- Colosseum will now run Solana’s hackathons and accelerator program, taking over from the Solana Foundation. Colosseum will run 2-3 annual online hackathons with up to $600,000 in prizes and manage a 5-week accelerator for winners.
- Colosseum aims to improve the developer experience on Solana with better documentation, tools, and abstraction of complexity to make building apps easier.
- By running hackathons and an accelerator, Colosseum wants to grow the number of developers building products on Solana. Previous hackathons attracted 60,000 participants who launched 4,000 products.
The Solana Foundation has handed over management of its hackathons and accelerator program to Colosseum, an online platform focused on driving builder adoption in the Solana ecosystem. Colosseum will run 2-3 annual online hackathons and manage the Colosseum Accelerator, a 5-week program for hackathon winners.
Colosseum to Run Hackathons and Accelerator Program
Colosseum will run online hackathons with up to $600,000 in prize money. Hackathon winners can join the 5-week Colosseum Accelerator program and receive $250,000 in seed funding. Teams in the accelerator get ongoing developer support, mentoring, and access to the Solana ecosystem and customers. At the end of the program, founders pitch to investors on demo day.
Improving the Developer Experience on Solana
According to Colosseum co-founder Matty Taylor, Solana’s technology stack has become much more developer-friendly over the past two years. Better documentation, tools, and abstraction of complexity now make it easier to build apps on Solana. Solana’s previous hackathons have attracted over 60,000 participants who launched 4,000 products and raised over $600 million in funding.
Growing the Number of Solana Developers
Colosseum aims to increase the number of developers building blockchain products on Solana. While open-source developer counts only show a portion of ecosystem developers, Solana’s overall developer numbers grew through late 2022. Colosseum will continue these efforts by making Solana development accessible to more technical founders through hackathons and accelerator programs.
