
# Overview

SNI&#39;s Winter 2022 Hackathon is a 3-day online event + 1-day showcase. Sovereign Nature Initiative (SNI) is a non-profit foundation that is building on Kusama and has brought together multiple partners and engineers from the **Kusama ecosystem** including [Kodadot](https://nft.kodadot.xyz/), [Unique Network](https://unique.network/), [Kilt Protocol](https://kilt.io/), and [Ocean Protocol](https://oceanprotocol.com/), for **two contests** taking place in two separate areas of SNI&#39;s focus. One for tech innovation in the form of a hackathon, and the other as a creative writing competition with NFT generation. Both competitions&#39; results will be showcased in a special &quot;Experimental Zone&quot; in-person event planned for May 21-22 at [De Ceuvel](https://deceuvel.nl/en/) Amsterdam. The pledges we are seeking from the Council will provide prizes to the winners of both contests.

**Venue** : Odyssey Momentum online Hackathon, and De Ceuvel, Korte Papaverweg, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

**Time** : February 4th-6th 2022 and May 21st-22nd 2022

**Beneficiary address:**
G2bC9gtyHBkxmg65nZiZ7pbrV7PMLNXUTwr6dqMUk8KDxXG

**Submitter address:**
 G2bC9gtyHBkxmg65nZiZ7pbrV7PMLNXUTwr6dqMUk8KDxXG

# **Community Spend &amp; Deliverables**

The pledges we are seeking from the Council will provide prizes to enhance the reach and impact of these programs – 15,000.00 USD in prizes for the winners of the contests, which will encourage them to continue building their DApps to full fruition, in a final collaborative effort between SNI and both the contest winners.

### Amount to spend from the community pool

15,000.00 USD in KSM equivalent

### Timeline

 By Jan 27th 2022

### How will funds be spent

All the funds will be given as the prizes to the winners of the contests. As follows:
```
+------------------------------------------+---------------+
|            Contest Breakdown             |    Amount     |
+------------------------------------------+---------------+
| 1st place for the Winter Hackathon       | 10,000.00 USD |
| 1st-5th place prizes for Writing Contest | 5,000.00 USD  |
+------------------------------------------+---------------+
```

# **Why this proposal?**

We believe in Kusama&#39;s approach to innovation and its community has proven very supportive to SNI&#39;s cause.

Indeed, two Kusama parachain projects, namely Unique.Network and Kilt Protocol, have agreed to support the 28 SNI Hackathon teams by helping them build their solution. Unique.Network will offer NFT minting support and build a marketplace that creates value through NFTs transaction for the benefit of the regenerative projects at De Ceuvel. Kilt Protocol will offer to the teams&#39; developers support on how to work with the KILT SDK, and integrate the Kilt&#39;s Verifiable Credentials and DID into their Hackathon solutions.

By getting the councils financial support, the winning team will be able to further develop their solutions after the Hackathon, and further explore and use technology within the Kusama ecosystem. Moreover, this financial support will further the reach and impact of our events, enabling more regen/refi initiatives to be recognized as important players within the Kusama ecosystem.

# **1. About the Tech Hackathon**

We will conduct an **Online Hackathon** from February 4th-6th, asking teams to develop ideas in **3 categories** with possible approaches listed here:

- **representation of non-human life**
  - Artistic expressions in digital media that bring to the public narratives from other forms of life that share our existence and that we co-depend to have a thriving planet
  - Story-telling, UI, UX, user journeys, that aim to broaden the understanding of the public towards other living beings&#39; realities and expressions
- **governance models**
  - Web3 software solutions that tackle a particular aspect of governance for conservation, regeneration, and remediation efforts
  - Treasury management and proposal voting systems
  - New legal/technical governance models, such as a declaration of independence for non-human species
  - Land Stewardship (&quot;Land Trust&quot;) and models of public/private/nature governance
- **nature value capture**
  - NFTs as an approach to value generation/eco-awareness where value remains &#39;in&#39; specific land/ecosystems
  - Creative ways to remunerate data collection about ecosystems
  - Regenerate-to-earn models to incentivize nature stewardship
  - Data analytics and feedback as an autonomization of conservation practices

The 28 teams participating in the event will be encouraged by the judging criteria to build the business and architecture models on top of the Kusama ecosystem, specially the hackathon partners, for a DApp that helps the DeCeuvel organization with another income stream based on its on-site Nature, sensors data, and soil remediation efforts. Learn more about the [SNI Winter Hackathon here](https://sovereignnature.com/projects/odyssey2022).

