Thoughts from the Sweetbridge product development team at the 2nd annual “world’s largest” collaborative event — focused on solving decentralized identity challenges

We recently participated in the 2nd annual Blockchaingers Hackathon in Groningen, NL alongside more than 600 other enthusiastic participants from 20 countries. Teams break off for a 48-hour challenge to build the best blockchain app, and while our team could not win, we gave it our all.

Team Sweetbridge at Blockchaingers Hackathon (L to R): Ransom, Zaremba, Figlo, Roon, Huang, Petties.

This was a very cool hackathon with places named like “The Big Building” and “The Sugar Factory.” At Sweetbridge, we have been working on our own membership & KYC applications for our ecosystem for a while. Therefore we were already very interested in arranging our community around self-sovereign identity protocols and how to support GDPR compliance. Each project team needs to deliver workable code, but also explore how the project fits into the space with a product & impact canvas (a big board you have to present to judges). Sweetbridge earned a 10-out-of-10 code quality score and actually wowed the judges with no big preparation, as a team we could run through brainstorming, building and presenting. I am very proud of our team’s efforts. I saw many fearless project teams showcasing their demos in the hackathon. They all sincerely shared and helped each other. We also had Jedis on site to help everyone work through different aspects — business, technology and legal. I thought that was very helpful. Overall, this was a great event for all of us to meet and learn from each other.

Micha Roon (Blockchain Developer)

Sweetbridge brought a team from 3 time zones and I felt we were entering the competition with too little preparation. I turned out to be wrong. The 6 of us were able to agree on a feasible scope that would demonstrate a world changing idea in about 6 hours and spent the remaining 42 hours feverishly implementing it. The result are 2 smart contracts and a nice UI that actually works.

It was a lot of fun to work so closely together with these other great minds. I felt really proud of our work and the fact that we did not succumb to the fact that we could not win.

Robert Zaremba (Blockchain Developer)

That was not a casual hackathon. Neither was it a commercial one. It was a special event, which only selected, motivated and well prepared teams get into. This hackathon was in our head for few months with one goal: improving the Global Digital Identity landscape. Identity is the biggest international challenge to ‘get right’. Blockchain applications will really lift off when no central authority or other party has ownership of your identity. We managed to come up with a novel idea to aggregate existing identity providers into ID Silo.

Moreover we got an opportunity to enjoy unique ambiance of Groningen, with it’s strong cycling culture and great beers.

Josh Ransom (Web Developer)

Blockchaingers put on a hackathon that was unlike any other I have been to. From the moment we stepped into the reclaimed sugar factory it was apparent that this event was something bigger than we had imagined, and that in just a few short days our team would be participating in shaping the future of global digital identity.

This opportunity enabled us to gain invaluable insight into the different techniques and solutions that are actively being constructed for solving what are arguably some of the most important global problems facing the world today. I was inspired by how advanced the current government identity solutions in the Netherlands already are and how they continue to strive to be at the forefront of adopting the latest technologies and practices. I am eager to see the landscape continue to evolve as the technology and community continues to grow and mature in the coming years.

Dylan Figlo (UX Designer / Marketer)

In a world where the talk of blockchain seems to revolve around selfish schemes of getting rich quick, the hackathon provides a fresh reminder of reality. The true innovators of this technology, many of whom have been contributors for years, are focused on altruistic projects. I did not come across one project that was being built for a single person or team’s benefit. The projects were focused on improving efficiencies or pains in our society and its infrastructure. The support of the Dutch government was astonishing. From the head of police to the crown prince, it was an amazing experience to show off our technology and receive their feedback. From a User Experience perspective, I was floored by how simple some of the interfaces were for such complex technology. As we built a system for users to securely store their identification documents over time, it was fun to imagine how quick and easy it would be to add new documents like a first passport as a person hit new life and identity milestones.

Official dignitaries on hand for project and code reviews!

Melvin Petties (Product Manager / Business Consultant)

I really liked the venue. I wondered how the stakeholders formulated and executed their plan to attract such talent from around the world. I felt incredibly lucky to be taking part in tech history.

My experience was unforgettable. This was a great opportunity to meet other astronauts like ourselves. I learned much more was possible than I originally thought. I discovered cynicism has its own time zone.

Melvin heads to outer space with the help of Robert’s frisbee.

Without sounding too naive or wistful, part of me wonders how few public + private initiatives like Blockchaingers could have achieved the level of success I witnessed in the Netherlands. The committee seemed clearly plugged in and vested in the outcome of ideas and collaboration across teams, and the volunteers seemed to have bottomless reserves of patience and hospitality — feeding over 700 people multiple times per day, and parachuting in snacks just as the concentration lights started to dim after 8pm some nights. At some point — the day before presenting our final presentation — a member of the government surfaced a circulatory document that seemed to embody the same design principles that we had diligently strived to achieve in our prototype — a pluggable framework for multiple types of identity validation methods. The importance of this gesture was that it showed me 1) they were paying attention, and 2) they were vested partners in proving out the model. This was not my first hackathon, but it was the first time I was ever invited to visit other tables and share ideas. As hosts, our challenge teams would not have been as successful achieving the collective goal without this type of collaborative competition fostered by the event.

The Force is with Blockchaingers, and so is my enthusiasm and continued support.

Wrapping up

This is a competition we couldn’t win — seriously — we were in a “non-award” category as a participating project at this day, but the real reward was in the collaboration.

Sweetbridge completed their submission right on time and with our “CertifID” solution we were one of the few entrants who designed a solution from scratch during the allotted 48 hours of the event (as opposed to bringing pre-built code and components to the game). This may have made it more difficult for us but in the spirit of a hackathon, it really made us pull harder together.

Want to see it? Here is our project Github link! https://github.com/Sweetbridge/blockchaingers

Experience the splashiness of CertifID. https://github.com/Sweetbridge/blockchaingers

All in all this was an extremely positive experience to join some of the best (and nicest) people in the world trying to make a difference with blockchain technology.