I am delighted to have taken part in NEAR Metabuild III hackathon, it was a thrilling experience! 😊🚀😃 ⚖️ However, after discussing with other participants, we all concurred that the main issues we faced was with payments and the influence of the human factor. Despite being an innovative and powerful ecosystem, payments took 2.5 months to be distributed to the hackathon winners. 📃 Moreover, there were issues with the prize shift: one project that was originally in the first place was disqualified a few days after the prize announcement. My project was then moved to the first place, but when I received payment, it was for the second place. 😫 All discussions to solve this issue proved futile and two other projects were also affected by this shift, and they expected to receive a different payment amount. 📈 On a positive note, we were all glad that the NEAR token price had increased since December and covered this gap. However, for future events, there is a possibility of a negative scenario where the longer we wait, the more chances there are of receiving a different USD amount. ✅ Here's my proposal for future hackathons: - Participants pass KYC, sign documents and connect NEAR wallet before submission. - After the deadline, judges can check all projects and vote for them. - When the voting period ends, the smart-contract can transfer payments to the winners. 🤖 In general, this process can be more automated, with some tasks being processed before project submission and automatic payments. I believe the whole process, from winner announcement to prize distribution, can take no more than two weeks. ℹ️ Note: I don't want to blame anyone, I just want this process to improve in the future and avoid additional failures. I am continually building projects on NEAR ecosystem and plan to participate in future hackathons with hope of process improvements. 🤞Resolving the prize shift issue would greatly benefit the top 3 winners of the hackathon, and it is not big amount for NEAR Foundation.