Announcing the BEN Playbook
By: Erick Pinos
Tags: Blockchain, Bitcoin, Decentralization, Generation Blockchain, Education

BEN is launching the BEN Playbook — the ultimate curriculum for blockchain clubs, professors, and students to teach their clubs, classes, and friends about blockchain. It also provides a way for students to discover new blockchain projects and test out use cases. The Playbook is ever-evolving with the help of BEN’s directors, national teams, chapters, clubs, students, and professors. We are excited to be launching the Playbook and offering ways to get involved.

The Need for Sharing Resources

The Blockchain Education Network (BEN) started in 2014 as a network between five bitcoin clubs to talk with each other about bitcoin and blockchain. They shared interesting articles, videos, presenter slides, tips for throwing events, and more. BEN’s knowledge base grew with every new club that joined. Through various initiatives like the Blockchain Education Month, the Fall Airdrop Series, the BEN Blockchain Gauntlet, and Blockchain Madness, BEN has spurred intercollegiate collaboration and resource-sharing amongst universities at a scale unprecedented in the blockchain space.

Fast forward to today. Despite a 2018 bear market, new blockchain clubs are joining BEN almost every week. They all reach out to BEN with the same questions — what can they do with their clubs? What do they teach? How can they do an airdrop? How do they run a hackathon? What kinds of hands-on activities should they do? Who can they bring to speak?

BEN has recognized the need for resources for our students while at the same time the paradox of choice and the need for simplicity. Thus, we are launching a solution that provides a clear framework for new and old blockchain clubs to teach their students and to continue sharing resources with each other.

Introducing the BEN Playbook

The BEN Playbook — the ultimate curriculum for our blockchain clubs, professors, and students to teach their clubs, classes, and friends about blockchain. The Playbook is comprised of all of the resources made by BEN’s directors, national teams, chapters, clubs, students, and professors.

The Playbook is hosted at blockchainedu.org/playbook.

In the Playbook, you will find everything from blockchain lesson plans to guides for throwing blockchain-related events to tips for traveling to conferences. Everything you could ever want to become a leader in this space is now at your reach.

You may be a developer, business leader, researcher, mathematician, economist, computer scientist, law student, political scientist, philosopher, or something in between. The Playbook has something for you.

The Playbook has multiple types of plays:

Lesson Plans — Teach the blockchain fundamentals and about various projects in the ecosystem. Activities — Test out different blockchain projects, set up nodes, run smart contracts, etc. Guides — Start a blockchain club, throw blockchain-related events on campus like airdrops, and spur blockchain engagement in your community.

Our plays are ever-evolving with the help of our club leaders, students, professors, and sponsors. Over the next couple of weeks, we will be categorizing, tagging, putting in order, and moving all of BEN’s existing content onto the new Playbook.

First Eight Plays Live

We are excited to announce that the first eight plays are live.

Playbook En Español

We’re not stopping there. BEN’s reach is global, with national chapters in Italy, Colombia, India, Australia, and more. We are taking our Playbook internationally and bringing blockchain education across cultural and language barriers. We have already started translating our content into Spanish with the help of our BEN Colombia team.

How to Contribute

BEN is calling upon our blockchain club leaders, students, and professors to contribute the content from their clubs to the Playbook. Reach out to us through our Slack channel or email contact@blockchainedu.org for more information. If you are not on the slack yet, join BEN first.

Playbook Sponsorships

We are opening up the Playbook to sponsorships for companies looking to host an activity!

The activities can range from setting up miners & nodes to launching smart contracts to testing out new features. We are encouraging and helping to create activities that creatively utilize blockchain — do a decentralized election, turn your blockchain club into a DAO, and more.

Email contact@blockchainedu.org for more information.

Keep an eye out for future updates in the Playbook. With all of your help, we will use blockchain to make a real impact on society.