BSIC Decentralized Impact Incubator Hackathon :: Democracy

The Decentralized Impact Incubator is a 6-week program to ideate and prototype blockchain-based solutions to global social and environmental challenges. During the period, participants from around the 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.

Before you Begin

If you have not already, please register for the overall challenge to get all of the rules, and follow the Incubator-wide communications in the forum there.

https://www.topcoder.com/challenges/30063672/?type=develop&noncache=true

About this Use Case

Secure voting, protected privacy, free flow of information...these ideas empower an equitable, distributed world, but they are also the most susceptible to violations. Blockchain is a “political” “human” technology. The central ethos of the technology is about inclusion and equality, cutting out the intermediary where corruption and collusion breed. Dive deep into the world of democracy, autonomy, and self-sovereignty, and you will see many opportunities for blockchain to benefit the vulnerable populations of the world.

Suggested Readings:

Democracy Is Getting A Reboot On The Blockchain
https://www.fastcompany.com/3062386/democracy-is-getting-a-reboot-on-the-blockchain

Will Blockchain Disrupt Government Corruption?
https://ssir.org/articles/entry/will_blockchain_disrupt_government_corruption

Cryptocurrency Might be a Path to Authoritarianism
Extreme libertarians built blockchain to decentralize government and corporate power.  It could consolidate their control instead.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/blockchain-of-command/528543/            

Blockchain for Development - Hope or Hype?
Read Section: A ten-point checklist for development policymakers and practitioners interested in blockchain
https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/bitstream/handle/123456789/12945/RRB17.pdf

Judging & Scoring

This challenge will be scored by Judges outside this platform, not Topcoder reviewers. The scorecard attached to this challenge will be used as a proxy for the cumultative review of those judges.
Please view the scoring rubric here: https://airtable.com/shryJsiCL6nc2hieb 

Final Submission Guidelines

For Checkpoint Submissions
When your team is formed, you will be provided with a private forum with your mentor on the use case challenge like this one. You will be expected to upload your checkpoint information to the forum for your mentor to see and comment on.

For Final Submissions
You are expected to upload a .zip containing all necessary assets for your submission.

Your zip should contain:

1. All documentation of your project meeting the scoring rubric
2. A README.md in the root file describing your project layout
3. For your video demo, please upload your video to Youtube, mark it as unlisted, and put the URL in your README.md

NOTE: If you are expecting a large filesize upload for some reason (larger than 1GB) please let us know before the submission deadline.