Milestone 1: EasyA x Polkadot Developer Growth via In-Person Hackathons and Crash Courses (#180DaysOfPolkadot)

Short Description: EasyA builds on the massive success of its 2023 #60DaysOfPolkadot campaign which educated 40,000+ new developers on Polkadot and launched over 100 new projects. How? By running a 6-month long Polkadot educational campaign in the EasyA app and hosting two dedicated in-person Polkadot hackathons at Harvard University (USA) and in London (UK).

Supported by:

This proposal is supported by the Acala, Astar, Bifrost, Composable, Crust, KILT, Moonbeam, OAK, OriginTrail, Phala, Polimec, Tanssi and Unique Network parachains, as well as ecosystem projects including Subsquid, SubQuery, Gear and others. We will open the opportunity for all ecosystem teams to get involved too since this is an ecosystem-wide project.

As we did in our hugely successful 2023 Polkadot campaign (#60DaysOfPolkadot) where we partnered with 8 parachains/ecosystem projects, we will educate our massive community of 750,000+ developers on Polkadot and its parachains/projects both online and in-person. This ecosystem-wide campaign will build on the huge success of our #60DaysOfPolkadot initiative which went viral, bringing 40,000 new developers into the Polkadot community. EasyA will then invite the best of these developers to two in-person hackathons to build and pitch their ideas in front of ecosystem teams and enthusiasts.

Location: Harvard University (USA) and London (UK) as well as virtual (via developer educational challenges in the EasyA app)

Timeline: February to July, 2024

Requested Allocation: USD $370,000 (in-person hackathons and crash courses for Polkadot, including prize money for winners)*

*DOT amount calculated via EMA30 on 15 Feb 2024 at GMT+0 1830hrs: 1 DOT ~ USD$7.103. USD$370,000 ~ 52,090.67 DOT

Target Metrics:

KPI	Target 🎯
Developers starting crash course	48,000
Developers completing crash course	40,000
In-person hackathon attendees	500
Participating Polkadot parachains/projects	8
Hackathon projects	100
Social Media Impressions (LinkedIn/Twitter/TikTok/Instagram, YouTube etc)	10M+

We have put together our full roadmap into a highly-detailed, 24-page proposal here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oa9jWLlNHd24YF_WyHFCIrPoBvMFASqbgvzcfzW8Vd0/edit?usp=sharing

We have created this proposal by listening closely to the Polkadot community (including developers, parachains/projects, network participants and more) and targeting the key goals (as well as pain points) with which they explained that they need support. We are posting this proposal after having made a discussion post where we heard even more awesome feedback from the community! If you have any questions or suggestions, please do let us know!

– Phil and Dom (EasyA Co-Founders) and the EasyA Team

Project: EasyA's "180 Days of Polkadot" campaign aims to educate developers on Polkadot and its ecosystem.
Success: The campaign builds on the success of the 2023 "60 Days of Polkadot" initiative, which brought 40,000 new developers into the Polkadot community.
Support: The campaign is supported by various Polkadot parachains and ecosystem projects.
Events: The campaign includes two in-person hackathons at Harvard University and London, as well as virtual educational challenges.
Timeline: The campaign runs from February to July 2024.
Funding: The requested allocation is $370,000, which includes prizes for hackathon winners.
Goals: The campaign targets 48,000 developers starting the crash course, 40,000 completing it, and 100 new projects from the hackathons.
Community: The proposal was developed based on feedback from the Polkadot community.