Btrust Builders, the African Bitcoin education program which recently re-branded from Qala, has launched a new hackathon targeting African-made solutions around Bitcoin.
The Build for Africa Hackathon is now LIVE! 🚀
Calling on EVERYONE interested in building innovative applications and tools to solve African problems powered by #Bitcoin and the #Lightning network.
Let's build!👇🏻https://t.co/OEb2nY7YyU pic.twitter.com/EdvWNVVX95
— Btrust Builders (@btrust_builders) September 13, 2023
Referred to as a virtual hackathon for ANYONE interested in building innovative applications and tools to solve African problems powered by Bitcoin and the Lightning network, the ‘Build for Africa’ hackathon is in partnership with the Africa Bitcoin Conference 2023, and will serve as a launchpad for open innovation and collaborative problem-solving, where builders converge to generate novel ideas through an idea hack focused on tackling Africa-specific challenges, and accelerate their Bitcoin and Lightning projects through mentorship in contextual design and development.
According to a press release shared with BitKE by BTrust, the hackathon aims to show practical use cases of Bitcoin to uniquely address African challenges as well as give more Africans creative confidence to engage with Bitcoin as PRODUCERS.
“We are not looking for ideas from just developers. We welcome ideas from the entire Bitcoin ecosystem and beyond. If you do not have the ability to build your idea, we will match you with Bitcoin & Lightning developers who can help to bring them to life!”
– Btrust Builders
All the following people can apply for the hackathon:
- Bitcoin & Lightning developers
- Subject matter experts
- Generic application developers
- Business development & marketing experts
- UI/UX designers
- Content creators
- Bitcoin educators
- Data scientists
- Simply curious!
Leading up to the hacking phase, a 4-day ideathon will take place during the week of September 26 2023 to brainstorm and crowdsource innovative ideas for Bitcoin products in Africa. During the ideathon, you will be able to collaborate with other builders, refine your concepts, and form teams, laying the groundwork for the subsequent hacking and project development phase.
The hacking phase kicks off on October 16 2023 with a brief opening ceremony that outlines what lies ahead, introduces the prizes, and explains the evaluation criteria.
The hackathon offers prizes of up to $10,000 (in BTC) combined:
- 1st place: $5,000
- 2nd place: $2,500
- 3rd place: $1,500
- Best design: $1,000
The developed solutions will be judged by eminent personalities in the Africa bitcoin community which includes:
- Erik Hersman (@whiteafrican): The CEO of Gridless, which deploys bitcoin mining on renewable energy mini-grids across rural Africa
- Paco De La India (RunWithBitcoin): A Bitcoin believer travelling to 40 countries using Bitcoin
- Abubakar Nur Khalil (@ihate1999): A Nigerian Bitcoin Core contributor and CEO of Recursive Capital
The top entries selected for the semi-finals have the opportunity to refine and present their projects on demo day live at the Africa Bitcoin Conference 2023 at the Kempinski Hotel in Accra, Ghana.
Interested parties can apply here.
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