Deep Dive into Solana Hackathon
Let's take a closer to Solana Hackathons. How to win, what to do, benefits of hackathon...
In this article, what is a Hackathon? In previous Hackathons on Solana, I will explain the benefits of participating in the Hackathon and how to succeed.
So let's get started.✍️
What is a Hackathon?
You've probably heard the term Hackathon before, maybe even attended a Hackathon. Hackathon is a situation where people with a specific common idea put their innovative ideas into codes by breathing the same air in the same environment in teamwork within a certain period. We can also call this competition the combination of the idea with brainstorming and writing it in a short time.
At the end of the time, each team presents to the jury individually and explains their project.
Solana Hackathon
The Solana Hackathon is a unique event that provides developers with the opportunity to dive deep into the Solana blockchain ecosystem and explore its full potential. Solana Hackathon is open to developers of all skill levels and is designed to encourage creativity, experimentation, and innovation.
Let's talk about previous Hackathons Solana has done
Solana has always valued the ecosystem. So far, $600M has been externally financed. In each Hackathon, the number of participants and the number of submitting their projects continues to increase.📈
Let's take a look at some of the projects that won at the Solana Ignition Hackathon.
StepN: StepN is a Web3 lifestyle app that allows users to earn cryptocurrencies while doing physical activities like walking or jogging. Ranked 4th in Gaming Track. We encountered the concept of Move-to-earn here for the first time. Binance investors are among them.
Dialect: Dialect is a smart messaging protocol for dApp notifications and wallet-to-wallet messaging on the Solana Blockchain. Ranked 5th in the Web3 Track field.
Katana: Katana offers a suite of investment products across the risk spectrum, enabling users to passively access the best yield-generating opportunities on Solana. They won the Grand Champion award.
Now let's look at the Solana Season Hackathon
Zeta: Zeta is an under-collateralized DeFi options platform. They won the Grand Prize.
Solarium: Solarium is a fully decentralized, end-to-end encrypted, censorship-resistant instant messenger based on the Solana blockchain. Ranked #1 in the Web3 Track field.
At the time of writing this article, the Solana Sandstorm Hackathon is being held. I can't write the winners because the results were not announced when I wrote this article. Again, great projects were revealed.
Benefits of entering a Hackathon
Now let's look at the benefits of participating in a Hackathon
Promoting Collaboration.🤝
Hackathons are generally events that are organized for a duration of several days. Each day has a varying set of challenges or activities that participants are supposed to indulge in. These activities or challenges can be the ideal method to promote a sense of collaboration and teamwork among your employees.
This is mainly due to the fact that the challenges that are usually presented in Hackathon events are designed to be solved by the contributions of several team members instead of an individual.
Developing new skills.👨💻
A hackathon is also an ideal incubator where you could learn vital skills well suited to your industry. If you are an entry-level developer, you would learn how to build a project from the ground up, deal with challenges you are sure to encounter and defend your concept in front of a panel of experts.
If you are more experienced, a hackathon helps you improve collaboration among your team members and sharpen their skills and yours.
It helps you build a strong network of peers and influencers in the tech community
Hackathons allow you to meet and work with a broad range of talents with similar interests. Many participants in hackathons have made excellent connections that proved extremely useful in both their professional and personal lives. The benefits of participating in hackathons are innumerable.
You’ll improve your CV
When employers are looking at CVs, they’re always looking for things that make a candidate stand out.
By having a hackathon on your CV, employers will see that you are someone who likes to take initiative, be challenged and constantly learn new things – all extremely attractive traits for a potential employee.
You can win great prizes💸
Winning teams in hackathons always receive valuable prizes. They could range from monetary rewards and sophisticated gadgets to company interviews and employment offers.
How to win at Solana Hackathon
Prioritize Shipping
Surrender is by far the most important aspect of hackathons in general. Even if you can't fix all the issues raised in this post or your project isn't complete yet, you should submit what you have. Don't be afraid to showcase your work or your team's efforts. Posting and receiving comments will increase your confidence for future hackathons. Others can see your concept and contact you after the hackathon to collaborate on turning it into a full-featured Mainnet project.
Keep it Simple
Often there is a great desire to add many features and features to your project. People tend to build the most advanced, impressive and complex projects they can. But this is rarely the winning approach. It is better to focus more and create a simple version of your idea that can be created later. This will allow you to be more successful in the long run.
Your User Interface(UX) Is Your First Impression
A common theme at hackathons is not to spend too much time on the UI because sometimes the goal is to make something work. However, a well-designed UI can make a huge difference in the long run.
Explain the Importance of Your Project👩🏽🏫
If you don't explain the importance of your project, no one else will. Explaining how valuable something you are building is to the community and how it fits into the ecosystem is crucial. Make sure you are clear about your project's value proposition and how it uniquely contributes to the Solana Ecosystem.
In most cases, the jurors are not experts in the field you are building. This means that they may not understand the importance of your project. If you can explain in simple terms what your project does and why it's necessary or valuable, you'll go a long way.
Focus on innovation
One of the most important events in the hackathon is the innovativeness of the project. If you create an idea on Solana that hasn't been done before, your chances of winning increase.
Record a Video of Your Project in Action
The video is an extremely important part of a hackathon submission because it essentially shows off your project to the hackathon judges and other developers. It proves that the project is real and that it works.
At the very minimum, the video should be a 3-5 minute long clip that shows off your submission, with someone talking through each step and explaining what they’re doing as they interact with the project.
Create a Demo🚀
A live demo is always helpful when posting. It shows a lot of commitment and makes it easy for the jury to see the potential of your project and how it works in action. A live demo also shows that you have something tangible to show for all your hard work.
The Hackathon is the perfect opportunity to learn new skills, meet new people and build something valuable. It's also a great way to get the community to rally around your concept and support it.
Let me talk about the criteria of the Jury in the Solana India Hackathon(BuildingOutLoud), which was held before. These criteria can give you ideas for future hackathons.
Quality: How creative and original was your submission?
Implementation: How well did you execute the idea?
UI/UX: How well-designed and user-friendly is the product?
Future Potential: Does your project have a future as a fundable product within the Solana ecosystem?
Miscellaneous: Special Prizes had their own additional criteria depending on the needs of the project
Now let me tell you about Solana's upcoming events.
Istanbul Hacker House🚀
I live in Turkey and Solana Hacker House is held in Istanbul on February 1-5. I will definitely attend this event. You can also find many developers from the Solana team at this event. We are waiting for you too.
Melbourne Hacker House
It will be held on February 20.
Ho Chi Minh City Hacker House
It will be held on March 15.
Sol.Ladies Build Hacker House
It will be held on April 20.
Taipei Hacker House
It will be held on May 10.
New York Hacker house
It will be held on June 7th.
I have shared with you all the information I have learned about Solana Hackantons. I went into a lot of detail on the benefits of participating in Hackathons and how we can win. I hope it was useful. See you in another article.
References:
https://solana.com/news/solana-ignition-hackathon-winners
https://solana.blog/category/solana-hackathon/
Announcing winners of the Solana India #BuildingOutLoud Hackathon
