Wasn’t satisfied with the whole process but i guess it’s a first shot and mistakes were bound to be made. With DAO governors doubling down as team members, there was a huge display of nepotism which isn’t supposed to be present in a DAO due to its decentralized nature. I urge the DAO to do better next time to avoid such things from happening in the future. Transparency is KEY to the operation of any DAO and this applies here as well.
My name is Ebuka Arinze, the Project Manager of the just concluded Harmony Naija DAO Virtual Hackathon. I was the governor who managed the Hackathon, and my role involved planning, executing, and general coordination of the hackathon. I always count it a privilege to serve the DAO, and I have always given my best. This would never change.
Some issues have come up regarding the Hackathon process. I would like to point out that we were as just and open with the process as possible, and to the best of our abilities. There were AMAs, open discussions, and several times teams questions were attended to. We wanted this to be a huge success, and put our best efforts into ensuring this. However, we are not oblivious of possible human errors that can occur, or mistakes. We are grateful for the existing community, knowing that we are pushing for ONE cause.
Again, I would love to reiterate that governors are first community members. And the DAO is community first. This means that they have the right to participate in community programs. Amongst the Hackathon participants, we had just a Governor, Seyi, of team Dexfiat. To maintain fairness, we excluded Seyi from all administrative functions regarding the program. There was no preferential treatment for him, as with all participants in the competition. All submissions are public, and everyone can verify this. You can review the entire registration list from the hackathon to validate my point. You can find the link below for the sake of transparency.
We divided the governors into two groups. Three Governors in one group were Hackathon judges. We informed the community of this decision consistently, and there was no objection at any point. We even had an open AMA session with all the judges, and all teams were present during the kickoff call on Discord. The other 5 Governors were allocated to manage and follow up with teams participating in the hackathon. Each team can confirm that they had a Governor check in with them during the course of the Hackathon.
You can review the list of judges from the hackathon from the official hackathon website (http://hackathon.naijadao.one/) and review the allocation of the remaining governor to supervise teams participating in the hackathon by viewing the team grouping on our discord channel (Discord)
Also, in the spirit of fairness and transparency, judges did not have access to information on participating teams and their projects. The 5 governors coordinating and managing the hackathon had a private channel on Discord where they deliberated on hackathon-related matters. No judge, even Governor judges, were not aware of information going on here. Relevant information was made accessible to judges during judging time, as we continued to uphold transparency.
You can find details of their judging in the link below to see how they scored and judged each team. The link below shows the raw judging by each of the judges that participated in the judging process.
And the link below shows the summarized update of the judges’ scores and teams’ compiled positions.
We gave the judges judging criteria to judge by, and We communicated this to everyone several times, and it has been available on the official website of the hackathon (http://hackathon.naijadao.one/). We also communicated the method of judging to the community and the judges several times.
The participation and judging process was fair, honest, and transparent.
I would also like to point out that if the community required that only the eternal judges’ result be used for the grading, we can go with this. But every judge was allowed room to give honest, bias-free positions on each project. We also created feedback options so teams could know what to work and improve on, even after the Hackathon.
We have ensured that all the links and documents that carry the hackathon event information have been made public to the entire community, and we have done our best to make things as transparent as possible.
On telegram, a community member pointed out that I have a hacker role on discord. As the administrator of the discord server and key organizer of the hackathon, I ensured I had all the roles to ensure I managed all the channels appropriately. I saw a comment where I was asked who wrote out a comment for me, and I find that very disrespectful. Maybe I should introduce myself a bit again. I am Ebuka Arinze, First Class Graduate of Civil Engineering from the University of Benin, Nigeria. I am a recipient of the Tony Elumelu Foundation Award for Entrepreneurship in Africa, with three start-ups running successfully, amidst several honorary awards. I would request that the community member note this, and not talk down on my proven intellectual capabilities over slight misunderstandings on Telegram.
This has been a successful event, and I am happy for the winners. I hope this clears every doubt of transparency and fairness by the community members. We are open to learning and growing as a DAO, and I believe in the greater things we would achieve, together, in this space.
members only aired their view on the wrong doings happening in the DAO, there was no insult to your person intended. Every member has the right to give their opinions on issues, that’s what the community did today. Moving on from this whole drama, things in the DAO should be done in more light. Selfish interest of GOVERNORS are detrimental to growth.
The selfish interest of GOVERNORS in the DAO will only bring further complications. To ensure a free and fair event, the whole judging process should have been live with reviews and comments from judges as they deliver their verdict. The judges should also have been external individuals, not Governors with selfish interest. Let’s try to do things better henceforth for a better ecosystem. We shouldn’t be having such issues when we are just kicking off. We are ONE.
