# One year ago I bet my high school diploma on ICP. Yesterdey I won my first startup competition **URL:** \ **Category:** Showcase\ **Created:** [April 27, 2026, 2:45pm UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/one-year-ago-i-bet-my-high-school-diploma-on-icp-yesterdey-i-won-my-first-startup-competition/68010 "2026-04-27T14:45:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bs1704](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b782af/32.png) [@bs1704](https://forum.dfinity.org/u/bs1704)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2026, 2:45pm UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/one-year-ago-i-bet-my-high-school-diploma-on-icp-yesterdey-i-won-my-first-startup-competition/68010/1 "2026-04-27T14:45:11Z")
As the tittle says one year ago I made a decision that most people around me thought was a mistake - I chose to dedicate my highschool diploma project to ICP . It was just me, trying to figure out how ICP actually works while also being a full time student. I’m 19. I know a lot of people don’t take blockchain seriously. I know a lot of people won’t take me seriously either. That’s fine - I’m not here to convince anyone that im the next big thing. I just wanted to share my story and show what i have built. What I built is called A3 - a decentralized frontend hosting platform. Same git push workflow developers already know from Vercel, but the infrastructure underneath is on ICP. Censorship-resistant, sovereign, no single point of failure. Unlike other ICP hosting projects, A3 requires no wallet, no tokens, no blockchain knowledge. A developer who has never heard of ICP can deploy in minutes and leave whenever they want. It’s designed to be a bridge - not a commitment, cause you can eject anytime. Yesterday I pitched it at a startup competition organized by Founders Institute called Pitch to Reach infront of 4 real venture capital investors and won the event. I’m posting here because A3 lives or dies with the ICP ecosystem. Every developer I bring to the platform is a new user on the network. If you want to try it, break it, give feedback, or just ask how it works - I’m here. ---
**Author:** ![yrgg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/9f8e36/32.png) [@yrgg](https://forum.dfinity.org/u/yrgg)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2026, 3:33pm UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/one-year-ago-i-bet-my-high-school-diploma-on-icp-yesterdey-i-won-my-first-startup-competition/68010/2 "2026-04-27T15:33:06Z")
Congrats on your win! I built something similar last week but received no interest ([https://icforge.dev](https://icforge.dev)). I hope you have better luck. ---
**Author:** ![vavram](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/5e9695/32.png) [@vavram](https://forum.dfinity.org/u/vavram)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2026, 4:29pm UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/one-year-ago-i-bet-my-high-school-diploma-on-icp-yesterdey-i-won-my-first-startup-competition/68010/3 "2026-04-27T16:29:14Z")
Congrats! It’s a great idea but as long as there’s a centralized authority that has control over the platform there will always be trust issues. Hence why I feel there are only 2 ways to make this work: - controller canister for the platform needs to be black-holed or - each user owns the keys to their own controller canister ---
**Author:** ![bs1704](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b782af/32.png) [@bs1704](https://forum.dfinity.org/u/bs1704)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2026, 4:53pm UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/one-year-ago-i-bet-my-high-school-diploma-on-icp-yesterdey-i-won-my-first-startup-competition/68010/4 "2026-04-27T16:53:21Z")
The platform has both - the normal flow goes to a canister that has it’s controller burned, and when a user is more advanced he can “eject” and use his own keys. ---
**Author:** ![vavram](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/5e9695/32.png) [@vavram](https://forum.dfinity.org/u/vavram)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2026, 5:15pm UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/one-year-ago-i-bet-my-high-school-diploma-on-icp-yesterdey-i-won-my-first-startup-competition/68010/5 "2026-04-27T17:15:02Z")
Good to hear, if true now you just need to gather funds for a security audit which should inspire a lot more confidence in your platform. ---
**Author:** ![RootProof](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/forum.dfinity.org/rootproof/32/40502_2.png) [@RootProof](https://forum.dfinity.org/u/RootProof)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2026, 5:18pm UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/one-year-ago-i-bet-my-high-school-diploma-on-icp-yesterdey-i-won-my-first-startup-competition/68010/6 "2026-04-27T17:18:27Z")
Innovative! Congrats on the win!!! Thank you for your contributions to ICP! ---
**Author:** ![bs1704](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b782af/32.png) [@bs1704](https://forum.dfinity.org/u/bs1704)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2026, 5:33pm UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/one-year-ago-i-bet-my-high-school-diploma-on-icp-yesterdey-i-won-my-first-startup-competition/68010/7 "2026-04-27T17:33:07Z")
Thank you all for the positive feedback and support - it really means a lot to me. I’m still participating in competitions here in my country, so if anyone wants to check out [a3icp.com](http://a3icp.com) and register, I’d really appreciate the support. I’m really excited about ICP and I plan to keep building projects that help grow the ecosystem. Thank you again 🙏 ---
**Author:** ![jokerswild](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9fc29f/32.png) [@jokerswild](https://forum.dfinity.org/u/jokerswild)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2026, 3:52am UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/one-year-ago-i-bet-my-high-school-diploma-on-icp-yesterdey-i-won-my-first-startup-competition/68010/8 "2026-04-29T03:52:26Z")
Young People are the FUTURE of this tech, no doubt imo! Are you listening Wenzel??? Badri is not a child!??!?! Congrats on your win and for helping to build the ecosystem here!!! Let’s all work together to make ICP truly successful and not marginalize the builders who have the most potential to disrupt in the future!!! No offense to Caffeine but those who prototype on Caffeine and also code manually are going to be the most successful! ICP NINJA baby. ---
**Author:** ![infu](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/forum.dfinity.org/infu/32/11321_2.png) [@infu](https://forum.dfinity.org/u/infu)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2026, 1:40pm UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/one-year-ago-i-bet-my-high-school-diploma-on-icp-yesterdey-i-won-my-first-startup-competition/68010/9 "2026-04-29T13:40:27Z")
It looks nice, good luck!