University of Exeter’s Jack Rogers talks igniting a spark for Bitcoin through sCrypt hackathon

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As a senior lecturer at one of the top universities in the United Kingdom, Jack Rogers always seeks to allow his students to put their knowledge into real-life practice. This year, he partnered with the sCrypt team on a four-day hackathon in which the students learned to develop Bitcoin applications. As he tells CoinGeek Backstage, the hackathon has ignited a spark for Bitcoin at the University of Exeter.

Graduate students typically write a dissertation at the university to earn their MSc. However, this year, Rogers took a different approach.

“[I thought] for our fintech degrees here at Exeter, why not get students just building real apps straight away and put their knowledge into practice,” he tells CoinGeek Backstage reporter Becky Liggero.

Rogers, a senior lecturer in economics at the university, met Xiaohui Liu, the founder of sCrypt, and together, they organized the hackathon.

The hackathon attracted around 90 students, Rogers said. They worked in groups where they could learn from each other and build applications together. According to Rogers, some students were “better on the business strategy side while some were better at coding.”

Liu led the hackathon, with a typical day being a morning session focused on the theory side—how Bitcoin works, the UTXO model, how it scales, etc. The students would then be tasked with implementing what they had learned through practical tasks.

The sCrypt team brought along other Bitcoin experts, including Elas founder Brendan Lee and the BSV Blockchain Association’s Todd Price. Dr. Craig Wright also made a surprise guest appearance on the third and fourth days.

“We were joined by a really special guest—Craig Wright. He’ll be with us to tell us if what we’re saying is right or wrong. It’s been a lot of fun, and we’re looking forward to the climax.”

Watch: sCrypt wants to bring hackathon initiative to more people