It’s sad that we have to still address issues like this . Community members are unaware of a lot of things going on within this DAO . All we are asking for is transparency and we are not sugar coating it . Transparency is the key functionality that DAO’s propose . So when certain groups try to act like Center authorities , its our obligation as DAO members to confront such issues. A whole lot of issues were addressed as regarding the Hackathon on the Telegram group but you are here telling us about your qualifications like we do not have qualifications too. The truth remains that we have to continually build the DAO with the full support of the community members . Nobody is undermining your capabilities as a Governor or as a first class graduate , all we are asking is that the issues addressed be given adequate attention and the progress of the DAO should be of utmost priority . We are ONE.
Sure, the judging process could have been better… But you are wrongfully accusing the Governors… Judges were external and there was no foul play… the winning project won because the external judges liked the project
On the score sheets, you can see the score each judge awarded each project… Does it look like the 2 internal judges colluded to make DexFiat win? There were judges from outside the DAO and their scores also affected the results… You have made unfounded accusations
I hope you’re doing very well.
I must say I commend the effort of every governor and personnel involved in seeing the successful completion of the very first Harmony NaijaDAO Hackathon.
Congratulations to every team who competed in this hackathon, Y’all are the real MVPs and to the winner of the Hackathon, go make the community proud.
Referencing a few observations raised by the community members and @savvy on a suspected foul play in the hackathon rules and process. It’s noteworthy that every individual in the Harmony NaijaDAO is first a community member before a leader in any capacity, as backed by the harmony platform. Hence, a sitting governor may decide to contest as a hacker in the hackathon.
Also, speaking of having no members of the NaijaDAO governors as judges for transparency’s sake, take a moment to filter the results in the link shared by @Ebuka_Arinze and isolate the allocated scores of the external judges (Toni, George and Giv) alone and you’ll realise the results remains the same. We may have reservations about some things but we should try as much separate attacking one individual as opposed to raising observation as @Ebuka_Arinze mentioned.
I’ll once again commend the entire team of governors for making public a detailed set of information about the hackathon for transparency’s sake In adherence to what the Blockchain ideology preaches and accountability. Many hackathons do not share publicly the judge’s score sheet and other internal details but as a community, this information has been made readily available for the world to see and I must say I have no issues with the judging criteria and process, and I stand by the results of the hackathon published.
We all want the best for this young community which is growing, our differences shouldn’t jeopardise all the efforts that have been invested into making this community a success.
Let’s all join hands together, Buidl this community, make mistakes together, learn from the mistakes, grow together as a community and set to achieve the set goal.
I believe with this, we’ll eventually get this ever bullish DAO to the moon.
hey there…I’m Jeff from teamX and I’m simply ecstatic as this was my first hackathon where I actually won something…although it’s not first place getting second isn’t too shabby…I learnt a lot during this hackathon, especially how wild and exciting web3 can be…I’m a full stack developer primarily and this was my first deep dive into the blockchain…safe to say I’m hooked and going to try my hand at a lot more web3 projects !..As regards the topic of transparency and fairness…I believe the governors were as transparent as possible about all the things regarding the hackathon…all information and documents were made public and there were several online meetups before the actual hackathon started…I believe anyone that feels this was not transparent is either standing for their personal interest, not active in the community/meetings or is not reading the update and comment on this thread.
The governors did an okay job and all in all I’m grateful for the experience and oppurtunity…Thank you Harmony, thank you NaijaDAO.
From the docx he dropped there’s a team where one judge dropped two verdicts on one product with different scores. It’s available for you to check it out yourself, How do you explain that?
You believe we’re not active in the meeting/community but for some reason this is your first time commenting on here , How were you not aware of this platform if you’ve been so informed from the start?
In the case of the team (Cry8) that a judge (@giv : The Judge from the Harmony core team) reviewed twice, we did our calculation of the two reviews and selected the one with the highest result to favor the team in question. The first review gave a score of 55, and the second gave a score of 51. We used the first score, as seen in the judging summary.
It is very obvious when you look at the point entered in the judging summary sheet.
All the documents are there for the community to review further.
So you are trying to tell me that @giv reviewed a particular project twice. @giv can you please confirm this as a fact that you reviewed a project by Team Cry8 twice?
These weren’t duplicates Sir , they had totally different scores attached to them from you @giv because the Hackathon manager clearly stated that you reviewed it twice.
!..As regards the topic of transparency and fairness…I believe the governors were as transparent as possible about all the things regarding the hackathon…all information and documents were made public and there were several online meetups before the actual hackathon started…I believe anyone that feels this was not transparent is either standing for their personal interest, not active in the community/meetings or is not reading the update and comment on this thread.