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Vision

A decentralized community to support global hackathons on meaningful technical problems and innovations.

Mission

Financially and operationally support and liberate global hackers and hackathon organizers (especially open-source repo maintainers) to focus on truly valuable technical problems and improvements.

Why Hackathon? Why DAO?

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Ever since the first wave of hackathons in 2010, hackathon has undoubtedly proven its capability of boosting innovation and cooperation.

  • ⚙️To Build - We see a lot of brilliant ideas and prototypes being developed yet later grow into valuable products, companies and/or technologies in areas like cyber security contests, Internet industry, Web 3.0 applications and so on.
  • 📢To Communicate - For those innovative and enthusiastic participants with solid technical skills, hackathons provide them great opportunities to demonstrate technical skills, showcase projects, exchange ideas, make friends and find partners.

However, big companies dominated hackathons and the hacker movement in recent years and the voices of grass-root hackers are becoming a comparablely small minority now. We believe a decentralized hacker organizations can step in to reverse the situation. Through a decentralized organization of hackers with great technical skills and vision, we want to democratize the hacker movement again, where

  • Hackers themselves can propose and decide what are the real problems to solve.
  • Hackers can connect with and inspire each other.
  • Valuable contribution will be supported financially and operationally.

Products

  • Hackathon Playbook - a Github Repo
  • Gov Forum + Snapshot Voting - HackerLink BUIDL
  • Community Discussion - a Discord Server
  • Hackathon List - HackerLink Hackathon



Governance Overview

Address: 0xFD9F97126EF903872fe96eDE82915f2F2B183da6

Hackathon DAO’s governance mechanism will revolve around 1) hackathon grant rules and 2)community operation(on discord). And, with the goal to boost more valuable technical innovations, the mechanism design of Hackathon DAO will try to make sure:

  • The DAO is open for any proposals, yet the community members will vote to approve or reject these proposals.
  • The DAO decision represents the will of the community and is controlled by the community.
  • Core decision makers in the community are with great tech visions and solid skills.
  • Funds and resources will go to hackers that make true contribution.

1. Hackathon Grant Rules

Our grant will happen on a quarterly basis and each grant program will last for 3 months. You can see an example timeline for the upcoming 2022Q1 grant.

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Step Start Date End Date What will be happening
Application Jan 01 Jan 31 Hackathon proposal submission / Applicants and community meetups
Voting Feb 01 Feb 07 Community discussion and voting
Hacking Feb 07 Mar 21 Hackathon preparation and active
Grant Mar 21 Mar 31 Grant issue and reimbursement
Review Mar 21 Mar 27 Hackathon review and project faire

Currently, Hackathon DAO will focus on three main areas: Web3, Cryptography(ZK) and Quantum Computing(open-source tool and crypto crossover), and we will gradually get more topics involved if we have more credential members from more technical fields in our community.

1.1 Hackathon Application

A Hackathon proposal needs to be submitted as a BUIDL on HackerLink with all information properly filled in. Any hackathon that meets the following criteria are more than welcomed to apply:

  • The organizer or the organizing team is a maintainer of an active Github repo.
  • The organizer or one of the organizing team members has passed Hackathon DAO KYC.
  • None of the organizing team is on the blacklist of Hackathon DAO.
  • The hackathon must have a clear and specific problem to solve instead of aimlessly exploring.
  • The hackathon must have a budget plan if the grant will be used for anything other than bonus.
  • The hackathon needs to be organized ONLY through HackerLink platform using its bounty or hackathon feature.
  • The hackathon must happen during the indicated “Hacking” time window according to the posted agenda at the begining of each season.

1.2. Hackathon Vote

Each season, we will hold a grant for each focus area with an independent funding pool. The voting token holders can vote for their preferred hackathon using quadratic voting. All the hackathon proposals will be ranked descendingly according to the vote amount and will be supported according to the rank until no enough funding is available.

In short term, voting will take place offline among all voting token holders.

1.3. Hackathon Grant Issue

All grants will be issued after the hackathon and before the end of the grant season according to the calendar date. For different applicants and different uses of funds, we will have a different process:

  • Organizer on Hackathon DAO whitelist - all fund issue directly
  • Organizer on Hackathon DAO blacklist - no fund will be issued
  • Organizer neither on whitelist or blacklist - funds used for hackathon bonus will be issued after the organizer updating their BUIDL page and receiving at least one DAO staff’s approval. Other logistic costs will be released using reimbursement mode.

1.4. Hackathon DAO Seasonal Faire - Public Vote

We will hold a public vote using quadratic voting with XXX USDT grant from Hackathon DAO for all the projects submitted from this season’s hackathons, where everyone (in or outside the Hackathon DAO) can vote and show their support.

  • The bonus received will go directly to the hackers.
  • The obtained votes will be converted into Hackathon DAO credits (HCs) one-to-one.

1.5. Hackathon Review

By the end of each season, we will have all the supported hackathons evaluated according to their hacking experience, results and owner’s organizing skills.

All hackathon organizers will be asked to update their application BUIDL page with the latest progress, so that the DAO workers and the participating hackers of the season can vote with more context.

  • Workers votes (DAO admin and staffs) - each DAO worker will have N votes where N equals to the amount of this seasons’ supported hackathons.
  • Hackers votes (all hackathon participants) - each hacker will have vote(s) according to the number of hackathons he/she participated in the season. One hackathon, one vote.

The final results will be the sum of workers‘ votes, hackers votes and public votes and will have the following impacts:

  • The obtained votes will be converted into Hackathon DAO credits (HCs) one-to-one.
  • The organizers that receive the highest workers’ votes, hackers’ votes or public votes will be added into the Hackathon DAO whitelist for the next season and removed from the Hackathon DAO blacklist. If there’s a tie for first place, all the winning organizers will be added / removed.
  • The organizers that violate the community rules and get reported by more than two DAO workers or hackers will be added to the Hackathon DAO blacklist for the next season and removed from the whitelist.

Public votes = the total votes gained of all the submitted projects in the seasonal DAO public vote

2. Community Governance

2.1. Roles, Responsibilities and Rights

The Hackathon DAO community is a community of active hackathon sponsors and organizers. What we want to highlight is that we are looking for those who have great technical vision, solid skills and enthusiasm to enhance community interaction and boost technological advances.

  • DAO Funder (token holder)
    • Source: Donors / DoraHacks assigned / Hackathon DAO token holders
    • Responsibilities & Rights:
      • All Discord channels are open to them.
      • Discuss and vote for hackathon proposals.
  • Hackathon Organizer
    • Source: Hackathon DAO grant applications
    • Responsibilities & Rights:
      • All Discord channels are open to them except for the funders’ channel.
      • Submit Hackathon proposals.
      • Actively update the proposals with the latest progress.
      • Share their experience and knowledge about hackathon through Hackathon Openbook.
  • DAO Staff
    • Source: Volunteers after interview / DoraHacks assigned
    • Responsibilities & Rights:
      • All Discord channels are open to them.
      • Actively update Discord channels with the latest Hackathon DAO progress and agenda.
      • Actively maintain the Discord channel of his/her own focus area.
      • Organize community activities like Hackathon roadshow, project demo show,tech meetups, talks, and workshops, etc.
      • Assist hackathon events through hackathon proposal reviewing, hackathon result reviewing, Hackathon DAO product Q&A, reimbursement, etc.
  • Developer
    • Source: Applicants after KYC
    • Responsibilities & Rights:
      • Only announcement, topic and stage channels are available for them.
      • Participate in community activities like Hackathon roadshow, project demo show and tech meetups, workshops, etc.

2.2 Reputation System - Hackathon DAO Credit

In the Hackathon DAO community, we use “Hacking Credits”(HCs) to reflect a member’s credibility, total community contribution, and technical skills.

Who Can Gain the Credits

  • Anyone in the Hackathon DAO community.
  • The default credits for all members will be zero.

How to Gain the Credits

  • Submit a hackathon proposal to Hackathon DAO, get granted and receive votes in the seasonal final review. The obtained votes will be converted into Hackathon DAO HC one-to-one.
  • Submit projects in Hackathon DAO supported hackathon(s) and receive votes in the seasonal project faire. The obtained votes will be converted into Hackathon DAO HC one-to-one.
  • Host technical events like meetups, talks and workshops will be incentivized with1-5 HC(s) depending on the quality and performance. The amount is issued by the DAO workers and the audiences’ feedback.

How to Use the Credits

  • The community can use the organizer’ HCs as a reference when evaluate hackathon proposals in future seasons.
  • The HCs can be exchanged into DAO voting tokens under a one-to-X ratio if the accumulated HCs reach N, so that those trustworthy and active members with solid technical skills can join the core decision making process.

2.3. Community Rules

Gating rules

  • All members must pass KYC before joining.
  • One can join as an organizer after submitting Hackathon DAO grant application or get validated by at least one DAO admin or staff with previous hackathon organizing experiences.
  • One can join as an DAO funder by providing proof of holding Hackathon DAO voting token(s) and this channel will be actively maintained by staff according to the latest token holders.
  • If a member gets reported by more than three other members in the community, this member will be added into the Hackathon DAO blacklist and banned on our Discord server.

Generic rules

  • Respect each other - hate speech, racism, homophobia, bullying or toxic behavior are not tolerated.
  • No controversial topics - this includes, but is not limited to politics, religion, or other heavy subjects.
  • No spam - this includes, but is not limited to posting unapproved advertising, excessive pings, emote or image spam, abusing spoiler tags, malicious links, etc.
  • No fraud - this includes, but is not limited to malicious cash out, collision, plagiarism or account stealing.
  • Keep discussions relevant to the channel topic. Each channel’s description tells you the topic.
  • Interfering with staff’s duties by arguing, misinforming them or giving false evidence is forbidden.

2.4. Discord

Channel Structure

  • Information
    • Welcome!
    • Rules
    • Help
    • Introduce yourself
  • Announcement Channel
    • Upcoming hackathons
    • Upcoming events
    • Hackathon DAO grant updates and agenda reminder
    • Hackathon Openbook updates
  • Topics
    • Web3
    • Cryptography
    • Quantum Computing
    • …
  • Show Room (for events like hackathon road shows, hackathon projects demo show, organizers’ meetup live, talks, workshops, etc.)
  • [private for funders] DAO token holders
  • [private for organizers] Hackathon Open Book



Additional Notes

1. Notes

  1. Hackathon DAO funds will be used ONLY to support hackathons and will not be used for product development, community operation or staff salaries.
  2. All the costs other than hackathon grants will be supported by DoraHacks.
  3. The governance of DAO does not involve the election of any DAO members. Staffs are directly delegated and managed by DoraHacks, but it needs to be managed in accordance with DAO’s governance rules.
  4. The funding of Hackathon DAO is completed by Hackathon DAO in the multi-signature wallet of Gnosis SAFE, and the multi-signature wallet is fully controlled by the results of community governance.
  5. The current governance rules do not require the use of Snapshot and non-HackerLink voting tools.
  6. Other possible governance rules in the future: For a single Hackathon Grant funding, use Futarchy for community voting. These governance rules are currently not considered.

2. References

  1. Decentralize The Hacker Movement by @ericzhagn90

3. Partners

➔4EVERLAND is a cloud computing platform of Web3.0 with global acceleration, privacy protection, distributed storage, and other technical features, based on IPFS and the underlying technology of Ethereum. 4EVERLAND is committed to providing a distributed, highly efficient, self-motivated, and low-cost data hosting gateway. It hopes to help the internet to make a smooth leap from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0, and become the infrastructure for millions of Web 3.0 developers and applications.

They will participate in Hackathin DAO by:

  • Supporting our DAO grant Hackathons with its Web 3.0 cloud computing and storage services.
  • Holding workshops and content to have you know Build and Deploy on Decentralized Web in-and-out.
  • Providing long-term diversified services support for Hackathon DAO recommended projects and developers.