Last updated 3 months ago
The Vietnamese community is lacking Hackathons to build the Cardano platform, which leads to a lack of connection to the 21 million cryptocurrency users and 530 thousand potential engineers in Vietnam
Expand the community through a Hackathon to build a team of students and programmers who will be willing to contribute and have direct access to Cardano.
Please provide your proposal title
Cardano Blockchain Hackathon 2026 in Vietnam
Enter the amount of funding you are requesting in ADA
60000
Please specify how many months you expect your project to last
3
Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated
No
Original Language
en
What is the problem you want to solve?
The Vietnamese community is lacking Hackathons to build the Cardano platform, which leads to a lack of connection to the 21 million cryptocurrency users and 530 thousand potential engineers in Vietnam
Supporting links
Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?
No
Describe any dependencies or write 'No dependencies'
No dependencies
Will your project's outputs be fully open source?
Yes
Please provide details on the intellectual property (IP) status of your project outputs, including whether they will be released as open source or retained under another licence.
All event related materials are open source.
Please choose the most relevant theme and tag related to the outcomes of your proposal
Hackathons
Who you’re targeting, how you’ll reach them, and why this matters for Cardano?
We are targeting university students and early-career developers in Vietnam, especially those studying computer science, information technology, economics, and engineering. These young builders are the next generation of founders, protocol engineers, and product teams for Cardano.
We will reach them through our existing network of partner universities and student clubs across Vietnam (Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang and other cities), together with local tech communities and Cardano user groups. Our activities include on-campus roadshows, online info sessions, Cardano 101 workshops, social media campaigns (Facebook, Zalo, X, Discord), and direct collaboration with lecturers and club leaders to promote the hackathon and provide basic onboarding before the event.
This matters for Cardano because Vietnam already has strong Cardano activity, but there is still a very large pool of students and young developers who have never built on Cardano. A dedicated national hackathon lowers the entry barrier, gives them a concrete first project, and creates new teams, prototypes, and community leaders who can continue into Project Catalyst, ecosystem grants, or production dApps, strengthening Cardano’s developer base in a strategic region.
Provide a list of key activities of your project:
Design hackathon themes and challenge statements aligned with real Cardano use cases (DeFi, identity, governance, education, etc.).
Formalise partnerships with universities, student clubs, and ecosystem partners; secure mentors, judges, and sponsors.
Run a pre-hackathon onboarding program:
Marketing and outreach campaign across universities and online channels (social media, email, dev communities).
Organise a 2–3 day national hackathon event:
What are your success metrics?
Example target KPIs for the hackathon:
Please describe your proposed solution and how it addresses the problem
1. Problem We’re Solving
Vietnam is a major but underdeveloped opportunity for Cardano. It is one of the world’s largest crypto markets, with tens of millions of users and a very large pool of software engineers and IT students. Yet, compared with competing ecosystems, Cardano has very limited visibility on campus and in local developer communities.
There has been no dedicated Cardano hackathon in Vietnam in recent years, while ecosystems like Solana, Aptos and general Web3 programs are running large, well-funded hackathons that attract thousands of young developers. At universities, students mostly hear about Ethereum, Solana or other chains; Cardano is often perceived as “hard to build on” and lacks accessible Vietnamese-language learning paths.
As a result, talented students and young builders in Vietnam are being captured by other ecosystems, and Cardano is missing out on a strategic pipeline of future founders, protocol engineers, and product teams. The core problem we want to solve is this awareness and onboarding gap between Vietnam’s talent pool and the Cardano developer ecosystem.
2. Why a Cardano Blockchain Hackathon 2026?
Universities in Vietnam are the largest “talent ecosystem” in the country: they concentrate young engineers, economists, and entrepreneurs who will shape the next wave of Web3 innovation. A national Cardano hackathon is the most efficient way to:
Instead of one-off talks, the hackathon model combines education, hands-on building, mentorship, and competition. It compresses the learning curve into a memorable flagship event that can be repeated annually and scaled to more cities. Cardano Blockchain Hackathon 2026 aims to become the signature Cardano builder event in Vietnam, anchoring long-term engagement with the ecosystem.
3. Solution Details
Format & Scope
National hackathon focused 100% on Cardano, hosted in Vietnam (core venue in Hanoi, with participants from Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang and other cities).
Duration: 2–3 day in-person hackathon (plus online pre-event onboarding).
Participants: Target 150–200 builders, forming 30–40 teams.
Tracks / themes (example):
Outputs: Working prototypes deployed on Cardano testnet or mainnet, public pitches, and open-sourced code repositories.
