Grant Proposal: DAO Global Hackathon (organized by Aragon & partners)

Community Grant Applications
#1

Grant ID: 861m71xvn

Summary:

The DAO Global Hackathon is an exciting 4-week virtual event where hackers will leverage cutting-edge governance primitives and existing tools to enable the next generation of DAOs. Taking place online in Spring 2023, the Hackathon will bring together hackers, builders, and DAO operators to create solutions that DAOs will use in the real world.
We are looking for partners to own and award the bounties they fund for this Hackathon. 100% of the grant funds would go to the winning hackers and ultimately benefit the global DAO ecosystem.

I have read and agree to the privacy policy:
true

If available, please enter a link to your project below:

Are you applying as a team or individual?:
Team

What type of grant are you pursuing?:
Project (one-off)

Please select the category your project best fits into:
Other

Please select who you think will benefit from your project?:
Curators, Delegators, Indexers, Subgraph Developers

How much funding are you looking for? (USD):
10000

Provide a breakdown of your requested funding:
100% of the funding will go to one or more hackathon bounties that will be defined, owned, and awarded by The Graph granting team. Alternatively, the funds could be allocated to the Freestyle Track of the hackathon and distributed across the other bounties. In the latter case, a panel of judges would select winners, and The Graph would have a judge seat.

Have you applied for (or already received) funding from somewhere else?:
Yes

If yes, please describe where you’ve received funding from and how much you have, or will, receive:
We have received soft commitments from ENS, Pokt, Snapshot, and BitDAO. Our last hackathon in 2021 had a prize pool of over $200,000 from over 20 partners, and we aim to put together a sizeable pool for this year’s hackathon.

What’s your vision for how your project will impact The Graph and/or web3?:

  • The DAO Global Hackathon aims to add value for The Graph through motivating web3 native developers to build on top of The Graph. Although we have selected the Community category, the granting team could define bounties that impact any of the 4 grant categories: supporting protocol R&D, Indexer, and subgraph tooling, developing the subgraph and substream ecosystems, or growing the community.
  • The hackathon bounties could target advancing The Graph Network through R & D efforts, improving developer experience and expanding features, creating and using subgraphs to build dapps and dashboards, or empowering the community to grow the network and increase web3 knowledge.
  • This hackathon is unique in enabling each partner to spend the full amount of their contribution on bounties that drive forward their own goals, targeting a specific, open-ended, or general organizational challenge. Alternatively, there is a freestyle pool that will be distributed across the set bounties, should The Graph wish to generally support the hackathon and promote its product to the estimated 1000+ partners and attendees without managing the bounties.
  • This grant will also assist the DAO Global Hackathon to build on the achievement of the first iteration in 2021 — growing and strengthening the entire DAO tooling ecosystem.

What can you share about any past work that is relevant to this grant?:
We led a successful hackathon in late 2021 with 1000+ participants, 23 partners, and 30+ bounties hacked. More info is available on our site here: https://hackforfreedom.org/
We are excited to build on this and continue to help grow the DAO ecosystem and developer community. We will partner with HackerEarth this year, as we continue to improve the hackathon experience from platform to marketing to community management/support.

Can you share any information about current/past web3 experience?:
Aragon has a long history in the space the largest DAO platform, leading in the space since it was founded in 2016. We are veterans in bringing together communities for the advancement of web3 and DAOs, and we will soon release a new app and protocol to further this mission

Why are you interested in contributing to The Graph and/or web3?:
The Graph is a critical decentralized protocol for indexing and querying data from blockchains, making blockchain data much more easily accessible. The subgraph allows DAOs to efficiently index and retrieve blockchain data without building an indexer or relying on a centralized server. This is very much on message with the ethos of Aragon and the DAO ecosystem we envision, and we want to make it more well-known and practically useable by DAOs.




Primary Community Poll

Do you fundamentally support this grant application, knowing that the final scope and grant amount may differ from the requested proposal?
  • Yes
  • No

0 voters




Grant Committee Vote (Closes on Jan 31st)

Do you recommend this grant to the DAO?
  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

#2

Looking at the projects winning within the four different categories, it is super interesting to see that DAOs struggle with similar problems and that so many projects are ready to solve them. So excited for the next edition of the hackathon!

