In the Maasai Mara, landowners, wildlife, and tourism depend on one another for survival. The impact of COVID-19 has brought tourism to a standstill, jeopardising the revenue previously realised, and threatening to bring the ecosystem down.
The Maasai people lease their land to conservancies to earn an income, which preserves the land for wildlife conservation. The land is in turn licensed to tourism operators who generate revenue through eco-tourism. In the face of lost and uncertain lease income, individual conservancy landowners may be forced to sell and/or convert their parcels of land to agriculture, effectively destroying one of the most promising and innovative conservation strategies in Africa.
An international program of support for this delicate ecosystem has been established with international organisations providing funds to ease the stress lost income in the ecosystem. Donors are however worried that the funds disbursed might not get to the intended beneficiaries.
In this competition, you are invited to submit proposals for a DeFi application that can serve as a payment system for the Maasai Mara tourism sector. The top 8 proposals will be invited to a physical hackathon in the Maasai Mara, Kenya, and the overall winners will receive prizes, as well as access to funding, startup accelerator programmes, mentorship and other resources to build out their solution.
Please note this is not a machine learning hackathon, it is the first phase of a larger hackathon hosted by Mara.
What to build
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) applications are built on top of blockchain platforms, and aim to provide financial services that are typically provided by centralised institutions such as banks, lenders, or insurance companies. You should build applications that ensure parties in the Maasai Mara ecosystem can have visibility into the disbursement process and ensure the intended beneficiaries are credited.
Your solution should be able to serve anyone, anywhere, no matter how remote. This includes serving areas of low internet penetration and low smartphone adoption. The solution must:
About Mara
Mara, through its foundation, is the port of entry for blockchain capacity building in Africa. Crypto, Web 3, and blockchain education are at the heart of everything we do at the Mara foundation. We want to impact one billion lives in five years.
We focus on the return on impact by empowering organizations, youth, communities, marginalized populations, and problem-solvers to build blockchain solutions to promote long-term beneficial social and environmental change in Africa.
Note that there are no leaderboard scores for this competition, as evaluations will be completed by a panel of judges.
Judging Criteria
Other benefits include:
Please note that the first four stages must all be completed before the 5th of August for your team to be eligible for the fifth and final stage to be held in the Mara.
Join the Mara Discord and Telegram channels to start engaging with fellow builders and creators.
Register the team on Zindi. Participation in the hackathon is dependent on completing Stage 1. Only registered members of Discord & Telegram can participate in the hackathon. Each individual must fill out this Google Form to participate.
Guidelines:
Every team that has successfully registered will be required to take a short practical test on HackerRank for the first level of shortlisting.
Guidelines:
The shortlisted teams will be required to send in their ideas for the hackathon. This is a team effort and will ensure that the team discusses the hackathon and think of innovative solutions to be built during the hackathon. This is the second stage of shortlisting.
Guidelines:
After the second stage of shortlisting, the top 8 teams will be invited to come to Kenya for the hackathon. The invitation will be sent on the 15th of August, 2022.
The teams will be required to build solutions on the Mara Testnet as well as using partner APIs and the top 3 solutions based on the following set of criteria will win the prizes;
Benefits of participating in the hackathon include;
We reserve the right to update the contest timeline if necessary.
Note you must fill this Google Form to participate.
Eligibility
Interested members of the public who are resident on the African continent are invited to apply to join the Hackathon. Individuals who apply must be older than 16 years, and must have the required skills and permission to participate. Shortlisted teams would be required to travel down to the Ishara Mara in Kenya, to participate in the one-week physical hackathon.
It is the responsibility of shortlisted participants to apply and get a visa that gets them into Kenya. Mara would provide introductory letters to the Kenyan embassy in whatever country they are joining from.
Mara would cover the cost of the flights, and reimburse successful team members upon arrival in Kenya for the visa processing fees upon providing relevant receipts.