In the weeks leading up to the event, we will run a short pre-hackathon program (online + on-campus) to help students form teams, learn the basics of Cardano, and arrive at the hackathon with prepared ideas.
Workshop Topics Include:
Pre-hackathon and on-site workshops will cover:
Security, best practices, and how to ship maintainable, production-ready Cardano applications.
Organization & Implementation:
Core organizers: A dedicated organizing team with experience running blockchain events in Vietnam and building on Cardano (including student blockchain clubs and local Cardano communities).
Partners: Universities, student clubs, Vietnamese Cardano communities, and ecosystem projects providing mentors, judges, and prize sponsorships.
Event structure:
Materials: Vietnamese slide decks, starter repos, challenge descriptions, and documentation that participants can reuse after the event.
4. Importance to Cardano
Cardano Blockchain Hackathon 2026 directly addresses a critical strategic gap: the lack of a visible, dedicated Cardano builder program in one of the world’s most important crypto and developer markets.
By focusing on university students and young developers, the hackathon:
In short, this hackathon turns Vietnam from a “missed opportunity” into an active engine of builders for Cardano, with measurable impact on developer growth, project pipelines, and long-term ecosystem resilience.
5. Why Expand Cardano in Vietnam?
Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community
This project turns Vietnam from a “silent audience” into an active engine of builders for the global Cardano ecosystem. By running a national, Cardano-only hackathon in a country with a very large and fast-growing developer base, we directly grow the pool of people who can meaningfully contribute code, tools, and products to Cardano over the next 3–5 years.
Developer growth & new contributors.
The hackathon will onboard hundreds of students and young engineers who have never shipped a Cardano dApp before. Through structured workshops, mentoring, and hands-on building, participants leave with real repositories, deployed prototypes, and a clear understanding of how to work with Cardano infrastructure. These teams become new contributors to open-source libraries, wallets, indexers, and dApps that the global community can reuse.
Pipeline for Catalyst and ecosystem grants.
We will actively support top teams to continue beyond the event by mentoring them into Project Catalyst proposals or other ecosystem grant programs. Over time this creates a recurring pipeline of Vietnam-based teams submitting high-quality proposals, increasing the geographic diversity of funded builders and bringing fresh perspectives and use cases to Cardano.
Reusable educational assets in Vietnamese.
All workshop materials, examples, and starter code will be produced in Vietnamese and published openly. This fills a known gap in non-English developer education, enabling meetups, universities, and community groups across Vietnam (and the wider Vietnamese diaspora) to run their own study groups and mini-hackathons using these resources.
Strengthening global community links.
By involving international Cardano projects as mentors, judges, and partners, the hackathon builds bridges between Vietnam and the wider Cardano community. This leads to collaborations on tooling, cross-regional dApps, internships, and research, contributing to a more globally connected and resilient ecosystem rather than isolated local communities.
Long-term ecosystem resilience.
Finally, by establishing Cardano Blockchain Hackathon 2026 as a recurring flagship event, we create a predictable yearly “heartbeat” for Cardano builder activity in Vietnam. Each edition brings a new cohort of trained participants, new ideas, and new open-source contributions, compounding over time into sustained growth of Cardano’s developer base, user adoption, and brand strength in a strategically important region.
What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?
Blockchain Pioneer Student Club fully understands the importance of trust and accountability when building on Cardano. As a pioneering blockchain student organization in Vietnam, we have built a strong track record through educational initiatives, public events, and successfully delivered Catalyst-funded projects with transparency, efficiency, and a community-first approach.
We have successfully organized previous cardano hackathons:
Cardano Blockchain Hackathon Vietnam 2024
Cardano Blockchain Hackathon 2025

In addition, we have organized seminars to connect speakers and founders of prominent projects on Cardano such as: Minswap, C2VN, VTechCom...
Most recently we also had the opportunity to meet with the IOG team and discuss some of the activities we have been contributing to building the Cardano ecosystem.
Validation of Feasibility
To ensure effective financial management, we will adopt the following strategies:
To validate the viability of our approach, we will use both quantitative and qualitative measures:
Quantitative Validation:
Identity Validation:
Transparency and communication are fundamental to us. We prioritize open dialogue with all stakeholders, provide regular updates, and foster a collaborative atmosphere so that everyone is involved in the project’s progress.
