Why are you participating for Based India?

In conclusion, my motivation for participating in the Based India hackathon stems from a deep belief in the power of decentralized networks to empower individuals and transform communities. Through my project, we aim to create an engaging gaming experience that not only drives user retention but also rewards contributors in a cost-effective manner.

By leveraging the strengths of the Based network and engaging with fellow innovators, I am excited about the possibilities that lie ahead. We eager to demonstrate our project and contribute to the ongoing dialogue about the potential of decentralized solutions in India through DeCharge Network

What challenges are you focusing on?

Challenges Addressed by the Project

In developing my project for the hackathon, I am focusing on several key challenges faced by decentralized networks:

1. User Retention: User onboarding sucks. Retaining UX is even worse

By integrating gamified elements that reward users for ongoing participation, ensuring they feel valued and motivated to return.

2. Accessibility: Economic barriers often prevent users from engaging fully with decentralized networks. I aim to create a cost-effective solution that lowers these barriers, enabling a diverse range of users to participate and benefit from the network.

3. Incentivizing Contributions: Users frequently feel like passive consumers. By implementing a robust rewards system, my project encourages active participation. I'm able to leverage base while speaking to the customers without having to use fancy buzzwords such as DePIN

4. Building a Sustainable Ecosystem: A self-sustaining network is essential for long-term success. By promoting user engagement through rewards, we can ensure organic growth, enhancing user satisfaction and network longevity.

5. Community Engagement: Fostering collaboration among users is vital. My project encourages teamwork through shared gaming experiences, building a supportive community that thrives on mutual success. We are happy to share part of the code so innovative extensions can be built on similar usecases

6. Education and Awareness: Many potential users are unaware of decentralized network benefits. My project includes educational resources to inform users about engagement opportunities, empowering them to maximize their participation.

By addressing these challenges, my project aims to create an engaging, inclusive, and sustainable decentralized ecosystem that empowers users and fosters a vibrant community.

How does your submission address this challenge?

While we already had a working network of Charging Infra, our core clients were the business partners while there was a better need to also onboard the users directly. With the help of our business partners, we were able to engage with the users directly while creating a beautiful onchain experience by starting on a simple mindshare exercise ~ which is basically Charge & Earn.

In the medium-to-long run, we intend to educate the users on the economic and energy efficient ways of electricity consumption in their day to day lives. Our users are already users of EVs as part of their daily gig work. By enabling them onto a charge & earn experience I would be able to eventually onboard them towards sustainable utility of public charging infrastructure.

Challenges I ran into

During the development of my project, I encountered several significant hurdles, particularly related to user drop-off and engagement. One of the primary challenges was establishing a robust infrastructure network that could support consistent user interaction. Initially, users were incentivized with cryptocurrency rewards for charging at public infrastructure, but many still dropped off due to a lack of meaningful engagement and the perceived complexity of the system.

Transforming consumer habits in India is inherently difficult and costly. Large multinational corporations invest billions trying to influence user behavior, and my project faced similar challenges. Users are often resistant to change, especially when it involves adopting new technologies or altering their daily routines.

To address these issues, we introduced a consumer-friendly approach, integrating gamification and more relatable incentives into the user experience. By creating an engaging platform that rewards users not just for participation but also for achieving specific milestones, I aimed to foster a sense of community and ongoing involvement. This shift has allowed me to retain customers more effectively by making the experience enjoyable and rewarding in a way that resonates with their everyday lives.

During development, there were a few challenges as we had encountered in running the scripts in the latest versions, we were able to debug the issues and focus on creating unique onchain experiences on controlled Testnet UX. There are two instances of the project were both new user & existing onchain user is able to use the app for claiming rewards.

We still had issues in terms of executing smart contract code involving the Base names on Sepolia, we are hoping to have it fixed so our users can have the on-chain experience of claiming a name with just their local phone number!

Additional Features

We shipped the project over a week while creating the base on-chain experience over the weekend. Our physical onground infra and existing has been existing over the last 5 months.

Why Charge & Earn on-chain app?

For on-chain apps looking to build successful businesses, they need a strong retention mapping for new users who are looking for unique experiences that makes them return to the platform experience over and over again.

In our cases, this is the on-chain app that is gonna help achieve it! We already have close to 500 regular customers through our charging infra while having a retention rate of 63%. Using this on-chain app experience, we hope to improve the retention and customer happiness quotient since it suits well for our gig economy of EV riders looking to have fun and earn the extra buck!