The Second Meetup of Tezos DeFi Hackathon 2022 Participants: a Summary
This is an extract of the answers given by the organisers. Please visit the Everscale Broadcast channel for the full version.
Behind the scenes of Tezos DeFi Hackathon 2022
When a participant registered with the website, he or she received an automatic email with a Slack link, while the organisers got a notification and an entry in Airtable. Then they manually copied the invitation to Telegram. After joining the Slack channel, the participants introduced themselves, including their speciality, experience, and stack. The organisers filled in a table with said info so that it would be easier to form full-fledged teams ready to take on any challenge. If some participants came to the hackathon together or formed a team after joining, organisers marked them as a team.
Each team got its own channel in the hackathon’s Slack. Team mentors will join those channels later.
For the final registration, each team lead must fill in the team form by 18:00 EET on February 2nd. There they must specify the team’s name, his or her own email (so that we could know who is the leader), emails of other participants, the way the team came together, and solemnly swear not to turn off Slack notifications.
On February 2nd, the organisers will publish challenge selection forms. Only three teams tops can work on the same challenge with ‘first come, first served’ being the main rule, so try not to be late. If you apply for unavailable challenges, the organisers will contact you and offer you to choose something else via the application form.
Olha Rymar, Tezos Ukraine: Building a qualified team capable of executing very different tasks is half the battle. Even if you don’t get to solve the challenge you aimed for, you will have a chance to win with other projects. A successful hackathon is first and foremost about your team.
Team Questions
Do we need a front end?
Mikhail Zaikin, Baking Bad: You need a front end as much as you need to present your product. Don’t waste your time on animations, of course. Still, as the hackathon lasts for a month, the organisers expect some complex and interesting solutions. Your product will be evaluated next to what your competitors made.
What about grants and possibilities?
Vlad Likhuta, Tezos Ukraine: Tezos Foundation want to get to know the hackathon’s winners, so they assigned a special grant manager to do so. Even if you don’t end up winning a prize, you may still get a grant if your idea is good. Mentors and partners also say that they are going to hire some of the participants. You will have to be active to be noticed, though.
How do we meet with team mentors?
Vlad Likhuta: On February 3, we will assign mentors to the teams. Mostly they will be entrepreneurs, managers, and senior employees of big companies. The mentors will call the participants once a week to check on their progress and assist with organising the work.
Can I join another team mid-hackathon?
Olha Rymar: No, you can’t do that. You have to work in the lineup specified in the application form.
About the challenges
Why is there a 3-teams-per-challenge limit?
Vlad Likhuta: We sought to retain the balance between the interests of the participants, the partners, and the ecosystem. There is always a risk that the participants will choose the easiest or the most interesting challenge leaving the rest unnoticed. This limitation helps us avoid such an outcome.
Some challenges in fact imply the development of a similar project on a different blockchain. Can’t we just copy its source code?
Anastasia Kondaurova, Madfish Solutions: It’s impossible because smart contract programming languages in Tezos and Ethereum are very different. We’ve created Sol2Ligo, a transpiler that could ‘translate’ Ethereum code into Tezos but it won’t be able to work with complex contracts.
Can we take a different challenge mid-work?
Olha Rymar: No, you have to critically estimate your capabilities before filling in the challenge form.
Can we refuse to do the second challenge?
Olha Rymar: Yes, you can, however, if you initially applied for two challenges and then decided to abandon one, you must contact the organisers immediately.
How do we get help from technical mentors without revealing our solution to our rival teams?
Olha Rymar: As long as the work hasn’t started, you can ask general questions in the #04-ask-tech-metors channel. Once the work on the challenges begins, you’d better write to the organizers or your team mentors so that they could schedule a call with the best technical mentor to answer your question.
Mikhail Zaikin: You can also write in Tezos developer chats on Telegram, Discord, and Slack, or particular tool chats like Ligo, Smart Py, or Taquito.
What happens to the project after the hackathon?
Vlad Likhuta: The participants are not obliged to take their project to the mainnet or to support it. They can use the prize to tweak something or launch the project if they like, but generally, they can do as they please. It’s all up to you.
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