(the above are collectively, “Entrants”)
If a Team or Organisation is entering the Hackathon, they must appoint and authorise one individual (the “Representative”) to represent, act, and enter a Submission, on their behalf.
By entering a Submission on behalf of a Team or Organisation you represent and warrant that you are the Representative authorised to act on behalf of your Team or Organisation.
*The members of an individual’s immediate family include the individual’s spouse, children and stepchildren, parents and stepparents, and siblings and stepsiblings. The members of an individual’s household include any other person that shares the same residence as the individual for at least three (3) months out of the year.
**Agents include individuals or organizations that in creating a Submission to the Hackathon, are acting on behalf of, and at the direction of, a Promotion Entity through a contractual or similar relationship.
***An affiliate is: (a) an organisation that is under common control, sharing a common majority or controlling owner, or common management; or (b) an organisation that has substantial ownership in, or is substantially owned by the other organisation.
Intellectual Property Rights
All submissions remain the intellectual property of the individuals or organisations that developed them. By submitting an entry, entrants agree that the sponsor will have a fully paid, non-exclusive license to use such entry for judging the entry. Entrants agree that the sponsor and Zindi shall have the right to promote the submission and use the name, likeness, voice and image of all individuals contributing to a submission, in any materials promoting or publicising the Hackathon and its results, during the Hackathon Period and for three years and one year (respectively) thereafter. Some Submission components may be displayed to the public. Other Submission materials may be viewed by the sponsor, Zindi, and judges for screening and evaluation.
By submitting an entry or accepting any prize, entrants represent and warrant that (a) submitted content is not copyrighted, protected by trade secret or otherwise subject to third party intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights, including privacy and publicity rights, unless entrant is the owner of such rights or has permission from their rightful owner to post the content; and (b) the content submitted does not contain any viruses, Trojan horses, worms, spyware or other disabling devices or harmful or malicious code.
Language Requirements
All Submission materials must be in English or, if not in English, the Entrant must provide an English translation of the demonstration video, text description, and testing instructions as well as all other materials submitted.
Team Representation
If a team or organisation is entering the Hackathon, they must appoint and authorize one individual (the “Representative”) to represent, act, and enter a Submission, on their behalf. The Representative must meet the eligibility requirements above. By entering a Submission on the Hackathon Website on behalf of a team or organisation you represent and warrant that you are the Representative authorized to act on behalf of your team or organisation.
Intellectual Property: Your Submission must: (a) be your (or your Team, or Organisation’s) original work product; (b) be solely owned by you, your Team, your Organisation with no other person or entity having any right or interest in it; and (c) not violate the intellectual property rights or other rights including but not limited to the copyright, trademark, patent, contract, and/or privacy rights, of any other person or entity. An Entrant may contract with a third party for technical assistance to create the Submission provided the Submission components are solely the Entrant’s work product and the result of the Entrant’s ideas and creativity, and the Entrant owns all rights to them. An Entrant may submit a Submission that includes the use of open source software or hardware, provided the Entrant complies with applicable open source licenses and, as part of the Submission, creates software that enhances and builds upon the features and functionality included in the underlying open source product. By entering the Hackathon, you represent, warrant, and agree that your Submission meets these requirements.
Financial or Preferential Support: An App must not have been developed, or derived from an App developed, with financial or preferential support from the Sponsor or Administrator. Such Apps include, but are not limited to, those that received funding or investment for their development, were developed under contract, or received a commercial license, from the Sponsor or Administrator any time prior to the end of Hackathon Submission Period. The Sponsor, at their sole discretion, may disqualify an App, if awarding a prize to the App would create a real or apparent conflict of interest.
Entry Conditions and Release.
The Released Parties are not responsible for incomplete, late, misdirected, damaged, lost, illegible, or incomprehensible Submissions or for address or email address changes of the Entrants. Proof of sending or submitting the aforementioned will not be deemed to be proof of receipt by the Sponsor or Administrator. If for any reason any Entrant’s Submission is determined to have not been received or been erroneously deleted, lost, or otherwise destroyed or corrupted, the Entrant’s sole remedy is to request the opportunity to resubmit its Submission. Such a request must be made promptly after the Entrant knows or should have known there was a problem and will be determined at the sole discretion of the Sponsor.
