The MIT Bitcoin Expo Hackathon is an annual competition hosted by the MIT Bitcoin Club. This year, the Hackathon was open to anyone, anywhere in the world, and had over 500 hackers competing for prizes. I was originally planning to enter solo, but then something surprising happened. A couple days before the competition, I saw a post in the Hackathon’s Discord from @Arch2230, who had a profile picture resembling an angry goblin with red eyes.
In the post, @Arch2230 made an open request to the Discord group, asking if anyone wanted to start a team. In reading the post, I recognized @Arch2230 was an optimist, an entrepreneur, and a hard worker. So, I responded to the open offer and we agreed to team up. As luck would have it, @Arch2230 turned out to be Archie Chaudhury, an engineering student at Georgia Tech and the most perseverant technologist I’ve ever met.
Our goal for the Hackathon was to focus on the Algorand Challenge because we knew Algorand had the best blockchain technology. The Algorand Challenge called for constructing a self-updating DAO, including a smart contract and voting mechanism. During the 36-hour hackathon, Archie and I hacked together three working prototypes, a live website integrated with a decentralized database, and a GitHub repository with more than one-thousand lines of code.
Our project, Algorand Autonomous, was the top prize winner at the 2021 MIT Bitcoin Hackathon. Since then, we’ve been continuing to develop Algorand Autonomous and begun integrating with the Algorand Network. We’ve added another GitHub repository for Algorand software structures, continued to work on application advancements, and drafted an Algorand Grant proposal. Moving forward, we’re growing fast and sincerely excited to be a part of the Algorand community.
To learn more about Algorand Autonomous or get involved, visit our Hackathon Page, read our White Paper, watch our Award Presentation, or feel free to reach out directly.
To support Algorand Autonomous send ALGO to:
2FOSJDYVKWPRJ5OXT57ZT6SGIEH4MJQX65UQK56UTT5JH3WNT6OHYFK26M