And I need help finding that information on your website guys - on Dec 17th was it the first time the hackathon was hosted? Is that supposed to be a once-a-quarter event? With what frequency will the hackathon occur?

3 Likes
#3

Thanks so much for applying, this hackathon looks very compelling! After reviewing your application and website/resources, I have a few questions (in addition to Julianna’s):

  • Is there a already scheduled date for the 2023 Hackathon?
  • Was there a reason there was no Hackathon in 2022?
  • You mentioned it is a 4-week virtual event. Can you share about how much time would a judge have to dedicate to the event over that period?
  • For the Freestyle Track, is it up to the partner (in this case The Graph) to define a specific bounty? Or the hackers are free to develop whichever tool they want?

Thank you again for submitting your application. Very much looking foward to your responses and learning more.

2 Likes
#4

gm and thank you for your questions @juliannaMLN and @Mr.1776 !

With what frequency will the hackathon occur?

The first edition of the hackathon took place in Q4 2021. The spring 2023 will be second edition.
At the moment we aim to have one every 12-18 months depending on:

  • Team bandwidth - can we dedicate enough attention to make sure it’s a success
  • Partner proactiveness - other teams showing interest to help organise makes it easier to tighten timelines
  • Market conditions - a lot of projects have scaled down growth budgets and planning takes longer

Is there a already scheduled date for the 2023 Hackathon?

Dates are not fixed yet but we are aiming at kick-off in April

Was there a reason there was no Hackathon in 2022?

With Aragon transitioning into a DAO while working on the launch of our new protocol the team didn’t have bandwidth to organise one in 2022

You mentioned it is a 4-week virtual event. Can you share about how much time would a judge have to dedicate to the event over that period?

It’s really up to the co-sponsors to choose how involved they want to be. Freestyle track being the least demanding. I would say ~10 hours for submission evaluation during the last week is the minimum.

For the Freestyle Track, is it up to the partner (in this case The Graph) to define a specific bounty? Or the hackers are free to develop whichever tool they want?

Freestyle track is the “hands-off” approach so the only commitment is the cheque and some judge time. All valid submissions across the other tracks compete for an extra prize pool.
Ideally we would love to have The Graph contribute bounties towards the other tracks:

  • Use case track - create a bounty specifically focused on advancing the functionality or use of your product
  • Solution track - create a bounty to solve an organisational challenge your DAO is facing

Obviously putting up bounties in these tracks require more involvement from The Graph, but also is allocating developer attention more directly towards The Graph. You would need to draft the bounty, hold some office hours and/or give a presentation and finally evaluate the submissions.

More details can be found here:

Happy to answer any further questions you might have.

Best,
Ivan

1 Like
#5

The hackathon looks very interesting.
Could you provide additional information?
1.- Could you explain how the hackathon is divided?
2.- You mention the hackathon will take 4 weeks, Could you explain the distribution of weeks?
3.- Could you inform if there will be workshops, sessions of the sponsors or of the participating projects, mentoring?
4.- Could you confirm how long will be the judging period or if this period is included in 4 weeks you mentioned?.
5.- Which platform are you planning to use for virtual hackathon?
6.- How the sponsors (like The Graph) are in contact with participants or hackers? Do you have a Discord or other platform to use?

#6

Hey @Lorena:

  1. Could you explain how the hackathon is divided?

Could you please elaborate what you mean?

  1. You mention the hackathon will take 4 weeks. Could you explain the distribution of weeks?

4 weeks for hacking. Bounties should be published beforehand. Teams would ideally be formed in advance but the platform provider will likely run team forming sessions in week 1. Sponsor sessions throughout with weeks 1 and 2 being heavier.

