If you’re active in the Solana ecosystem or the crypto space, you’ve probably encountered the Solana Renaissance Hackathon by the Colosseum Organization.

Firstly, what is Colosseum?

Colosseum is an organization that organizes 2-3 Solana online hackathons a year and invests in startups that win the hackathons. Typically, Colosseum runs a five-week accelerator program where founders of startups that win the hackathons are invited. Founders accepted into the accelerator program will receive benefits like one-on-one mentorship from professionals, access to an exclusive network of builders/founders in the industry, weekly educational sessions, guidance throughout their startup journey, and a pre-seed investment of $250,000 each as capital to properly kickstart their project.

In order to determine who enters the accelerator program, an online hackathon is usually held. Winners of these hackathons would have their projects built within or revolving around the Solana ecosystem. Solana Foundation itself invests in the Colosseum venture fund.

What is the Solana Renaissance Hackathon?

The Solana Renaissance Hackathon is this year’s first global Solana online hackathon that brings together new builders who wish to build their projects within the Solana ecosystem. This hackathon is an initiative by Colosseum and the Solana Foundation to support the next generation of Solana builders. It is the ninth Colosseum hackathon hosted. Typically, some of these projects are not yet officially launched and are probably in the ideation stage. The one-month hackathon required builders to create profiles to register, find their teammates, explore ideas on what to build within the provided tracks, build demos for their projects, and submit them on or before the deadline.

With hundreds or thousands of submissions recorded for each hackathon they’ve hosted in the past three years since launching, choosing the winners is surely going to be a tough one.

Renaissance Hackathon submission started on the 4th of March 2024 and ended on April 9th, 2024 (yesterday). Aside from the chance to join the Colosseum accelerator program, three other categories of projects (best public goods project, best climate-related project, and the best project built by a university student) will each be granted $10K. This was no doubt a massive opportunity for builders, whether selected or not. Over eight thousand builders participated in this hackathon and over 1,000 projects by these builders are currently being reviewed and the winners will be announced on the week of May 6th.

With the Renaissance Hackathon submission deadline closed, this article aims to shed light on some of the innovative entries by members of Superteam NG.

SuperteamNG: Africa’s SuperteamDAO Chapter

In case you’re unfamiliar, Superteam NG is a Nigeria-based chapter of SuperteamDAO. SuperteamDAO is a community of talents who come together to create opportunities for learning and earning in crypto, empower Solana projects, and boost the Solana ecosystem entirely.

Some of their earning opportunities come in the form of content creation contests (which you might have come across), bug bounties, design contests, job posts, etc. Various Solana projects sponsor some of these contests to reward individuals who participate in them and also to spread the word about their products. They also have learning opportunities like the Solana ecosystem call, Idea Bank, etc.

In its bid to reach Solana-based projects in various parts of the world, Superteam has chapters in various countries like Superteam India, Superteam UK, Superteam Brazil, Superteam Mexico, Superteam Vietnam, Superteam Turkey, Superteam Philippines, Superteam Germany, Superteam UAE, Superteam Malaysia, and Superteam Nigeria (NG).

The recently concluded Solana Renaissance Hackathon had submissions from all over the globe, some specifically from various chapters of SuperteamDAO. SuperteamNG was not left behind as the team recorded over twenty submissions from their members (Nigerians). It’s amazing to see the amazing project ideas entered by Nigerians for this hackathon.

In a subsequent article, we’ll highlight and explore some of these innovative projects entered by the SuperteamNG members.

Stay tuned.