[READY TO VOTE] OptiHack Global Initiative

🏹 Mission Requests
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1

Delegate Mission Request Summary:

This mission aims to stimulate global innovation and community engagement within the Optimism network by supporting a series of locally organized hackathons worldwide. The focus is on integrating Optimism into existing Ethereum-aligned hackathons, enabling diverse communities to contribute to the Superchain’s growth.

S5 Intent: 2 - Grow the Superchain

Proposing Delegate: Joxes from SEED Latam & Brichis

Proposal Tier: Ember Tier

Baseline grant amount:
150k OP (Variable, up to 25k OP per applicant)

Should this Foundation Mission be fulfilled by one or multiple applicants: Multiple. Until the budget runs out.

Submit by: To be set by Grants Council

Selection by: To be set by Grants Council

Start date: N/A

Completion date: Before the year ends.

Specification

How will this Delegate Mission Request help accomplish the above Intent?

This initiative aligns with Intent 2 by fostering a vibrant, global developer community through hackathons. The focus will be on community building, identifying high-potential teams, and generating innovative project ideas. The key to success lies in creating engaging and impactful events, followed by facilitating connections between top builders and the Optimism network. This approach aims to cultivate a robust ecosystem of developers, essential for the long-term growth and diversification of the Optimism Superchain.

What is required to execute this Delegate Mission Request?
Hackathon organizers must present a clear concept that aligns with the Ethereum ecosystem and emphasizes Optimism’s role.

  • Budget Management:
    Organizers should efficiently manage resources, adhering to a budget that maximizes impact (up to 25k OP per event). This includes operational costs and prizes.

  • Pre-Event Preparation:
    Conduct pre-event activities such as workshops or meetups for both familiarizing participants with Optimism and for brainstorming project ideas, ensuring a productive hackathon experience.

  • Event Execution:
    Efficiently manage the hackathon, ensuring a conducive environment for innovation. This involves logistical planning, participant support, and providing access to mentors or experts from the Optimism community.

  • Post-Event Strategy:
    Organizers must plan for post-event activities, including project follow-ups and support, to encourage long-term project development and integration into the Optimism ecosystem.

How should the Token House measure progress towards this Mission?

  • Application Evaluation: Assess the quality of applications received.

  • Pre-Event Engagement Metrics: Monitor the execution of pre-event activities and the effectiveness of community engagement strategies.

  • Event Execution and Participation: Track the successful execution of each hackathon, including adherence to schedules, participant turnout, and overall management quality.

  • Project Development: Observe the number and quality of projects developed during the hackathons, focusing on their potential impact on the Optimism network.

How should badgeholders measure impact upon completion of this Mission?

  • Post-Hackathon Project Development and Deployment:
    Count the number of projects initiated during the hackathon.
    Track the deployment of these projects on the Superchain, using metrics like total unique GitHub repositories related to the hackathon projects, to assess their integration into the ecosystem.

  • On-Chain Metrics and Transparency:
    Monitor the issuance and utilization of blockchain-based tickets for event participation.
    Implement on-chain attestations for projects presented at the hackathon, and/or issue blockchain-based certificates or tokens to finalists.

  • Long-Term Impact and Ecosystem Integration:
    Evaluate the long-term development and scaling of hackathon projects, monitoring updates, user adoption, and integration within the Optimism ecosystem.
    Assess the impact of these projects on the broader network, including their contribution to community growth, network adoption, and technological innovation.

  • Community Engagement and Feedback:
    Analyze participant feedback post-hackathon to gauge the event’s success and areas for improvement.
    Observe community engagement and response to the projects and the event as a whole, using social media, forums, and direct feedback channels.

*Have you engaged a Grant-as-a-service provider for this Mission Request? If so, please disclose the details of this arrangement, to the extent possible: No

*Has anyone other than the Proposing Delegate contributed to this Mission Request? If so, who, and what parts of this application did they contribute to?
Maxime Servais & Julien Coppola
Koko (ETH Safari)
Feedback from Carlosjmelgar & scav

14 Likes
4

It will be nice to see a budget number. If you want Up to 3 applicants then it could be 27500 * 3 = 82500 OP

I recommend setting up a budget and leaving it to multiple. It’s easier for applicants to request what they need 10k or 50k depending on the hackathon size.

