Normally, in a hackathon, projects are judged on what they have accomplished during the hackathon’s period.
Nevertheless, in the reality, it appears that some projects that won a prize haven’t delivered that much and it occurred to me that some have won not only because of what has been delivered, but also for what they have promised. And actually the hackathon prize isn’t only a reward imo but also a way to make sure good projects have enough funds to keep building and delivering.
Hence I think every project should not only build something and then it’s done but have to prepare a roadmap for the “after hackathon”.
Since the prize is meant to help them to achieve their future plans, the funds could be released as the teams reach some milestones. TronDao’s team could then keep in touch with winners, see if they are really building and decide if the milestones are reached or not.
It’s up the each team to decide what the milestones will be. And it would be up to the community and the judges to decide if those milestones (and what has been accomplished during the hackathon) are good enough to deserve a prize. Projects that decide to give up after receiving the first payment at the end of the hackathon wouldn’t get the rest.
It would be a mix between hackathon season one and hackathon season 2/3.
Ideally we shouldn’t have to implement that system. But we’ve seen some projects promising the moon and finally giving up after receiving the prize in season 2. I’m not even sure all the winners of season 3 are already on mainnet.