To participate the teams contacted us via an on-line questionnaire and application form, that was available on our website, twitter, and other media presences. After that the participants were interviewed and vetted. Then they joined a series of events to learn about the De Ceuvel and the Kusama ecosystem partners.

The competition has a prize currently composed of donations - 10,000 $OCEAN and 3,000 $POP - and €5,000 fiat prize from SNI. In addition to that, some $KILT and $RARE will be given out to ramp-up participants to build on the protocol.

**Ultimately through this programming we seek to develop tools which can give nature an identity and make it profitable.**

## Judging Criteria

The judges of the hackathon in collaboration with stakeholders from De Ceuvel will be looking for the DApp ideas that show original and radical thinking while being grounded in technology and applications that can be used by people, and that have potential for practical impact.

Judging criterias are divided into:

- **Originality** - does it do something entirely novel, or at least take a fresh approach to an old problem? A great idea should wow both the judges and other hackers.
- **Usefulness** - is the idea for the App practical? Is it something people would actually use? Does it fulfill a need people caring for De Ceuvel really have?
- **Learning** - did the team factor in all their disposable resources and time in order to come up with the final product? How strong is their awareness of how others are attempting to solve the same problem?
- **Adherence to Theme** - does the idea for the App adhere to the event&#39;s themes - the De Ceuvel, the 3 categories, and the Kusama and partners ecosystem? Does it implement each theme fully or just partially?

A score card will be given to each Judge to help assess each DApp idea based on the criterias and scores.

## Hackathon Event Schedule

**February 4: 3 pm - 5 pm** - Hackathon opening convening

SNI presents the challenge and welcome Teams to give a two-minute presentation of their initial ideas and vision

**February 5: 1 pm - 6 pm** - Advisors sessions and Judges visits

Teams meet with Advisors from diverse fields and Judges to validate what they are building. All these meetings will happen in the SNi metaverse

**February 6: 5 pm** - DELIVERABLES DEADLINE

Teams send all deliverables by email to the SNI team

**February 6: 5 pm - 7 pm** - PITCH session

Teams will have a 7-minute slot to present their solutions.

**February 7: 5 pm - 6.30 pm** - Announcing the winning teams

Upon the announcement, winners will be invited to briefly present their solution to the audience and receive (digital) applause and congratulations.

## Judges and mentors

- [**Danielle Bennett**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielleabennett), Investor, Blueyard
- [**Trent McConaghy**](http://trent.st/), Co-Founder, Ocean Protocol
- [**Karl Burkart**](https://www.oneearth.org/contributor/karl-burkart/), Deputy Director, OneEarth.org
- [**Ewald Hesse**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/edhesse/) **:** Co-Founder &amp; Supervisory Board Member, SNI; CEO &amp; Co-Founder, Grid Singularity
- [**Andrea Leiter**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-leiter/) **:** Co-Founder, SNI; Associate Professor of International Law at University of Amsterdam
- [**Catherine Bischoff**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherinebischoff/) **:** CEO of SNI

# **2. About the Nature Speaks Writing Challenge**

In the arts sector, we will host and judge an **open creative-writing competition** called _ **&quot;Nature Speaks!&quot;** _ asking for original nature-inspired literature that broadens human perception and helps us question nature&#39;s otherness. Creative writers, especially those working in web3 / online spaces and innovative publishing platforms, are invited to submit an original work of prose or poetry in the &#39;voice&#39; or from the point of view of one or more nonhuman organisms (plant/animal) or any other aspect of nature. Winners and runners-up will see their writing published in an online publication, featured at the Experimental Zone event in Spring 2022, and the first prize winner will see their writing published and minted as an NFT using the support of the Unique.Network parachain.

## How can people participate?

Individuals can submit their pieces by March 15 via a [Google form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfLu7ehHHwlOLSiMuBlMIfva2kWfak1TiDM0bzEzNRm3QfZcg/viewform?vc=0&amp;c=0&amp;w=1&amp;flr=0) accessible via the Sovereign Nature website.

If anyone has questions about Nature Speaks! Literature competition, they can get in touch with SNI Writer in Residence and Challenge lead Seth Bockley at: seth@sovereignnature.com

## Why A Writing Competition?

We at Sovereign Nature Initiative believe that art empowers wider and wilder engagement with our world and with the mysteries of nonhuman life. We believe that writing alongside nature can broaden human perception and help us question nature&#39;s otherness. We want to think about ourselves and our language as a metaphor for nature, and not just nature as a metaphor for us. We believe that storytelling has the ability to empower and inspire human communities to listen and look more carefully, to smell, taste and touch the deeply entangled world around us.