5 Likes
5

Thank you! I really appreciate your feedback, I did some modifications according to it.

4 Likes
6

This is a great proposal that aims to solve for something many localized efforts are lacking: onchain impact. It’s great that you connected with @kokocares for ideation.

I would love to see more pre hackathon preparation included. EthSafari, which Koko is involved with did workshops with bounty sponsors for weeks leading up to the hackathon. This ensured that teams were prepared to integrate tech meaningfully opposed to bounty farming. This will also help with onboarding them to Optimism. This was a huge blocker for a recent QF round we attempted to run with Koko, most of the participants never interacted with Optimism which caused delays. I suspect this blocker might be present in other countries.

I’ve never had a smooth experience with onchain tickets. Maybe consider a proof of attendace free mint. You can have an onsite activity to serve as a faucet for eth if they don’t already have it on their wallet or if they need to install a wallet on mobile.

Post round impact beyond demo would also be great. Maybe a partial distribution of bounties to encourage projects to continue building would be great to experiment with. Additional support steering projects to other funding mechanisms would be very helpful in their continued work. I’m envisioning a plan that supports long term feasibility for projects, ultimate enabling them for RPGF based on their impact.

Would you consider narrowing this down to one region to avoid spreading yourself too thin and encountering unexpected logistical challenges- maybe just Africa or Asia? LatAm already does a phenomenal job at advocating for itself and Asia might result in additional logistical challenges and difficulties identifying suitable communities. I trust you’ll be able to handle challenges well, just throwing out ideas to make this easier to accomplish. If you decide on one I would go with Africa considering Asia is getting most of the ecosystem’s attention as we lead into Devcon SEA.

2 Likes
7

I am an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

2 Likes
8

(I’m an employee of OP Labs and I’m speaking on my own behalf)

Echoing @Carlosjmelgar, some things to consider for this to have higher impact:

  • Focusing on one region rather than three increases the chance of momentum building. For instance, there are 3-5 strong events happening in Africa in Q2/Q3. Being able to support more of them, and deepen relationships with those running them, puts the community in a better position to grow once the mission is over.
  • I suggest thinking of the budgets as small/medium/large commitments, rather than uniform. Generally I’ve found the splits to be 5K, 10-15K, and 20-25K OP (very very roughly) for a small, medium, or large regional events, respectively.
  • This fits well with the Proof of Attendance RFP once that is live, increasing attestations given at the event.
  • Developer support matters a lot for how many teams finish. A strong hackathon application has some infra set up to help developers and answer questions. The TechNerds can provide some help usually, but the more an event can provide directly the better it will be.
  • Important for applicants to specify how much of a grant will go towards sponsorship fees and how much toward bounties.
  • I’ve found mainnet onchain impact to be pretty limited from hackathons, since most projects develop on testnet. The value tends to come from community building, identifying high potential teams, and ideas for future projects. As such, I think post-hack support (from the event host) is less important than building a really great event, then working with Optimism to connect with the top builders.
3 Likes
9

As I’ve said before, I’m not supportive of proposals that focus on a specific area or group of people. I also think that this will be difficult to pull off without a dedicated marcomms team that can ensure complete alignment on messaging and broad vision.

4 Likes
10

If this was targeted to unis rather than meetups or events may be easier to get many small hackathons rather than large events going, aswell as reach builders early on into the space. Maybe a budget, max, split and let Grants Council approve whatever they feel is reasonable could be a better fit than some event created by anyone with no real reach.

Am big on hackathons

2 Likes
11

Hey everyone! First off, thanks a bunch for all the valuable feedback – I’m definitely taking it into account. I wanted to let you know that I’ve reached out to @Joxes and @Michael, as they have similar missions. I’m thinking we could merge them into a grand mission for Hackathons, both IRL and virtual, spanning the globe. This would be open to multiple teams and cater to events of various sizes.

