Top Teams in 2021 RZRBlock Hackathon Win Over $20,000 in Cash, Prizes

Team pitches from the 2021 RZRBlock Hackathon — including the winning efforts of Inoculus in the Open Track and Doge Dogs in the Student Track — are now available for everyone to view. Prizes for the top three teams in each track totaled more than $20,000.

The month-long RZRblock Hackathon is hosted annually by the Blockchain Center of Excellence, which was established in May 2018 within the Department of Information Systems in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas.

Video of the pitches and other events during the 2021 hackathon are available in the event playlist on the Walton College YouTube channel.

There were a total of 75 participants in the hackathon across 17 teams, with members of the winning teams coming from the United States, Canada, Europe and India.

Winners in the Open Track and Student Track were:

Open Track

  • First place: Inoculus
  • Second place: Team 404 Not Found
  • Third place: SpaceChain

Members of the Inoculus team were Ryan Decker, Jenna Wilson, Megan Moore, Lauren Saunders and Wilson Chaney.

Student Track

  • First place: Doge Dogs
  • Second place: #teamname
  • Third place: Tokens

Members of the Doge Dogs team were Ian White, Patrick Doyle, Graham Brown and Kevin Schoelz.

First place winners in each track received $5,000 and a five-month WeWork Labs membership.

The team placing second in the Student Track won $2,500 and a Ledger Nano S cryptocurrency wallet from Copied Code. Second place in the Open Track also won $2,500 plus Blockchain Foundations for the Internet of Value. The two third-place teams received $1,000 and a hackathon hoodie or t-shirt.

The month-long 2021 RZRblock Hackathon was a free, virtual competition open to students and professionals from the community.

The hackathon was kicked off on Friday, March 5, featuring Jed McCaleb, programmer and serial blockchain entrepreneur; company use-case presentations and technical workshops exploring different blockchain platforms, and the winners were announced April 9.

Students and professionals were able to engage with industry professionals and build solutions for real world, blockchain-enabled use cases.

The 2021 RZRblock Hackathon received generous support from a number of event sponsors including:

  • R3
  • Algorand
  • AWS Educate
  • Stellar Development Foundation

Support also came from Blockchain Center of Excellence board members: Walmart, Tyson Foods, J.B. Hunt Transport Inc., ArcBest, EY, Microsoft, IBM, Golden State Foods, FIS, McKesson and FedEx.

The teams made video pitches based on use case scenarios submitted by participating companies. The companies and the use cases they submitted were:

  • VeriTX - Digital Blockchain Ecosystems in Space
  • TeriTX - Green Manufacturing with ESG Ratings
  • Microsoft - Vaccination Blockchain
  • Microsoft - Blockchain Automation
  • Algorand - Open NFT Platform for Creators
  • R3 - Logistics: Behavior-Based Driver Insurance
  • R3- Agriculture: Product Characteristics
  • Heifer Project International - Decentralized Social Impact Blockchain
  • American University and University of Arkansas - Digital Health Passport
  • IBM - Prediction of On-Time In-Full Purchase Orders
  • Golden State Foods - Blockchain Platform Compatibility/Interoperability

Members of the other winning teams were:

Team 404 Not Found

  • Nathan Smith
  • EJ Chronister
  • Abigaile Jancyte

SpaceChain

  • Morgan Smith
  • Pradeep Kumar Prakasam
  • Jothan Tsheidi
  • Shi Yin
  • Kannan M

#teamname

  • Samuel Frolick
  • Matthew Showman
  • Felix Santos
  • Mary Steiner
  • Xiangxiang Ou

Tokens

  • John Kiefner
  • Justin Lowenstein
  • Maxwell Gee
Contacts

David Speer, senior director of communications
Sam M. Walton College of Business
479-575-2539, dlspeer@uark.edu

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