Mars Hackathon winners announced: The Top 5 projects for the Filecoin x Polygon led Hackathon to win from a collective pool of $30K

Filecoin, an open-source cloud storage network in association with the peer-to-peer storage protocol Interplanetary File System (IPFS), today announced the top 5 winners of their India-focused hackathon Mars Hackathon 2021 launched in partnership with Polygon and organised by Lumos Labs . The top 5 solutions, <BlockSpace Web, DScan, Avatar Metaverse, Digital Verse, Slick) >, stand to receive grants from a prize pool of $30K. Additionally  NTB (NFT.TopBest) received special recognition for their unique solution from program sponsor Huddle, a unique decentralized video conferencing platform, and will receive a grant prize worth $250.

Launched in partnership with Polygon, an Indian layer 2 Ethereum scaling solution and organized by Lumos Labs, a leading technology innovation management firm,  this virtual hackathon spanning over two months is part of the larger Asia Hackathon Season 2021.  With over 1500+ pan-India registrations, this Hackathon successfully featured various innovative ideas across the decentralized sphere including storage, metaverse, entertainment, art, and more. From these, five creative blockchain-based solutions were selected to pitch their visions live at the Mars Hackathon Demo Day. The hackathon requisite solutions differentiated by two tracks including decentralized storage solutions integrating Filecoin/ IPFS to solve everyday problems and building dApps on Polygon using Filecoin and/or IPFS. With Filecoin, IPFS and Huddle’s solution, participants were able to reinvent the decentralized storage world whereas with the Filecoin and Polygon bridge, the participants enhanced their decentralized applications

“We are glad to see such an exciting response from the Indian developer ecosystem to create and be a part of a decentralized future. While the aim of the Hackathon was to empower budding and new developers, we have witnessed sophisticated ideas for a decentralized future filled with efficient storage solutions. These with the correct mentorship and guidance provided through the course of this Hackathon have emerged into relevant real-world solutions with great potential. This was our first initiative in the Indian ecosystem and after witnessing such a competent talent pool, we are very much looking forward to offering more opportunities in the near future ” Angie Maguire – Head Of Growth and Marketing, Filecoin 

The demo day saw the top five winners of the two tracks pitching their cutting edge distinct blockchain-based solutions live. Of these five, there were three winners selected for the Filecoin track:

• BlockSpace Web – a diverse decentralized data and photo storing and sharing platform

• DScan – an easy-to-use, quick decentralized information sharing protocol

• Avatar Metaverse – A metaverse NFT-based personalized avatar creation platform

The two innovative projects that bagged the title for the Polygon specific track included:

• Digital Verse – a blockchain-based platform for the creation, licensing and sale of synthetic videos.

• Slick – a decentralized exclusive content sharing and storing platform

Additionally, NTB (Nft.TopBest), a customizable NFT-minting platform on Discord, was chosen by Huddle to win the Huddle grant bonus for this Hackathon.

“The Indian blockchain industry has been an active and passionate demographic for the blockchain space with new innovative solutions being created every day. During the course of this Hackathon as well, we got to witness their potential and passion once again. Decentralization is becoming a pulsating sector with new innovations being churned out regularly. We are aiming to be a part of this space with more initiatives like Mars Hackathon and hope to see the same enthusiasm and creativity.” Sandeep Nailwal, COO and Co-Founder, Polygon

All five chosen winners stand to receive prizes from a pool of $30K. The two month long Hackathon was organized in partnership with Lumos Labs, a leading expert in running tech innovations programs in India.