Neo Global Development is hosting the Polaris Launchpad Hackathon, its second such event since the release of Neo N3 MainNet in 2021. The Polaris Launchpad began on Monday, March 7, 2022, and runs through June 21.

NGD seeks to build upon the foundations of the 2021 Frontier Launchpad, which distributed more than US $100,000 in prizes and $200,000 in post-event funding. Examples of winning projects from the first hackathon include TOTHEMOON, Rentfuse, NekoHit, Lyrebird, and Humswap.

The prizes available for the Polaris Launchpad will exceed those of Frontier with a total prize pool of $500,000. The top project from each event category will receive a Grand Prize of $35,000 plus prize multipliers. Fifteen Excellence Award winners will receive an award of $8,000 plus prize multipliers. An additional prize pool of at least $57,500 will be distributed by matching funding contributed by the Neo community.

The five categories for the Polaris Launchpad Hackathon are:

  • DeFi
  • Metaverse and NFT
  • DAO
  • Middleware incorporating NeoFS and native Oracle networks
  • General

As was the case with the Neo Frontier Launchpad, NGD is actively seeking to incubate the top projects built during the hackathon. Grand Prize winners will be admitted to NGD’s $200 million EcoBoost program. Developers can expect to receive hands-on support from Neo’s global development community to help them bring their projects to life during the Polaris Launchpad Hackathon.

The Frontier Launchpad Hackathon consisted of two phases, the Planathon and Development phase. This year’s Polaris Launchpad builds on that experience, and will have an additional third phase called Polaris Plus. In Polaris Plus, the Neo community will be able to donate GAS to projects, and these “votes” will be used to determine grant funding from NGD.

The Planathon and Hackathon phases will take place on DevPost, and Polaris Plus on Dorahacks.

Planathon

The Planathon allows teams to submit a project plan and receive feedback before the Hackathon phase begins. Participants who submit the most well-thought-out plans will be granted “multipliers” between 1.1x and 1.5x, applied to the team’s final prize. For example, if a team wins a 1.5x multiplier and wins a Grand Prize of $35,000, they will receive $52,500.

Submitted plans will be evaluated on things such as the suitability of the team’s ideas for blockchain, team composition, business plan, and delivery milestones.

While participation in the Planathon is optional, it was a popular during the Frontier Launchpad. The average prize money won for those that participated during that phase was increased by over 42% through Planathon multipliers.

Planathon submissions are due on Tuesday, April 5. The multipliers will be announced on Monday, April 11.

Hackathon

Submissions for the Hackathon portion of the Polaris Launchpad open on Tuesday, April 12 and close on Monday, May 9.

Participants seeking help getting started can visit Neo’s Developer Portal to find documentation, tutorials, and tooling options. Further, the Neo Discord server is an invaluable resource, allowing users to ask Neo’s international developer community for guidance and suggestions.

Polaris Launchpad judges will review the final submissions after the deadline and announce the winners on Monday, May 30.

Polaris Plus

Following the conclusion of the Hackathon phase, there will be a third and final round, Polaris Plus, which will take place on the Dorahacks platform. In this round, the Neo community will contribute GAS to their favorite projects. Polaris Plus is invite only, however all projects are eligible for inclusion regardless of whether they won a Grand Prize or Excellence Award.

The winners of this round will receive additional funding on top of any rewards they may have already earned. NGD has set aside a minimum of $57,500; however, any multiplier funds that weren’t won in earlier rounds will also be added to the Polaris Plus coffers.

Polaris Plus funds will be distributed via quadratic funding. Quadratic funding encourages users to fund proposals by amplifying smaller donations made by the general community. In so doing, this approach seeks to ensure a more democratic allocation of funding, rather than being dominated by a select few with deep pockets. The amount of GAS each user donates is then matched from a grant pool, equal to the square of the sum of the square roots of contributions received minus the actual contribution.

The Polaris Plus phase will run from June 8 through June 21. Teams will not be automatically registered for the Polaris Plus phase, they will be required to manually join the Dorahacks platform. Community members will also need to register on Dorahacks to be able to vote.

To learn more about participating in the Polaris Launchpad, visit the link below:
https://neo-blockchain.medium.com/introducing-the-neo-polaris-launchpad-compete-for-500-000-in-prizes-and-incubation-opportunities-6626920e821

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