opportunities from parties involved in previous hackathons in the Tezos ecosystem.
- A list of best practises regarding organisational set up and tooling from hackathon organisers outside the Tezos ecosystem.
- A collection of prioritised needs and objectives which future hackathons can be organised around.

From here different routes can be taken, based upon the outcomes of our research phase. During the Covid-19 pandemic, we have seen that the need for online tooling is bigger than ever. A static website with hackathon resources is a good first step, but we see a huge opportunity in including the community more and making use of the Tezos' infrastructure, creating a Web3 environment instead of Web2 web page.

Therefore, we propose the following for 2021:

**Q1 2021** *Set up webpage and small hackathon*

**Deliverables**

- Setting up stand-alone web2 page for Tezos Hackathons, where people can find the resources, tips and guidance for organising Tezos hackathons. This will next to the website itself, also entails the improvement and structuring of:

- (Existing) Tutorials
- Tooling
- Mentorship

- Setting up a small scale hackathon around a prioritised objective for testing purposes and feedback from community. The hackathon will be preferably a hybrid of (non)digital and digital, in order to be able to get insights on both spheres. However if the pandemic does not allow this, it will be digital only.

**Q2 2021** *Web 3 hackathon environment outline*

**Deliverables**

- Create an outline and roadmap for a dedicated Tezos Web3 hackathon environment, making use of the opportunities the Tezos blockchain delivers, possibly including:
- P2P learning platform (possible partner in Berlin)
- DAO to pick hackathon winners and distribute prices
- Badges for winners (FA2, Luis?)
- Digital identities (Spruce)