After EUHackathon, I said to myself, “no more hackathons”. Then I saw Hack The Normal (HTN) and I thought why not give it a try – one more. I went through the challenges and I decided to go for Healthy or Sustainable living. I wasn’t sure if I could work on a financial solution – I just did not have any idea on what to build there. You know the funny part, I ended up in a team that worked on a financial solution and we made it to the finals 🙂
Date: 5 – 7 march
Challenges
- Financial solutions
- Healthy living
- Sustainable living
The beginning
I registered close to the deadline (as usual). I joined slack and quickly tried to get a team. I wanted us to brainstorm and know what we would tackle – essentially plan ahead before the hackathon starts so we do not get stuck. I created a private channel with some participants who had introduced themselves in the ‘find-a-team channel’. After one or two responses, things got quiet so I decided to wait till the match-making session. At that point, the voice of negativity had already come in, “are you sure you’d find a team? Maybe you should not do this”.
Match Making Session
Through matchmaking session, I was able to find a team. I liked the idea and I thought to myself, this is the perfect opportunity to learn more about financial inclusion.
The Hackathon
I really liked this hackathon. I think things were a bit easier because I had a team to work with. I enjoyed the workshops and I learned how to use the miro board app.
Our Project – BOKU: Overview
By providing a Blockchain-based solution we will promote financial inclusion and the growth of local business economies allowing for secure and fast trade without 3rd parties (banks)
Lessons and Challenges
Our team did amazing. One team member that motivated me to go on was Ursula. She lives in the USA, so she had to be up as early as 2:00 am for our sessions.
Lessons from the workshops:
- At the initial stages, there no such thing as a bad idea
- Focus more on how the App will benefit the users, not on features
- Importance of storytelling, and research
I finally understood how blockchain and smart contracts work. At first, I thought it was complicated but I watched a couple of videos and it all made sense.
With the knowledge from here, I could have handled the EUHackathon better but I have to cut myself some slack.
Devpost and project images
Devpost Submission
Miro Board excerpts