We&#39;re inspired by storytellers and thinkers like [Rainer Maria Rilke](https://gnomelife.bandcamp.com/album/be-earth-now-joanna-macy-anita-barrows-recite-selections-from-rainer-maria-rilkes-the-book-of-hours), [Sophie Strand](https://www.instagram.com/cosmogyny/), [Richard Powers](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40180098-the-overstory), [Wendi Yan](https://eco.mirror.xyz/8_z5JQrhmCAVSU6vi4V7_r7M6HQ-pOWuAVdTNPPtIJY) and [Robert Macfarlane](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2688775-the-wild-places).

## Why Kusama and NFTs?

A work of creative writing is like the experience of an organism in the world: it is non-fungible, non-repeatable, unique. Artists and writers capture the value of human-nonhuman entanglement beyond what we can quantify using standard economic and ecological models. We believe NFTs can help these same artists value and share their work– this technology has already greatly impacted the visual arts ecosystem but has yet to make an equivalent impact on literature. As always, SNI wants to be ahead of the curve and anticipate and pioneer how the most powerful nature-writing of the future will be valued and published.

## The Prizes

The grand prize winner will see their writing made into an NFT by \*[Unique.Network](http://unique.network/).

The winner and runners-up will split a bounty of $5,000 USD in KSM equivalent and be published on SNI&#39;s website, and featured in our digital compilation _Leaves of Grass 2.0_ at SNI&#39;s Experimental Zone event held at Amsterdam&#39;s De Ceuvel in May of 2022.

A judging committee made up of writers and scientists will determine winners based entirely on the originality and affectiveness of the works submitted.

At every resale of the artwork 10% of royalties will be donated to a rewilding or conservation campaign designated by the artist and SNI at time of the NFT&#39;s creation.


# **About Sovereign Nature Initiative**

Founded in 2019, Sovereign Nature Initiative (SNI) is a non-profit Netherlands-based foundation that is reconfiguring the intersection between ecology, economy, and emerging web3 technologies, and aims to **achieve a thriving planet by reconfiguring nature&#39;s value.** To support this vision, SNI&#39;s tech stack is being developed in Substrate while we host hackathons to engage developers communities and get their constant feedback. We have brought together multiple partners and engineers from the Kusama ecosystem including [Kodadot](https://nft.kodadot.xyz/), [Unique Network](https://unique.network/), [Kilt Protocol](https://kilt.io/), and [Ocean Protocol](https://oceanprotocol.com/), and are looking for any other initiative in the Kusama ecosystem that is willing to help us **break the cycle of human domination over &#39;nature&#39;**. Our February 2022 Hackathon is inspired by [De Ceuvel,](https://deceuvel.nl/en/about/general-information/) a post-industrial reclaimed former shipyard in North Amsterdam that operates as a sustainable planned workplace for creative and social enterprises, a unique land trust, and a laboratory for new ideas. Together with other stakeholders who are part of the SNI ecosystem, the top three winning teams will be invited and have the opportunity to showcase their ideas at a public event at De Ceuvel in Amsterdam in May 2022.

## Applicants:

[**Ewald Hesse**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/edhesse/) **:** Co-Founder &amp; Supervisory Board Member SNI, CEO &amp; Co-Founder at Grid Singularity

[**Florian Schmitt**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/florianschmitt/) **:** Co-Founder &amp; Supervisory Board wMember

[**Andrea Leiter**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-leiter/) **:** Co-Founder at SNI, Associate Professor of International Law at University of Amsterdam

[**Catherine Bischoff**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherinebischoff/) **:** CEO at SNI

[**Jean-Paul Depraz**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauldepraz/) **:** CTO at SNI

[**Seth Bockley**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-bockley-b4273a212/) **:** Writer-in-Residence at SNI

[**Kaidlyne Neukam**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaidlyne-neukam/) **:** Program Manager &amp; Communications

[**Alessandro Mazzi**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alessandro-mazzi-7a445970/) **:** Project Manager &amp; Partnerships

- SNI is hosting a hackathon and creative writing competition focused on nature and technology.
- The hackathon will take place online from February 4th-6th, and the writing competition is open for submissions until March 15th.
- The winners of both contests will receive prizes totaling $15,000.
- The hackathon will focus on developing DApps that help with conservation and governance models.
- The writing competition asks for nature-inspired literature from the perspective of nonhuman organisms.

#128 SNI’s Winter 2022 Hackathon Prizes