Summary
Nigeria is one of the strongest Blockchain adopting countries in Africa as ranked by Chainalysis and various sources. The blockchain and crypto wave is very popular among the youth who make up at least 70% of the country’s population. These youth’s are found mostly in Universities, polytechnics and Institutions of higher learning in the country and the drive to educate students of the University of Nigeria to be precise, birthed BlockchainUNN (Blockchain University of Nigeria) in 2021.
BlockchainUNN is a campus blockchain club/community at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and all affiliated campuses, committed to providing members with educational backbone of the blockchain industry, to further improve and expand the ecosystem. And we do this through various educational bootcamps, events, hackathons and an annual Blockchain conference. The BlockchainUNN Conference 3.0 themed Blockathon was our third edition.
We proposed the Domain Allocator that Arbitrum become a sponsor of the event, allowing both in-person and social media exposure to over 2,000 technical and non-technical attendees.
We also proposed the presentation of two in-person workshops during blockathon:
- Arbitrum BoLD
- Arbitrum Stylus.
This 3rd annual event featured a dynamic 6-day hackathon and building session designed to onboard the next generation of blockchain builders. Combining workshops, learning programs, networking opportunities, a career fair, panel sessions, and talks from over 10 industry experts, educating and inspiring both technical and non-technical participants.
By having a presence both in the social media and in the workshops, Arbitrum gained an audience of 2,000 users, developers & builders, fostering the use and development of its chain, leading to greater adoption of this scalability solution in Nigeria. Additionally, it helped the African community gain a better understanding of how Arbitrum works and its advantages compared to other L2 solutions.
Blockathon - The BlockchainUNN Conference 3.0 experience
Both the hackathon and conference phase/main event was a huge success:
- more than 1500 conference day attendees
- 180+ hackers at the hacker house, 120 virtual hackers.
- 20 speakers
- 15 Workshops
Hacker House Day 1 photos: lenzvisuals40.pixieset.com/blockathon/
Hacker House Day 2 photos: lenzvisuals40.pixieset.com/blockathonday2/
Hacker House Day 3 photos: lenzvisuals41.pixieset.com/blockathonday3/
Conference Day photos: https://lenzvisuals13.pixieset.com/blockathonconference/
Conference & hackers registration count: BlockchainUNN
In this regard of Arbitrum being one of the official sponsors of Blockathon, we proposed achieving 4 milestones:
- First, securing the sponsorship space and the workshops slots. This was accomplished as soon as the proposal was approved, as our team reserved the space.
- Second, the presence on social media and the brand’s visibility during the event. This was also successfully achieved, as we explain below.
- Third, and what we consider most valuable, is the execution of the workshops during the hackathon phase of the event. We had two great workshops dedicated to showcasing Arbitrum’s technology as discussed. As a premium, we also had an additional 3rd workshop allotted to arbitrum where more innovations on arbitrum ecosystem were exposed.
Media & Brand Presence (2nd Milestone)
As soon as the sponsorship was approved via the Domain Allocator, we announced on social media that Arbitrum was once again a sponsor of Ethereum Argentina:
This post was published on social media platform X and also shared on Instagram, [Facebook] (Redirecting...) and LinkedIn. We posted on various social media platforms to reach a broader audience beyond just those who follow crypto Twitter. BlockchainUNN aims to not just attract students of the University of Nigeria to the ecosystem, but also everyone from other schools and other parts of the world too.
Additionally, during the event, the Arbitrum brand was prominently displayed alongside the main sponsors on the main flyer:
You can also find this on [X (Twitter here)] (x.com)
Arbitrum was also featured on our website as a platinum sponsor:
Workshops (3rd milestone)
No 1: Getting Familiar with Arbitrum (@Kevin_Chibuoyim - Arbitrum Ambassador & Lead, ArbOnCampus ).
Live streamed Recording On Youtube(in English)
@Kevin_Chibuoyim gave a detailed breakdown on arbitrum, diving deep into it’s architecture, the characteristics of a rollup, and all that makes the tech unique. Tweet.
No 2: Arbitrum Stylus - The Ultimate Developer tool (@kevin_chibuoyim - Arbitrum Ambassador & Lead, ArbOnCampus)
@Kevin_Chibuoyim started the talk by discussing what’s currently happening in Arbitrum, providing an excellent opportunity for everyone to get up to date and then went straight into Arbitrum Stylus, which enables developers to build on Arbitrum using other programming languages such as Rust and C++. Tweet.
Premium: Arbitrum Orbit Chains & Arbitrum BoLD - (@emenike_sage - CM, ArbOnCampus)
Emenike delved deep into how to create a Layer 3 with Arbitrum Orbit. The workshop centered around how to deploy your own Layer 3 using Orbit technology. In this workshop, the benefits of building with Orbit technology over other L2 stacks were explained. And a detailed workshop on arbitrum BoLD was done too. Tweet
At BlockchainUNN, we believe that the development of Arbitrum’s technology is crucial for the growth of the ecosystem, so we aim to bring it closer to more developers
Final Thoughts
There was tremendous interest from local developers! The room was packed during the Arbitrum workshops and lots of questions were asked too:
The workshops and the talk successfully brought Arbitrum closer to both developers and ecosystem enthusiasts. Through these technical demonstrations, detailed explanations, and discussions on new features, participants not only gained a better understanding of how Arbitrum’s technology works but were also motivated to contribute to the ecosystem’s growth.
We are very grateful to the DAO for the opportunity to have Arbitrum as a sponsor of “Blockathon” - the BlockchainUNN Conference 3.0 experience, and we hope you are just as pleased with the results as we are. We’ve seen firsthand how interest in Arbitrum continues to grow steadily in our country.
Thank you, and We look forward to collaborating on similar initiatives in the future!