Gear Technologies is the company behind the Gear protocol, an innovative substrate-based WebAssembly smart contract platform that promises to introduce a new paradigm for decentralized application development in the Web3 industry. The Gear’s unique technology stack includes the actor model and persistent memory, which provide native asynchronous messaging and parallel computing.

Not only focused on technological development, the company has placed a great emphasis on providing grassroots education on blockchain technology, Web3 development, and naturally the Gear smart contract platform. This has come in the form of workshops organized at universities around the world, from California to Vietnam, including Europe, Africa and Latin America. Seeking to offer education to as many as possible, Gear has also held many digital workshops, participated in various hackathons, and presented demos of its platform at major Web3 conventions around the world.

As their efforts have expanded with the success of workshops held at universities in Latin America, this mission has become much bigger than they could have expected. With the help of Fuel, Osis, Polkadot, YBB and the main Mexican universities such as UNAM, IPN, UAM, UPVM, ICEL, UABC, UP, Tec de Monterrey, ITAM and UACAM, Gear managed to organize the first Web3 Universities Hackathon in Latin America!

The first Web3 Universities hackathon took place in Mexico on December 15 and 16. With almost 50 speakers and mentors, it was one of the largest hackathons held in Latin America to date. The event brought together developers, influencers, university professors, Web3 professionals, and members of the Gear team to share their knowledge and experience. The Gear team believes that events like this are essential in bringing the next generation of developers into the Web3 space and plans to continue hosting such events in the future. More than 500 participants had access to workshops and presentations by educators and popular figures from the Mexican crypto industry. The hackathon winners are the following teams: ITAM with “Diario Decentralizado,” Monterrey Tech with “Chain of votes” UACAM with “SmartCube”, ESCOM IPN with “decentralized internet” and UNTIL with “NFT ticket”. A total of $12,000 was distributed among the winners.

The hackathon also had a special activity in which especially guest artists painted pictures dedicated to different kinds of feelings, such as love, trust, freedom, wisdom and cats. These paintings have become the first in a collection of Vara non-fungible tokens (NFTs) created using a unique smart contract based on Gear protocol technology. The contract includes the geolocation information, the name of the artist and the link to the social network and the most interesting thing, in six months, it will automatically provide the next location for new artists who wish to contribute to the collection. These artists will need to create a painting with the same theme as the previous artist, ensuring that the collection will eventually become a beautiful art gallery showcasing talent from around the world.

The “NFT Feelings on Rod” collection is a dynamic and evolving work of art, with each new artist adding their own unique contributions to the end result. The details of each piece, including the number of paintings, style, artist name, and place of creation, are randomly determined on the Vara testnet blockchain. The smart contract ensures that each addition to the collection is unique and adds an element of unpredictability to the final artwork. The first Gear Christmas Party auction featuring these NFTs of talented independent artists from Mexico took place on December 17 at the Bitcoin Embassy Bar in Mexico City and was a huge success, with all paintings sold out! All of the revenue generated from the sale of the NFTs went directly to the artists, with buyers getting not only the NFT but also the actual painting done by the artists during the hackathon.

Gear’s director of ecosystems, Pavel Salas, commented:

“Gear was honored to be able to facilitate and participate in this incredible event, which brought together universities, Web3 industry projects, students and many more to learn and collaborate. With an impressive list of speakers, workshops, networking opportunities, side events and auctions, it was an unforgettable experience for all who attended. The hackathon provided a unique opportunity for attendees to connect with experts in the field and learn about the latest technologies and trends in the Web3 industry. It was only the beginning. We hope to do the next one in six months with even more students from a greater number of universities and a greater number of projects to collaborate with.”