BSIC Decentralized Impact Incubator Hackathon

Welcome to the Decentralized Impact Incubator! This is a 6-week program to ideate and prototype blockchain-based solutions to global social and environmental challenges with over $50,000 in available prizes! During the period, participants from around the world will gather to form teams, design business models, draft proposals and code. Teams need to pass through weekly checkpoints and are guided by mentors throughout the process. Winning projects will receive grants to support continued development.

A Note on Terms of Use

For this Incubator program we apply two exceptions to the Standard Terms for Topcoder Competitions v2.1:

• This is a team competition. Although individual participation is allowed, we encourage you to form a team with up to 6 members. Note that even in case of individual participation, you still should follow the team registration procedure explained below.
• Topcoder and ConsenSys renounce their rights to the intellectual property created within this program: participating teams will keep all rights on solutions and materials created and submitted to the BSIC  Incubator program.

Prizes

Cash prize of $50,000 USD to best teams of each challenge category:

• $10k for winners, $2.5k for runner-ups.
• Business development training for all winning teams to accelerate solutions beyond PoC stage.
• Exposure and visibility across BSIC channels, networks, and more.
• Opportunity to showcase their solutions in front of the most reputable impact investors, NGOs, philanthropists, charities during conference in June in Washington, DC.

Judging Criteria

• Scoring Rubric: 
  https://airtable.com/shryJsiCL6nc2hieb/tblfp1W2385yhIgbi/viwfdy4Bu1Cm9yXJV 
• Weekly checkpoints (which will guide you to create an excellent White Paper)
• White Paper (optional, in case of updates/changes uncovered in your weekly checkpoints)
• 5-min video demo demonstrating:
  • A description of your early stage idea: The challenge of your choice and the overview of your solution.
  • An explanation of your business model: How does your solution create value and be financially sustainable?
  • Prototype / Proof-of-concept: A minimum viable product that captures how your product functions.
  • Timeline for sustained development: A plan for project's growth beyond the scope of the incubator.

Checkpoints

You are required to submit weekly checkpoints to your mentors via your private team forum. 

Checkpoint Summary

1. Impact Opportunity - Due April 16th
2. Business Model Validation - Due April 23rd
3. Technical Architecture - Due April 30th
4. Impact Measurement - Due May 7th
5. Code - Due May 14th
6. Final Submission - Due May 21st

Please see this full document specifying what is due when:
https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/Weekly-checkpoints-09FvI6B1wAuT7qqVvw7kz

What to Do

1. If you haven’t already, make sure to register for this challenge
2. Update your Topcoder member profile with your current skill set
3. Watch and participate in the forums (https://apps.topcoder.com/forums/?module=Category&categoryID=41808) and begin to form a team of 1 to 6 people
4. Join the Slack domain for this incubator (See Usage Section Below) 
5. Identify a Team Captain. This member will be responsible for submitting your team’s final solution to the Topcoder challenge
6. Team Captains, Sign a team contract (The formal team formation process will open March 28th and be announced in the forums). You will need to provide:
   1. Names, Topcoder Handles, and Email Addresses of your Team Members
   2. Identify which team member is the captain
   3. Identify the prize split at the outset - Most teams do an even split.
   4. You will be required to digitally sign a contract agreeing to these terms
7. Decide which use case you are competing in:
   1. Refugees
   2. Democracy
   3. Hardware
   4. Agriculture
8. Team Captain and All Team Members Register for that Sub-Challenge
9. Receive mentors for your project
   1. You will be provided with a private team forum where the mentors can answer your questions
10. Submit Checkpoints to your Mentor in your Team Private Forum
    1. Upload a zip file or doc file containing your checkpoint content
    2. Mentors will comment/respond in the forum

Slack - What is it for, What is it not?

We've provided a Slack domain for this competition. The details on how to join are in the forum so the link is only available to those registered on this challenge.
What is Slack NOT for?

1. DO NOT ask for specifics about the competition in Slack. Any questions pertatining to the criteria, scoring, or other mechanics of this Incubator MUST be discussed in the forum on this challenge
2. DO NOT directly message BSIC, Consensys, or Topcoder team members in Slack with questions at all. All discussions MUST be discussed in the forum on this challenge
3. DO NOT directly message your mentor in Slack. You will be assigned a private forum on the Use Case challenge to discuss anything with your mentor.

What is Slack for?

1. Socialization of competitiors. To meet, discuss the overall competition enough to find team members with like interests and complimentary skills to your own.
2. Form a private channel with people to discuss team objective, goals, and skills enough to agree to form a team
3. Create a private channel with your team to co-work in real time. Your mentor will not be in this slack channel.

How to Join
Please view this forum thread: https://apps.topcoder.com/forums/?module=Thread&threadID=914879&start=0&mc=1#2254786

Final Submission Guidelines

You will not be submitting anything to this challenge. This challenge is the parent challenge of the four use cases. You will register for, and submit to, the use case challenge of your choice.

This challenge exists for:

1. A singular point of entry into the Hackathon
2. One centralized forum for announcements to all participants