In 2025, Ackee Blockchain Security delivered two consecutive Seasons of School of Solana, the free developer education program with support from Solana Foundation.
The course, which has become the entry point for serious Solana builders since 2022, takes developers from blockchain fundamentals through advanced Solana programming, with weekly coding tasks and a final project where students build and deploy their own Solana program. It is taught by Ackee auditors with emphasis on secure development practices. Graduates are certified by an on-chain NFT & LinkedIn credentials.
Read on to learn how we did, what students said, and what’s planned next.
Program structure
Each School of Solana Season runs for 9 weeks with a curriculum covering 5 core lectures starting with Solana fundamentals and finishing with advanced development topics, plus 4 bonus lectures on security, gaming, and advanced Rust topics delivered by guest lecturers. Guest lectures are refreshed each Season – in 2025 we were joined by Jonas Hahn of Solana Foundation and Daniel Cumming from Rektoff.
Students complete weekly coding assignments with increasing complexity, culminating in a final program task requiring the development of an original Solana program. Successful graduates receive on-chain NFT certification and LinkedIn credentials.
The School of Solana Lead Instructor Andrej Lukačovič is Ackee Blockchain’s Solana Team Lead and the primary contributor to Trident. Our team’s experience in auditing projects with billions in TVL enables students to learn to think like auditors while writing code, helping prevent critical vulnerabilities in production.
2025 in numbers
In 2025, School of Solana produced 344 graduates, 372 new Solana program repositories, and onboarded 1475 devs to Solana code.
With 1515 applicants for Season 7 and 1113 for Season 8, the demand for quality education is clear – and the booming Solana ecosystem is hungry for fresh talent.
Season 7 (Summer 2025)
| Metric | Count |
|---|---|
| Applicants | 1515 |
| Accepted | 1482 |
| Verified in Discord | 1001 |
| Completed 3/5 tasks | 413 |
| Completed all 5 tasks | 116 |
| New Solana program repos | 207 |
| Graduates | 197 |
| Graduation rate | 13% |
Season 8 (Fall 2025)
| Metric | Count |
|---|---|
| Applicants | 1113 |
| Accepted | 1100 |
| Joined Discord | 754 |
| Completed 3/5 tasks | 284 |
| Completed all 5 tasks | 69 |
| New Solana program repos | 165 |
| Graduates | 142 |
| Graduation rate | 13% |
School of Solana produces elite developers, a much-needed backbone to Solana’s further growth, and our 13% graduation rate in 2025 shows our continuous commitment to quality.
Student feedback
In both Seasons, students highlighted the hands-on approach as the program’s strongest asset. Building real apps gave participants confidence and skills immediately useful in production environments.
“The tasks were challenging so I feel that I could build a strong background on Solana development.”
“[I liked most] The final project where I put my skills to the test and built a dApp from the ground up all on my own.”
The video lectures and GitHub materials received great feedback as well, highlighting the explanations of Solana’s inner workings.
“I really enjoyed the video lessons. They helped solidify my understanding of Solana, especially its account model and the Anchor framework.”
“I especially enjoyed working with PDAs and seeds, because that’s when I really understood what makes Solana unique compared to other blockchains.”
Finally, the Discord community was recognized as an invaluable resource for maintaining momentum throughout the course and meeting like-minded builders.
“The community was amazing, and the course structure was excellent.”
“It makes the prospect of actually becoming a Solana dev seem accessible and attainable on a super fast track.”
Combined with the asynchronous learning format, we are glad to see School of Solana struck a balance that worked for learners from all walks of life.
Young Toly
In 2025, the School of Solana team was joined by Young Toly, our in-house AI agent deployed in the Seasons’ tech support channels. Built to provide answers on all things Solana development and School of Solana, Young Toly handled 494 support threads and delivered 2827 responses across the two Seasons.
“Young Toly was of help to beginners, which is good.”
Graduation Call Partners
Every Season features ecosystem leaders to share personal experiences, discuss job openings and incentives, and provide guidance for further learning during the Graduation Call.
Season 7 brought Jacob Creech from Solana Foundation, Sandy Carter from Unstoppable Domains, Pratik Dholani from Superteam Earn, and Jeff from Turbin3.
Season 8 featured Jacob Creech returning from Solana Foundation, Marius of Kamino, Mariia Yatskovska from CoW DAO, and Daniel & Lucas from Rektoff.
We again extend our thanks to the Graduation Call Partners for taking their time to help our students on their development journey. Personal connections are a key element of every education and we are committed to connecting our graduates with key Solana figures, cutting-edge protocols on the search for new devs, and like-minded educational initiatives.
Graduate certification
Graduates earn an on-chain graduation NFT, plus a LinkedIn certification with credential ID linked to public GitHub repositories. Students who actively participated in testing our Solana VS Code Extension in Season 7 also received a Contributor NFT.
Beyond credentials, graduates gain access to their Season’s graduates community for ongoing networking and job opportunities, along with a portfolio-ready project demonstrating Solana development capability.
Impact on the ecosystem
The 2025 cohorts produced 344 certified Solana developers who demonstrated ability to build complete programs, 372 new Solana program repositories on GitHub, and 1475 developers who provably engaged with Solana code.
More skilled developers means better protocols; better protocols means a stronger ecosystem. School of Solana graduates go on to join protocol teams, start their own companies, and easily secure spots in other exclusive Solana learning initiatives.
“This is a fantastic initiative and a great effort and contribution to the web3 community.”
“This is my first such kind of bootcamp. Absolutely loved it.”
Conclusion
The program’s demanding standards ensure that credentials carry weight with protocols and the course covers key skills required for working on production codebases.
As Solana continues to grow, so does the need for skilled developers and secure projects. Ackee Blockchain Security remains committed to making web3 a safer place through our audits and free education accessible to developers worldwide.
The program that built Solana’s most respected developers will be back, so join the waitlist below.
Additional resources
As part of our commitment to open source, all lectures are freely available. Even if this doesn’t entail the full experience of graded weekly assignments, the videos from previous seasons on our YouTube can help you brush up on your Solana skills.
You can sign up for our upcoming educational initiatives. School of Solana and Solana Auditors’ Bootcamp will be back, and by signing up for the waitlist you’ll be the first to know when applications open. Email addresses are collected solely for this purpose – we will not share your data with anyone or send you unsolicited communications.
Read the Solana Handbook, a free primer in Solana development used in School of Solana and supported by Solana Foundation.
Finally, follow us on X to stay on top of future announcements.
We thank the Solana Foundation for making School of Solana 2025 possible.