Publicity
By participating in the Hackathon, Entrant consents to the promotion and display of the Entrant’s Submission, and to the use of personal information about themselves for promotional purposes, by the Sponsor, Administrator, and third parties acting on their behalf. Such personal information includes, but is not limited to, your name, likeness, photograph, voice, opinions, comments and hometown and country of residence. It may be used in any existing or newly created media, worldwide without further payment or consideration or right of review, unless prohibited by law. Authorised use includes but is not limited to advertising and promotional purposes.
General Conditions
Limitations of Liability
By entering, all Entrants (including, in the case of a Team or Organization, all participating members) agree to release the Released Parties from any and all liability in connection with the Prizes or Entrant’s participation in the Hackathon. Provided, however, that any liability limitation regarding gross negligence or intentional acts, or events of death or body injury shall not be applicable in jurisdictions where such limitation is not legal.
Disputes
SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE LIMITATIONS OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO THE ABOVE LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.
Additional Terms
Please review Mara’s Terms of Service at https://mara.xyz/terms for additional rules that apply to your participation in the Hackathon and more generally your use of the Hackathon Website. Such Terms of Service are incorporated by reference into these Official Rules, including that the term "Poster" in the Terms of Service shall mean the same as "Sponsor" in these Official rules." If there is a conflict between the Terms of Service and these Official Rules, these Official Rules shall control with respect to this Hackathon only.
Entrant’s Personal Information
Information collected from entrants is subject to Mara’s Privacy Policy, which is available at https://mara.xyz/privacy.
Anti-Harassment
Submissions and winning
You may make a maximum of 1 submission per day. You may make a maximum of 1 submission for this competition. There is no public/private leaderboard.
You acknowledge and agree that Zindi may, without any obligation to do so, remove or disqualify an individual, team, or account if Zindi believes that such individual, team, or account is in violation of these rules. Entry into this competition constitutes your acceptance of these official competition rules.
Mara reserves the right to disqualify upon Zindi notifying Mara if we believe that you violated the rules or violated the spirit of the competition or the platform in any other way. The disqualifications are irrespective of your position and completely at the discretion of Mara.
Please refer to the FAQs and Terms of Use for additional rules that may apply to this competition. We reserve the right to update these rules at any time.
Consequences of breaking any rules of the competition or submission guidelines:
About Circle (circle.com)
We help businesses accept payments and send payouts globally in one unified platform. Move digital money leveraging traditional payment rails and do business in a more global, scalable and efficient way through blockchain infrastructure. Circle seamlessly connects these worlds.
About United Nations Foundations (unfoundation.org)
We act as a strategic partner to help the UN mobilize the ideas, people, and resources it needs to deliver, and grow a diverse and durable constituency for collective action. We focus on issues at the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals, build initiatives across sectors to solve problems at scale, and engage influencers and citizens who seek action. Partnership, and the power of smart and strategic collaboration, is in our DNA. We believe everyone has a part to play, everyone’s voice should be heard, and everyone has a stake.
About Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (data4sdgs.org)
A global network using data to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals—improving lives, fighting inequality, and promoting environmental sustainability.
About Ishara Mara (ishara.ke)
Ishara is an immersive safari experience steeped in African splendour. Uniquely situated in one of the most sought-after locations in the Masai Mara National Reserve, game sightings within the vicinity of the camp—even just outside your tent—are frequent and astonishing.
About Antler (antler.co)
Founded in Singapore in 2017 by a team of experienced entrepreneurs, investors and company builders, Antler is a global early-stage VC enabling and investing in the world’s most exceptional people. With offices across most major startup hubs globally, Antler is passionate about supporting exceptional people to fundamentally improve the world.