New Proposal: Polkadot Pioneers Prize, an Incentive Prize Program
Proposal Abstract: Polkadot Pioneers Prize, an Incentive Prize Program
We are excited to announce a proposal for a new incentive prize program called the Polkadot Pioneers Prize (“Pioneers Prize”).
The Pioneers Prize is a series of challenges created with the goal of propelling technical innovation on the Polkadot network. The first two of those challenges will be announced later this year and will cover categories including zero-knowledge research and Polkadot infrastructure improvements.
Challenge winners will receive DOT; the total prize funds available at program launch will be split between the first two challenge categories and is projected to be 993286.08 DOT — worth roughly 18 million USD.
The Pioneers Prize will be managed by an elected curator and will likely contain members of the on-chain treasury council, Parity Technologies, the Web3 Foundation, and other external ecosystem partners.
In addition to funding research, the Pioneers Prize and its proposal look to model how the community can achieve greater agency by directing on-chain treasury funds in new and creative ways.
We hope you’ll join us in being excited about the Polkadot Pioneers Prize and are equally as eager to see what the community comes up with.
Let the challenges begin!
If you would like to read the full proposal, you can do so here
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Announcing the candidates for the Administrative Curator: Polkadot Pioneers Prize, an Incentive Prize Program
This announcement is to present the candidates for the Administrative Curator, who, upon governance approval, will oversee the new Polkadot Pioneers Prize ("Pioneers Prize"), which was passed as the 10th Bounty via Motion 146 on January 26th 2022.
The Polkadot Pioneers Prize is a bold effort to attract talent, attention, and innovation to the Polkadot Ecosystem. Their contribution as Administrative Curators will impact the program design, igniting innovation, increasing community engagement, and enhancing blockchain technology for everyone.
A multi-signature account ("multisig") with its own on-chain identity will be formed to operate as a united voting body. The on-chain identity will be known as "Polkadot Pioneers Prize Curator" and will be verifiable via the Pioneers Prize Curator email, [email protected], and the Pioneers Prize website. In addition, the multisig will utilize an anonymous proxy account to further increase security and provide better scalability.
The on-chain vote to elect the Administrative Curator will happen once the Pioneers Prize Bounty is officially funded in the next funding period, on February 11th 2022.
Candidates
Alistair Stewart | Head of Research, Web3 Foundation
"As lead scientist for the Web 3 Foundation, I have helped design many of Polkadot's core protocols. We have a cryptography research team and have recently been working on both succinct proofs and ZK protocols for Polkadot. I am also a member of the Kusama council."
Aleixo Sanchez | Technical Grants Evaluator, Web3 Foundation
"As a member of the grants team at the Web3 Foundation, I've had the chance to assess and test hundreds of different projects by different teams in the ecosystem. Before that, I wrote a Master's thesis on a private Zcash bridge at ETH Zürich in collaboration with the Web3 Foundation, and I've since continued to learn about ZK protocols and applications thereof."
Raul Romanutti | Polkadot On-Chain Council Member
"I have been in the on-chain councils for Polkadot and Kusama for two years and my job is to be the liaison of information between the technical teams and the governance bodies in order to satisfy the need of legislation by the community: I generally propose changes, upgrades and submissions on-chain and work with the community to establish the direction of the networks. I also advise teams on treasury spending proposals."
Bryan Chen | Co-Founder of Acala
"I am cofounder of Acala Network focusing on building DeFi protocols for Polkadot & Kusama Ecosystem. I am also one of the top community contributors to Substrate and Polkadot and one of the first Polkadot Ambassadors. I started the first Substrate online course and had more than 300 students in total."
Sota Watanabe | Founder of Astar Network
"I am a founder of Astar Network, a multichain smart contract hub on Polkadot. I joined the Polkadot ecosystem back in 2019 and became one of the first Polkadot ambassadors. In addition to that, I am a founding member of Next Web Capital and one of the directors of Japan Blockchain Association."
If you would like to read more about the Admin Curator, you can do so here