More Than 400 Developers Joined Neo’s Polaris Launchpad Hackathon

[Singapore, April 26, 2022] – Following the judge panel awarding multiplier rewards to early bird teams competing in Neo’s Polaris Launchpad Hackathon phase, interest in the event has climbed, with over 400 developers already joining to launch their projects on Neo’s N3 across Metaverse and NFTs, DeFi, DAOs, and more.

In Neo’s first Launchpad Hackathon of 2022,  it seeks to find unique talent and foster business ideas to enrich Neo’s N3 ecosystem, draw more end-users to Neo, and increase the NEO token utility. The teams compete not just for $500k in prizes but also for ongoing business incubation support and the potential to tap into $200m in Neo’s EcoBoost grant resources.

“Our first Launchpad Hackathon of the year is already proving to be far beyond my initial expectations. I am thrilled to see so many talented, creative developers seeking to launch their businesses on Neo’s N3. Being close to all participating teams, I get to see them develop and grow as Web3 leaders. I’m bullish about their potential and am eager to see what the next couple of years will bring, not just for Neo but for the entire crypto space. With so much talent and potential emerging, I see a very bright future ahead for our industry,” said John Wang, Head of Neo Eco-Growth and one of Launchpad’s community mentors.

A hackathon like no other

With Polaris Launchpad, unlike most hackathons, Neo is going far beyond simply rewarding developers for improving and debugging their protocol. The Polaris Launchpad aims to be the North Star leading developers in bringing ideas into life and giving their projects a home within the Neo’s N3 ecosystem. Neo’s N3 is like no other protocol–interoperable with numerous programming languages it offers a choice between C#, Python, Java, and Go and is ready to implement dApp solutions such as Neo native oracles or decentralized file storage. 

When asked why Neo is investing so many resources into supporting and putting out training opportunities for Polaris Launchpad’s participants, John deVadoss, President of Neo Global Development Enterprise answered, “We’re looking for developers who have the drive, creativity, and passion to establish their businesses within our N3 ecosystem. They can build their smart contracts on Neo in the programming languages they know best, and we’re offering workshops and community mentors’ support to give their projects a level playing field, regardless of how advanced their team’s technical skills are. Having a unique idea and understanding the space comes first.”

Neo’s community gets a vote as well

As Neo N3 is a community-governed and community-driven ecosystem, Neo’s community naturally gets a vote to support any of the submitted hackathon projects, whether or not they qualify for a Grand Prize or Excellence Award. On June 8, Polaris Launchpad moves into the final phase of the hackathon, Polaris Plus.

Here, Neo’s community will get to decide the winners. As the heart and soul of Neo, it is key for the Neo community to have a voice in supporting the projects that NEO token holders want to see and interact with within the ecosystem. NEO token holders will be able to use their funds and vote for their favorite projects. Neo will then match the community votes through quadratic means, amplifying the voice of the community.

About the Neo Launchpad Hackathon Series

The Neo Launchpad hackathon series is built to help developers succeed with Web3 and foster the ongoing expansion of a thriving ecosystem built on the Neo N3 blockchain. Neo Frontier Launchpad, the first Neo hackathon on Neo N3, took place in 2021, attracting more than 700 participants and 95 teams.

It resulted in 11 winning projects–all of which received post-hackathon incubation support and are now building on Neo N3. The event gave birth to up-and-coming DeFi, crowdfunding, NFT-centric, and other innovative projects such as Humswap, ToTheMoon, Rentfuse, Lyrebird Finance, and more.

Neo Polaris Launchpad now takes the hackathon series to the next level with an expanded prize pool and opportunities for post-hackathon business incubation support through Neo’s USD 200m EcoBoost program. 

About Neo

Neo is an open-source, community-driven blockchain platform established in 2014. It is the most feature-complete blockchain platform for building decentralized applications. Neo enables developers to digitize and automate asset management through smart contracts. Neo also provides powerful native infrastructures such as decentralized storage, oracles, and domain name service, providing a foundation for the next-generation internet. 

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