Neo Frontier Launchpad kicked off on Monday, May 24 with the opening of the Planathon phase. The Neo Frontier Launchpad is a development competition offering US $100,000 in prizes to the top 11 teams along with post-event incubation opportunities.

The Planathon allows teams to submit a project plan and receive feedback before the hackathon’s Development 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 the first prize of $12,000, they will receive $18,000.

Neo Global Development is hosting the Planathon using experience and lessons learned from past developer events. In a conversation with Neo News Today, NGD community growth manager, Songping Que, said:

Neo has a long history of hosting hackathons worldwide, and some really good teams with brilliant ideas have come out of these hackathons. Some of them were able to survive the tough times of the early stages and have grown into successful projects in the ecosystem. Our greatest hope for the event is to find the right teams and projects with whom we can achieve the Smart Economy together.

One such example of a successful project is Switcheo, which was among the Neo ecosystem’s first dApp competition winners in 2017. The Phantasma blockchain is the only other project to have placed in that event that continues building today.

As a Launchpad event planner, COZ co-founder, Tyler Adams iterated that he and the planners used past experience to help projects succeed in the hackathon and beyond. He said:

Our metrics for success for the entire Frontier Launchpad are focused on the number and quality of projects that we can retain and grow into established pillars within the Neo ecosystem. The continuation of projects within the ecosystem is a general hackathon problem and that starts with the planning phase.

One of the goals of the Planathon is to facilitate relationship building between projects and the Neo community. In our experience, direct community engagement has been strongly correlated to project success in the ecosystem.

Teams that submit their project proposals during the Planathon will have what Adams referred to as a passive advantage – a team receives feedback and a potential multiplier. He said, “It’s a really amazing opportunity to have your project reviewed by a team that is familiar with the ecosystem. Some of the technical and business feedback could be invaluable to teams, especially if they are new to the ecosystem.”

Ultimately, the Launchpad planners are focusing on providing feedback that will help the teams succeed.

The success of new projects in the N3 ecosystem is an achievement for the broader Neo ecosystem. Que said, “We are entering N3, the newest version and most powerful version of the Neo blockchain development platform. We are expecting more fresh blood to join the Neo ecosystem and explore the uncharted territories.”

Participation in the Planathon is optional. Submissions for this phase are due on Monday, June 7, 2021.

Registration for the Neo N3 Launchpad can be found at the link below:
https://neo-frontier.devpost.com/

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