  1. Could you inform if there will be workshops, sessions of the sponsors or of the participating projects, mentoring?

Yes, sponsors can do one or two dedicated sessions (depending on tier) as part of the event schedule. Furthermore, we advise them to hold office hours at least once per week. Obviously, sponsors that opt for a more involved track (i.e. use case track or solution track) and create specific bounties have both more reasons and opportunities to interact with the hackers

  1. Could you confirm how long will be the judging period or if this period is included in 4 weeks you mentioned?

Judging should happen in the week after the 4 weeks of hacking.

  1. Which platform are you planning to use for virtual hackathon?

To be confirmed but most likely HackerEarth. Runner up is Buidlbox. To clarify - the cost of the platform is covered 100% by Aragon. All funds committed by co-sponsors go directly toward prizes.

  1. How the sponsors (like The Graph) are in contact with participants or hackers? Do you have a Discord or other platform to use?

We will use a dedicated discord for the hackathon. The plan is to restructure and revive the one created for the 2021 event, which already has about 500-600 members.
Submissions and payments will be handled through the selected platform (see question 5)

1 Like
#7

Hi. Thanks for the answers.
Related with my questions, I try to be more specific.

  1. Does the hackathon have different periods like pre-hackathon, hackathons with workshops, presentations etc, judging period, etc? Or how is the hackathon divided?
    If there is different periods, are all the periods included in the 4 weeks?
  2. Could you confirm which platform you use for organize teams? Will be the same that you mentioned in question 5?
#8

1 - Thank you for clarifying:

  • Promotion and developer attraction will run from February throughout the event
  • Team formation will remain open throughout the event, but we’ll push for it to happen in the two weeks prior and the first week of the event
  • Bounties should be published latest two weeks before kick-off
  • The four weeks refer to the time the bounties will be live
  • Workshops and presentations will fit in these four weeks
  • Judging happens in the week after

2 - Both platforms - yes, HackerEarth and, to a certain extent, Discord (prompts, maybe a few “find a team” sessions) are where team formation will take place. That said, hackers have complete autonomy over coordinating inside their teams and tools used to solve the bounty. Ultimately the bounty publisher will decide what a valid submission is and whether they want to impose some restrictions.

#9

Thanks so much for you detailed responses. I don’t have any further questions at this time and have voted above.

Thanks again!

#10

Thank you - appreciate your support!

#11

Greetings!

The presentation of the project will be in the public-voice-chat channel on the Graph AdvocatesDAO Discord server on January 24 at 10:00 UTC. Entrance is open and everyone is welcome to come in and ask their questions during the presentation!

Thank everyone for your attention!

4 Likes
#12

Congratulations! The majority decision of the Grant Committee has concluded to recommend this proposal to the DAO.

In order to receive official approval from the DAO, a corresponding on-chain vote needs to be conducted on DAOHaus that will determine the DAO decision. A member of the Grant Committee will reach out to you via email with instructions on next steps in order to prepare for the on-chain funding proposal, which requires prior completion of KYC and consent to the Grant Agreement.

Thank you for all your effort to present a strong proposal aiming to grow The Graph and web3 ecosystem!

2 Likes
#13

gm! @doxe01.eth is there anything I can do to move things along from my side? I completed the KYC check at the end of January but have not heard anything back. We are already onboarding and announcing sponsors:
https://twitter.com/AragonProject/status/1624035127516069888

#14

The main problem we have right now with the DAO is the fact that we don’t have DAO members who can provide quality technical support and help people understand The Graph better, I will pass your message along and we will try to find a better way to solve the problem.

2 Likes
#15

The majority decision of the Grant Committee concludes to not recommend this proposal for DAO funding. Please recognize that this is not a statement on the proposal itself, but rather an aggregated reflection by committee members taking into account a number of factors, such as alignment to The Graph and web3 ecosystem, budget available to support grants and prioritization relative to other proposed grants.

Alas, at this stage, we do not have a team that would be able to provide quality technical assistance and conduct this type of event.

Thank you for submitting this proposal, and you are encouraged to stay engaged in the Graph community. You are also welcome to submit new grant applications in the future with proposals that may generate stronger support from the committee.

Sincerely,
Graph AdvocatesDAO