Next, I’d like to share why I initially proposed this mission in its current form:
ETH Global organizes some of the biggest Ethereum Hackathons worldwide, but post-ETH Bogotá 2022, LATAM seemed to drop off their radar. This led local communities to start organizing their own events to recreate these experiences, which inspired this mission.
I also considered Asia, mindful of the upcoming road to Devcon and recalling community members from China expressing a desire for more involvement from Optimism in this area. And Africa came to mind because of @kokocares from ETH Safari, who during Season 4 joined multiple times the Grants Office Hours trying to find the way to include Optimism in their event.

With all this in mind, I’m totally open to tweaking this proposal to include the entire world. It could simplify things for the Grants Council and, honestly, collaboration is key. I’d be thrilled if we could pool our efforts into a single proposal that benefits the entire Optimism Ecosystem. :red_circle: :sparkles:

3 Likes
12

GM everyone! I’ve had discussions with @Michael and @Joxes, and we’ve reached a conclusion. Michael’s mission requests offer a unique perspective, so he will proceed with his proposal independently. On the other hand, Joxes and I have identified similarities in our missions, albeit targeting different regions, and have decided to merge our proposals into a worldwide initiative.

We’ve taken your feedback into account, so you’ll notice several adjustments regarding the area, budget, pre-event preparation, etc. Thank you for your valuable insights. We hope this unified approach garners enough support to ensure Optimism’s presence at multiple events globally, standing alongside communities, participating in some of the most significant events, and engaging directly in the spaces where new web3 developers emerge.

A special thank you to Joxes for his willingness to collaborate. I truly appreciate it. :sparkles:

2 Likes
13

Should I assume that this approval is no longer valid, right? Because this drafts include us as proposers.

14

It’s right :disappointed_relieved:

I believe the Mission Requests around Hackathons had generated significant engagement. This one is a merger of two Mission Requests (Optimism-focused European Hackatons Mission Request and Locally organized hackathons across Africa, Asia and Latin America); we have incorporated some essential points from the feedback we received. I’m tagging the delegates who volunteered to review different Mission Requests, and I would greatly appreciate it if you could take a look at one more mission. If you believe this Mission Request should be open for applicants, kindly provide your approval as a Top 100 delegate before the 19:00 GMT deadline. Thank you!
@olimpio @GFXlabs @lefterisjp @Joxes @kaereste @OPUser @Pr0 @web3magnetic @mastermojo @katie @PGov @StableLab @Tane

4 Likes
15

I am an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

1 Like
16

Thanks @brichis, @Joxes and other contributors for this proposal!

We would like to echo @katie’s take and recommend us to see how the Mission Request by @Michael is supported and attracts good applications and expand the initiative into more diverse perspectives (e.g. locations like Africa, Asia and Latin America, especially for Japan where we at Tané can support or demographics.) later.

1 Like
17

Hey @Tane! Yes, that’s one of the major improvements we made to this proposal. Now it’s open to any hackathon worldwide! :cowboy_hat_face: We aim to participate in numerous hackathons around the globe. The key difference between Michael’s proposal and this one is that ours is designed for hackathons that are already taking place and wish to include Optimism, such as ETH Safari, ETH Bucharest, ETH Volcano, etc., whereas Michael’s Mission focuses solely on creating Optimism-related hackathons. We had a conversation about merging the three proposals, but we consider both have different approaches, and both are valuable.

3 Likes
18

Glad to see that anyone can apply, not just specific regions.

Also think this mission is a decent compliment to mine.

The main difference being that my mission only allows for Optimism/Superchain-specific hackathons, whereas this one allows for a funding request from hackathons that may include other chains (more on a sponsorship level).

I am an OP delegate with sufficient voting power and I believe this is ready to move on to a vote. Agora - OP Voter

2 Likes
19

I’m an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

1 Like
20

We are an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.