September was an active month for the BitDegree team. A lot of significant tasks were accomplished, and additional plans are being made for the future. There are updates applied to the learning platform almost every day. BitDegree Learn was completely redesigned, and the first scholarships were also successfully issued. Relax, grab a warm drink, and let’s check what happened during this period.

The New BitDegree Learn

If you’re not a daily visitor on the Learn platform, you’re missing out. The project received a fresh new suit and tie, and by that, I mean a completely different and more functional user interface. Our Learn team is working hard to provide our students with the best experience and make their learning process both fun and interactive.

The new Learn features more theory and live examples than ever before. Over 4,000 hand-picked by professionals and over 2,500 user-created code examples are available on the platform for students to learn from. The knowledge base grows every day, and new programming languages are added as well. Categories for Python and C++ are already fully active on the platform. C# is currently in the making, and you can expect to see more examples added soon.

BitDegree’s Learn is growing fast and steady. If you haven’t seen it yet, feel free to check out the new platform now. We will be waiting for your feedback to see what parts of Learn you enjoy the most.

The First Issued Scholarships

As you may have seen in the previous monthly update — BitDegree has launched global transparent micro-scholarships on the platform. Students can enroll in the program by providing their stories that would appeal to sponsors to fund their education. During September, the scholarship project attracted other companies to join in and start the BitDegree sponsorship foundation. Currently, it consists of four companies — BitDegree, Hostinger, Civitta, and Startup Societies Foundation. We are open to partnerships, and companies can freely apply to join the BitDegree scholarship project by becoming a foundation on the platform.

With the success of the project, we are proud to announce that 26 BitDegree students have secured funds for scholarships. Three of these learners have already completed their courses, and one of them has claimed and received the scholarship funds in BitDegree tokens and their blockchain certificate. Let’s cheer them on and wish good luck to other students on their journey to receiving scholarships! If you are a sponsor looking to make a change in a student’s education, we invite you to take a look at the sponsorship page.

BitDegree’s Participation in Competitions

If you’re following our social media, you have probably seen multiple posts about our participation in many different blockchain and online education competitions. Our most recent entries are in GESA 2019 Scandinavia and DisruptorDaily’s Blockchain in Education awards. Adding to that list, co-founder Danielius Stasiulis has also received the FERD’s List award in early September. The prize of the nomination was for his expertise and revolutionary mindset as an entrepreneur. The BitDegree team is proud and happy for Danielius’ success, and we wish him good luck in all future nominations. And hopefully — there will be plenty.

The 1st Code Contest by BitDegree

To celebrate the new school year, our team decided to host the first BitDegree coding contest. The event is still ongoing, and many users have already submitted their entries in the competition. The theme for the event is Bringing back old-school websites and the key to winning is your originality. There’s plenty of old-school search engines, blogs, social media, and Pokémon.

Authors of the crowd-favorite code examples will win BitDegree T-shirts, notebooks, notepads, and a vast amount of courses. So put your coding theory to the test and participate! If you want to see examples made by other users, feel free to do so on the site, and don’t forget to vote for your favorites!

BitDegree in The News

If you’ve recently been following the news, you might have noticed that BitDegree was featured quite a few times throughout the month. Elearning Inside published an article about the newly launched BitDegree micro-scholarships. This article talks about the benefits and changes that blockchain certificates are bringing to the current status of education. It is an educative read that I advise all of our users to check out.

Later in September, BitDegree was in even more media pages. Our course Space Doggos 2 was covered in Digital Journal. The article shows off great features of the course and its gamified attributes that make the learning process fun and interactive. Another article on Business Insider discusses the use of blockchain certificates in education. Blockchain certificates are described as a great way to tackle a massive issue — fake diplomas used in the job market.

Progress With Octalysis Group

During September, significant advancements were made with the Octalysis group to implement gamification on BitDegree. We are introducing more features and rewards to the platform every day. The most recent feature that was added is the possibility to have friends on BitDegree. Users can send invitations to their friends with an automated email to join our platform and receive tokens as a reward.

Another feature that will soon be available on BitDegree is a companion named Astra. She will guide you through the city of BitDegree and give you advice whenever you find yourself stuck. Astra will soon be available on the platform, and your journey on BitDegree will be more adventurous than ever before.

BitDegree Tutorials in Spanish

Our translation team made significant progress in making BitDegree international. Throughout September, another language option was added to our tutorial page. Now we have 5 languages available — English, Russian, Indonesian, Portuguese, and Spanish. But then, everything changed when the fire nation atta… Wait, BitDegree isn’t an anime. Regardless, let’s cheer on our translation team to bring even more locales to BitDegree and let the whole world enjoy our platform!

Conclusions

Overall, September was an important month for BitDegree. A lot of progress was made to create a better learning experience for our students. The scholarship project saw its first students graduate and receive their blockchain certificates. The Learn platform raided Area 51 and came back with a design that’s simply out of this world. Our work with the Octalysis group advanced significantly, and we can soon expect a full rework on the BitDegree platform. With the start of October, let’s plan a new raid — storm the city of BitDegree and learn something new!