VeChain, a leading enterprise-grade L1 public blockchain, has announced the winners of its most recent hackathon hosted at the University of Cambridge in partnership with Web3 educational mobile app, EasyA, and with participation from global consulting firm, Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The hackathon encouraged the development of VeChain-powered VeBetterDAO platform, a sustainable ecosystem designed to incentivize enterprise and individual positive impact with the $B3TR incentive token, and resulted in over 50 X-2-Earn projects.
- VeChain track winner: Meatless, an application incentivizing consumers for buying sustainable food products.
- BCG track winner: EcoNex, an application promoting eco-friendly travel by offering incentives to commuters for choosing sustainable transportation methods.
- ‘Shark Tank’ Pitch-a-thon track winner: LogiQ, an application designed to streamline freight-sharing among commercial trucks, boostong transport efficiency and fostering sustainable practices.
Winners of all projects were awarded a portion of $30,000 in prize money and the opportunity to access additional funding was announced at the event. Projects were judged by a panel of industry experts, including Dr. Bernhard Kronfellner, Partner and co-lead of the digital asset and blockchain group at Boston Consulting Group, and Mark Miller, CEO & Co-Founder of Manta Ray EV, and assessed based on their ability to address the developer tracks outlined for the hackathon, namely, X-2-Earn sustainability applications leveraging the $B3TR token.
Built by an ex-Amazon engineer and computer scientist from the University of Cambridge, Meatless incentivizes people to make sustainable food choices by rewarding them with $B3TR. In doing so, the application combats unsustainable food production at no cost to food manufacturers by indirectly subsidizing their products, while enabling sponsors to have an attributable direct impact.
“The developers who participated in our hackathon should be proud of their contributions to the VeBetterDAO ecosystem—in a sense, they are responsible for spurring its development by finding ways to make sustainability a part of our daily activities,” said Antonio Senatore, CTO of VeChain. “The innovation we witnessed over the weekend provided a window into the future, one in which individuals and enterprises are incentivized to act sustainably in any given sector—be it hospitality, freight shipping, health, or other—, making the world a better place.”
EcoNex incentivizes individuals to opt for eco-friendly commuting options by rewarding sustainable travel activity with the $B3TR token. The application therefore addresses the multifaceted, negative aspects of urban congestion, which include higher commute times, loss of productivity, excessive fuel consumption, and the significant carbon footprint associated with conventional transportation methods. The platform will benefit from the VeChainThor blockchain’s ability to provide tracking and validation of eco-friendly transportation behaviors in real-time, ensuring transparency and trust in the reward system.
“Our industry-focus of the BCG track helped to create more targeted solutions to issues existing within it,” commented Bernhard Kronfellner. “The results were impressive, showcasing how strategic thinking and creativity can coalesce into viable, real world solutions, powered by blockchain. This is just a taste of what the world will look like in a few years from now, once the enterprise world has fully embraced the technology and all of its benefits.”
The winner of the Pitch-a-thon category was LogiQ, a marketplace for free and excess space in trucks around the UK. The platform’s goal is to minimize deadheading in the traditional road logistics services, which is the misallocation of space in traditional truck logistics transportation systems, resulting in trucks not running at full capacity or at times, running empty.
This event marks VeChain’s first hackathon of the year, debuting a series of hackathons to further the development of the VeBetterDAO ecosystem. The BCG track, designed to hone in on one specific industry per hackathon and the issues faced by enterprises within that sector, further reinforces VeChain’s mission to empower developers to build the next generation of sustainable enterprise applications.
About VeChain
Founded in 2015, VeChain is the sustainable Web3 ecosystem that empowers individuals and enterprises to foster global positive impact. VeChain’s energy-efficient public blockchain, VeChainThor, provides the infrastructure for enterprises and developers to build applications sustainably, without requiring prior coding knowledge. Through partnerships with some of the world’s largest enterprises, such as BYD, PwC, and Walmart, and a dedication to developer empowerment, VeChain is spearheading the adoption of blockchain technology for enterprises and millions of global users, bringing meaningful change to the world through an emphasis on sustainability.
About EasyA
Founded by brothers Phil and Dom Kwok, former alums of Cambridge University and The Wharton School, EasyA is the world’s leading Web3 learning app. EasyA has one of the world’s most talented and largest developer communities globally, with over 500,000 developers at top universities and companies across the US and UK. Startups founded by the EasyA community have been funded by a16z, YC and many more top VCs.
EasyA partners with over 250 of the world’s best blockchain clubs such as the Harvard, MIT and Cambridge Blockchain clubs and frequently ranks as one of the top apps on the App Store, having won Apple’s prestigious App of the Day award.