Milestone Title
General planning and event design
Milestone Outputs
Plan the entire Cardano Blockchain Hackathon Vietnam 2026 event
Design media publications and event posts
Create a list of media partners supporting the event
Implement communication on social media platforms
Acceptance Criteria
A comprehensive plan page with full details such as: date, time, event location, media posting plan
Fully designed publications, publicly shared
List of at least 10 event media partners
Posts are publicly shared
Evidence of Completion
Link to the master plan page
Link to the designs
Link to the partner summary page
Link to the post summary page
Delivery Month
1
Cost
18000
Progress
30 %
Milestone Title
Event deployment
Milestone Outputs
Organize 2 workshops to introduce the platform and tools to build on Cardano
Organize 4 intensive training sessions to build dApps on Cardano
Organize the final round of the Hackathon event
Acceptance Criteria
Successfully organized 2 workshops, the posts about the workshop images were shared publicly.
Successfully organized 4 intensive training sessions, the posts about the workshop images were shared publicly.
Successfully organized the event final round, the posts and recap videos of the event were widely shared on social networks
Evidence of Completion
Link to the conference posts
Link to the masterclass posts
Link to the video and images of the event finals recap
Delivery Month
2
Cost
18000
Progress
60 %
Milestone Title
Evaluation and Reporting
Milestone Outputs
Acceptance Criteria
Evidence of Completion
Delivery Month
3
Cost
24000
Progress
100 %
Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources
Here are the costs for the entire event:
Venue rental (2 Conference Room, 4 Classroom, 1 Large Hall): 10,000 ADA
Speakers, mentors & judges honoraria (speaker, mentor, judges): 10,000 ADA
Design, filming & photography: 5,000 ADA
Gifts, swag & branded collateral: 5,000 ADA
Marketing & online promotion: 2,000 ADA
On-site materials (standees, banners, badges, stationery): 2,000 ADA
Hackathon prize pool: 20,000 ADA
Event organization and coordination team: 6,000 ADA
==> Total: 60,000 ADA
How does the cost of the project represent value for the Cardano ecosystem?
Our requested budget delivers high developer reach and long-term ecosystem value at a relatively low cost, especially given Vietnam’s lower operating costs compared to Western markets.
1. Majority of funds go to direct ecosystem impact
The budget is structured so that most costs are tied directly to delivering value for builders and the Cardano ecosystem, not overhead:
Administrative overhead and coordination are kept lean by using an experienced local team and existing university / student-club structures.
2. High leverage per ADA spent
With a single budget, we aim to:
Measured on a “cost per trained builder”, “cost per project prototype”, and “cost per university partner activated” basis, this hackathon delivers strong leverage for the requested funding.
3. Reuse, recurrence, and compounding returns
The hackathon is designed as a repeatable model:
This means the impact of the initial funding compounds over several years as cohorts of builders, projects, and partnerships grow.
4. Local execution, global benefit
Running the hackathon in Vietnam captures the advantages of local cost levels (venue, logistics, staffing), while the resulting projects, tools, and contributors serve the global Cardano community. In other words, the budget buys more developer hours and more experimentation than in many other regions, while still producing open-source outcomes and new teams that any Cardano stakeholder can collaborate with.
For these reasons, we believe the requested budget represents strong value for money: it converts a relatively modest investment into a scalable pipeline of developers, projects, and educational assets for the wider Cardano ecosystem.
I confirm that the proposal is a non-technical initiative, with ≤20% of the budget for tech support.
Yes
I confirm that the proposal provides verifiable evidence (portfolio, links, reports) of the team's ability to deliver the project.
Yes
I confirm that the proposer and all team members are in good standing with prior Catalyst projects.
Yes
I confirm that the proposal includes clear objectives with both Output Metrics (what proposal did) and Adoption-Focused Metrics (what effect proposal had).
Yes
I confirm that the proposal clearly explains the user journey and provides a credible plan for how the project will equip and motivate users for future on-chain activity.
Yes
I confirm that the initiative clearly demonstrates how it will grow the Cardano ecosystem or onboard users.
Yes
I confirm that the project plan and timeline (≤ 12 months) are realistic and well-defined.
Yes
I confirm that the proposal commits to public outputs and justifies any exceptions.
Yes
I confirm that the budget adheres to all policies: it is for future work, follows the merchandise rule, and excludes establishing local treasuries, incentives/giveaways, re-grants.
Yes
I Agree
Yes
Our club has more than 50 members in many different departments and areas of expertise. We are a trusted partner of the entire network of students and programmers in Vietnam, a pioneer club in the field of blockchain in the student community in Vietnam. Here are our social media pages:
The event management team includes:
Thanh Khuat Dinh - President
Experiences:
Contact:
Trung Do - Head of Foreign Affairs
Experiences:
Contact:
Thuong Pham - Head of Communications
Experiences:
Contact:
Vy Chu - Deputy Head of Communications
Experiences:
Contact: