Discover Microsoft's blockchain-based digital badge rewards program.
In the spirit of their mission to empower technical practitioners of all backgrounds, Microsoft established Azure Heroes to inspire developers to learn, coach, and build on Azure and promote healthy, inclusive communities.
A collaborative program between Microsoft and Enjin, Azure Heroes rewards developers with blockchain-based digital badges—styled as badgers—for various achievements, verifiable acts of impact, and meaningful contributions in the developer community.
Since launching as a pilot in December 2019, the program has expanded globally, being used at various major events, such as Microsoft Ignite and Create: Frontend.
"We wanted to create a meaningful new way to engage with our Azure developer community and recognize their contributions. With blockchain-based badges, we are able to offer something authentic, provably limited, and unique."
— Sherry List, Azure Developer Engagement Lead
Digital badgers take normal badges to a whole new level—they're cute, fun, and demonstrate recognition in a way that can't be faked.
Unlike typical digital assets, Azure Heroes are created as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the blockchain. With verifiable scarcity, maximum circulation caps, provable provenance, and unique IDs, each badger is a one-of-a-kind digital collectible that proves its recipient was hand-picked based on their achievements.
To provide recipients with a seamless, Microsoft-branded experience, Azure Heroes tokens can be viewed on a custom blockchain explorer powered by EnjinX, and linked to the Azure Heroes Showcase map built by Enjin.
"A new and fun way to earn digital collectibles for inclusive behavior and meaningful impact in the technical community."
Badgers are awarded to nominated individuals who work to improve the Azure developer community and their own development skills in a variety of ways, from coaching and creating demos to organizing events, building sample code, and blogging about Azure.
Contributions are recognized with badges across a number of categories:
To reward event attendees, badgers have also been distributed via Enjin Beam at Microsoft developer events across the globe, allowing participants to seamlessly receive their special badger by scanning a QR code.
Each of these recognitions has a limited supply that can be verified on the Ethereum blockchain, with the potential to create new badger designs and categories across different seasons as Azure and its development community continue to grow and evolve.
Badgers > Badges.