The Evolution of Hackathons: From Offline to Online, Driving Global Cutting-Edge Technology Innovation

In the history of open-source technology development, hackathons have always been a key way to drive technological innovation and incubate emerging projects. Over the past decade, DoraHacks has been dedicated to promoting the Hacker Movement and the open-source movement. In this process, it has not only witnessed the rapid growth and evolution of the hackathon community but has also become a leading global hackathon platform:

• The Online Transition of Hackathons: Before 2020, most hackathons were still held offline, and the online model was almost unimaginable. However, the launch of DoraHacks.io completely changed this situation. Hackers are no longer limited by geography; developers in Africa can participate online in hackathons organized by American companies, win prizes and funding, and thus launch their own entrepreneurial projects. Today, 95% of hackathons worldwide are conducted online.

• Improvement of Hackathon Tools: To enhance the organizational efficiency of hackathons and the developer experience, DoraHacks continuously optimizes its core products, including a brand new BUIDL showcase page, a comprehensive hackathon organizer management system, the MACI protocol supporting large-scale community privacy governance, Grant DAO, and more. The DoraHacks platform has become a place for hackers and early projects to obtain long-term funding and growth.

• Hackathons Driving the Development of Open Source Platform Technologies: DoraHacks has become an important driver of the development of Web3 and other open platform technologies. From Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, to recent ecosystems like Aptos, Cosmos, Injective, TON, Sonic, etc., DoraHacks has helped these platforms launch flagship developer incentive programs. Since 2023, hackathons focused on cutting-edge technologies like quantum computing and commercial space have also been held on DoraHacks.

Continuous, Uninterrupted Hackathons and Builds are the Trend

Builds happen all the time. If hackathons are merely short-term events held 1-2 times a year, it is difficult to continuously attract excellent hackers and quality projects to join the ecosystem and drive innovation. Hackathons should be continuous and uninterrupted, becoming a long-term driving force in the developer ecosystem.

In the past, due to high organizational costs and resource investments, most emerging ecosystems could not afford the operational costs of high-frequency hackathons, so hackathons were often the only grand event of the year, even becoming a luxury choice for some projects. This model limited developers' participation opportunities and affected the ecosystem's continuous innovation capability. Imagine if the ecosystem held 12 or even more hackathons each year—what would happen?

• Developers have clear "BUIDL expectations": They know that this ecosystem will continuously support and fund excellent developers and projects, so they are willing to invest long-term and contribute continuously.

• Missing out is no longer a problem: Even if a developer cannot participate in a particular hackathon, there will soon be another one, increasing their willingness to participate.

• Ecosystem innovation accelerates: High-frequency hackathons allow developers to constantly challenge new directions, significantly increasing the growth rate of the technology ecosystem.

In the past, high-frequency hackathons were almost unimaginable due to cost and organizational difficulties. Only well-funded ecosystems like Google and Amazon could continuously organize hackathons. But now, the upcoming BUIDL AI platform tool from DoraHacks makes it a feasible strategy to organize 12 hackathons a year, and even further, to hold multiple themed hackathons simultaneously, helping emerging ecosystems efficiently incentivize developers, expand technological influence, and increase excellent BUIDLs (projects).

The vast majority of builds should happen continuously and at any time, and should be timely incentivized and discovered, rather than waiting for the one unique hackathon of the year.

There is a saying: "He who has the developers has the world." In the fiercely competitive Web3 ecosystem, hackathons are an effective way to "gain developers," and continuous hackathons are the optimal solution. For an ecosystem to maintain a competitive edge, it must ensure that developers always have opportunities to participate and create.

Challenges of Hackathons in the AI Era

The rise of AI has brought new opportunities for hackathons:

1. Everyone is a Hacker: The proliferation of AI tools has automated repetitive tasks, greatly unleashing the innovative capabilities of individuals and teams.

2. Surge in Development Efficiency: AI empowers developers, significantly increasing the speed of product exploration and development, making the potential value of hackathons far exceed that of the past.

However, organizing hackathons still faces many limitations:

• Many organizers do not know how to effectively organize hackathons.

• Organizers understand the value of hackathons but lack sufficient energy and resources.

• Ecosystems with resources can usually only organize one hackathon a year.

The result is:

• The hackathon organization process is cumbersome, hindering the speed of ecosystem development.

• The growth of the ecosystem is limited by the organizational capabilities of the developer relations (DevRel) team.

• Many ecosystems have not fully utilized hackathons and have not maximized their value.

• Low-frequency hackathons lead to developers' creativity being idle, and their innovative drive not being fully stimulated.

BUIDL AI: Unlocking Infinite Possibilities for Hackathons

To address the above challenges, DoraHacks has launched BUIDL AI, an AI Hackathon Co-Pilot that helps hackathon organizers automate the management and publication of hackathons, making the organization of hackathons in the open-source ecosystem more free and efficient.

Core Features of BUIDL AI

1. Edit and Launch: One-Click Hackathon Publishing

On the DoraHacks platform, organizers only need to fill in basic information (such as prizes, themes, workshop arrangements, judges, etc.) to quickly publish a hackathon without cumbersome manual configurations.

2. BUIDL Review: Automated Review, Increasing Efficiency by 10 Times

Traditional hackathons often receive hundreds of BUIDL submissions, making the review process extremely burdensome, requiring organizers to spend hundreds of hours screening. BUIDL AI can intelligently evaluate projects, scoring them based on completeness, originality, thematic relevance, and automatically filtering low-quality submissions, improving hackathon organizational efficiency by more than 10 times.

3. Automated Marketing: Automatically Generate Hackathon Summaries

After the hackathon ends, AI can automatically generate summary reports, showcasing competition highlights, winner lists, and project outcomes, helping hackathons better spread their influence.

4. Organizer Interaction: Improve Team Collaboration Efficiency

BUIDL AI can send real-time notifications to hackathon organizers, reminding them to review new BUIDL submissions, address participant questions, etc., optimizing the management process of hackathons.

5. Multi-Hackathon Management: Organize Multiple Hackathons Simultaneously

In the past, it was almost impossible for an organization to manage multiple hackathons simultaneously. The launch of BUIDL AI allows organizers to efficiently operate multiple hackathons and run multi-themed hackathons, significantly increasing the innovation frequency of the ecosystem.

The complete Beta version of BUIDL AI will be released on April 15. Currently, several free features of BUIDL AI are already available on DoraHacks.io.

BUIDL AI: Driving a New Era of Global Open Source Technology and Hackathon Community

Hackathons are not only arenas for developers but also incubators for open-source technologies and innovative projects. The launch of BUIDL AI signifies that hackathons will enter an unprecedented stage of automation and intelligence, allowing more hackers, developers, and open-source organizations worldwide to easily initiate and participate in hackathons.

DoraHacks firmly believes that the future of open innovation belongs to every hacker, and BUIDL AI will become the engine driving this future.

BUIDL AI, empowering the next big explosion of the Hacker Movement.

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