Gaia, a pioneer in decentralized AI development and inferencing, announced the $50k winners of their "Living Knowledge Systems Hackathon" in collaboration with HackQuest, a Web3 developer education and hackathon platform. By making it easier for developers to build and monetize AI Agents on a decentralized network, Gaia is helping to establish a fairer incentive model for knowledge creators in AI.
From the hackathon launch to finale, HackQuest hosted an event series across major tech hubs in China, India, Brazil, Nigeria, Malaysia, and Singapore, engaging over 2,000 developers. Running from August 2024, the hackathon event series includes workshops, meet-ups, hackathons and hacker houses aimed at enhancing skills in deploying Gaia nodes and creating AI agents.
Winner Announcement
The global hackathon drew interests of over 23,000 builders, resulting in 768 participants and 268 submissions that boosted the Gaia ecosystem and decentralized AI. With a $50,000 prize pool, awards were given for innovation, technical complexity, creativity, and impact. Additionally, the top 100 projects earned $50 each from HackQuest as community rewards.
Among a total of 268 projects built by 768 participants across the globe, the following 11 projects were selected as winners due to their exceptional quality.
Please click on the project names below for more information.
The 11 winners were chosen by Gaia judges based on technical complexity, creativity, potential impact, and execution. Each project was scored from 1 to 5, with a maximum of 20 points. The judging panel included Ratish (Head of Community at Gaia), Sydney (Co-Founder and Head of Developer Relations at Gaia), Harish (Developer Advocate at Gaia and Former Community Lead at AngelHack), and Carlos (Developer Advocate at Gaia).
Beyond the five hackathon tracks, the "Digital Twin of a Cultural Icon" challenge tasked teams with developing realistic digital recreations of historical figures, with the top 100 teams each earning $100 for their creativity and innovation.
Sydney, Co-Founder and Head of Developer Relations at Gaia, noted, "The projects we reviewed highlighted strong builders and developer collaboration, which are key to Gaia’s mission. The creativity and practical impact shown by participants reflected well on the potential of decentralized AI.”
In addition to the Gaia-selected winners, community involvement played a vital role in recognizing standout projects. One of the track winners was selected through community voting, enabling participants to engage in peer evaluation and identify leading projects from the perspective of the community. HackQuest allocated a $5,000 prize for 100 community-selected winners, aiming to inspire innovative projects with high potential. Harry Zhang, Co-Founder at HackQuest, noted, “HackQuest encourages both learning and building. We're excited to introduce this community prize to celebrate and support aspiring Gaia builders. It's all about learning while building.”
Looking Ahead: HackQuest and Gaia to Continue Expanding Gaia’s Decentralized AI Hackathon Event Series
The Living Knowledge Systems Hackathon underscores Gaia's mission to decentralize AI, engaging developers and providing valuable feedback to boost contributions to the decentralized AI ecosystem.
Gaia, in collaboration with HackQuest, plans to build on this momentum by hosting additional workshops and hackathons globally. Their partnership focuses on the Gaia Global Hackathon Event Series and the Gaia Learning Track, which equips developers with the skills to deploy Gaia nodes and create AI solutions. Together, they aim to accelerate decentralized AI adoption and develop the talent needed for Gaia's ecosystem.
Looking ahead, Gaia and HackQuest are set to launch more of global events and expand the Gaia Learning Track to further empower developers. These efforts will include more hackathons, workshops, and training programs aimed at fostering deeper engagement with decentralized AI technologies. As Matt Wright, Co-Founder and CEO of Gaia, remarked, "We believe decentralized AI is the key to unlocking the full potential of human knowledge, safeguarding it as a vital resource for future generations."
Follow Gaia and HackQuest on X and join Gaia Developer Group for more resources and events moving forward.
About Gaia
Gaia stands as a trailblazer in decentralized AI technology, dedicated to reshaping the tech industry with a focus on user privacy, transparency, and control. Their cutting-edge open network infrastructure empowers users by ensuring privacy and censorship resistance in daily AI activities through a dynamic network of peer-to-peer edge nodes. This framework fosters the creation and collaboration of innovative AI business ecosystems, benefiting both private data holders and developers. Gaia aims to revolutionize the user experience with AI agents, seamlessly introducing transformative changes while preserving the intuitive technology and satisfaction currently existing in the Web2 era.
For more information, please visit https://www.gaianet.ai/.
About HackQuest
HackQuest is a free, one-stop, self-guided developer education platform. HackQuest offers expert-curated learning paths with on-chain certificates co-issued by leading Web3 ecosystems including Mantle, Solana, Arbitrum, Linea, Sui, Vara, Telos and more. Community builders are supported beyond through co-learning camps, meet-ups, hackathons, and accelerator services.
For more information, please visit hackquest.io.