Overview

EDU Chain by Open Campus is an L3 Rollup Chain on the Arbitrum Orbit Stack. The EDU Chain Semester 1 Hackathon event kickstarts a series of events aimed at fostering and developing a thriving ecosystem of DApps for the first blockchain dedicated to education. There will be a total of three semesters in the EDU Chain Hackathon series with a $1 million prize pool across all events.

Semester 1, the first hackathon event in the series has a prize pool of $200,000. 20 winners will be selected across two key tracks (DeFi and Infrastructure) and an additional 12 winners will be selected across 4 other tracks.

Each winner will secure a position in the exclusive EDU Chain Developer Cohort of the Open Campus Accelerator Program (OCX). Notable judges from organizations like Animoca Brands, Open Campus, ForbesWeb3, and others will oversee the competition.

Additionally, winners gain substantial exposure by being spotlighted in a Forbes article, receive support in submitting DAO proposals with potential funding up to $100,000 per project, and gain access to a private Discord channel along with the judges.

Key Dates

Tracks

Priority Tracks

• Infrastructure – dapps that help support other dapps on EDU Chain
  • Knowledge Asset Marketplace (NFTs & SFTs)
  • Block Explorer
  • EDU Chain DApp Dashboard / Leaderboard
  • Questing platform
  • Token Launchpad
• DeFi - Decentralised Finance dapps
  • Perp DEX
  • Spot Dex
  • Restaking
  • Bridge
  • Borrow/Lend
  • Staked Yield Vaults

Additional Tracks

• EduFi – dapps that support the financing of education such as grants and loans
• Earn – dapps that help users earn on EDU Chain using what they’ve learned
• Learn - dapps that help users learn on EDU Chain
• Misc. – any dapp that doesn’t fit the above categories. May include things like SocialFi or GameFi that don’t fit into the earn/learn paradigm

Entry Requirement

Submissions to the Hackathon must adhere to the following requirements:

• URL to GitHub repo containing the codebase of the project.
• Submit a demo video, no longer than 10 minutes, showcasing your project during the awards ceremony.
• Include a descriptive text outlining the features and functionality of your project.
• Provide a brief introduction of the team members.
• Ensure no inclusion of third-party trademarks or copyrighted material without proper permission from the rights holder.
• Confirm that the submission is original work, solely owned by the submitter, and does not infringe upon the intellectual property rights of any other individual or entity.
• Entrants are allowed to submit more than one submission. However, each submission must be unique and substantially different from the others.

Judging Criteria:

1) Ecosystem Impact and Integration:

• How well does the project contribute to the broader EDU Chain ecosystem?
• Does it bring in Total Value Locked (TVL), attention, or new users to the chain?
• How effectively does it integrate with or complement existing projects on the chain?

2. Community Engagement:

• How does the project plan to engage with and grow the blockchain community?
• Does it have features that encourage ongoing participation and contribution?

3. Innovation and Originality:

• How unique and creative is the project idea?
• Does it offer a novel solution to an existing problem in education?

4) How well is the blockchain technology integrated into the solution?

• What is the quality and complexity of the code?
• Is the implementation secure and scalable?

5. Impact on Education:

• How significantly does the project improve or transform educational processes?
• Does it address real-world problems in education?

6. Feasibility and Scalability:

• How practical is the implementation of the project in real-world scenarios?
• Can the solution scale to accommodate growth and wider adoption?

7. Team Strength and Capability:

• Experience: What relevant experience do team members bring to the project (e.g., blockchain development, EdTech, entrepreneurship)?
• Track Record: Have team members successfully delivered projects or founded startups in the past?
• Commitment: How committed is the team to the project beyond the hackathon?
• Vision Alignment: Does the team share a common vision for the project and its potential impact?
• Network: Does the team have valuable connections in the blockchain or education sectors that could benefit the project?

8. Traction and Early Adoption:

• Has the project gained any early users or partnerships during the hackathon period?
• Is there demonstrable interest from the target audience (e.g., educators, students, educational institutions)?
• Are there any metrics showing user engagement or growth (e.g., signups, daily active users, transaction volume)?
• Is there evidence of community building around the project (e.g., social media following, discussion forum activity)?

Sponsors

• Animoca Brands
• ForbesWeb3
• TinyTap
• ApeCoin
• RiseIn
• NewCampus
• HackQuest

About Open Campus

Open Campus is a community-led protocol for educators, content creators, parents, and students. It puts decisions about learning back into the hands of educators and their students by fostering a collaborative environment, enabling teachers to create materials that appeal to the exact needs of students. Additionally, Open Campus recognizes the achievements of teachers and content creators who help students seek new knowledge, opening new revenue streams for effective educators around the world.

OC-X, an accelerator by Open Campus, is dedicated to transforming the landscape of education and the future of work by bridging innovative companies into the Web3 space. The equity-free, 6-week cohort-based program offers a dynamic blend of debt and grant financing options tailored to propel founders forward. OC-X has backed over 50 trailblazing companies, impacting more than 20 million learners worldwide.

EDU Chain, an L3 Rollup Chain on the Arbitrum Orbit Stack, is designed to onboard real-world educational economies to the blockchain and create an ecosystem of decentralized applications (Dapps) to establish an innovative “Learn Own Earn” model for education. EDU Chain, the first decentralized blockchain for education built by Open Campus, helps to democratize education and empower all participants — learners, educators, edtech innovators — to contribute to and benefit from the future of education on-chain.

With the global market size for blockchain technology in education projected to grow from a mere $120 million today to reach $3 billion by 2030, growing by over 40% year-on-year, there is a clear signal of a confluence of macro trends brewing under the surface. EDU Chain is uniquely positioned to capitalize on this sea change in the education sector, with Open Campus’ network of 60+ institutional partners and education companies reaching over 20M+ learners and over 200k learners actively using Open Campus ID.

Anyone can support the EDU Chain network by operating a node, which allows them to receive network rewards and participate in governance.