Holochain Organizes First Hackathon In Amsterdam
On September 15, 2018, Holochain’s first Dutch hackathon took place as half a dozen of Holochain’s core team engaged sixty participants at ImpactHub Amsterdam, located between Lozingskanaal (canal) and Oosterpark (well, park). The weekend was open to engineers, hackers and open minds of all stripes.
Participants from the Netherlands, Germany, France, but also distant locations including Thailand, the United States and Australia were led by Holochain co-founder Arthur Brock and the team, who not only presented Holochain’s core principles and architecture, but also connected participants to the project’s intentions and philosophy, opening up new perspectives on the technology’s affordances. Starting from the basics, participants were quickly getting their hands dirty, imaging new possibilities and designing software on the drawing board.
On Day Two, many participants shared a “eureka moment” when they realized how different Holochain is from past distributed ledger solutions, so much so that it might more appropriately be described as something separate altogether (indeed a suis generis infrastructure).
The realization of this paradigm shift empowered participants to think more freely about the novel possibilities of creation. Inspired by the potential of Holochain’s agent centric peer-to-peer framework the diverse group of participants began to reimagine what is possible.
Amsterdam Hackathon App Project Samples
Small groups of participants brainstormed new ways to think about social media, to predict markets and power gaming, among other ideas. Below are a few of the twenty-six app ideas developed during the weekend:
Decentralized Social Network — An open protocol for social networks
Happy Virus — An engaging game with the goal of spreading challenges around that world to change your perspective
Cheeper — A P2P Ecosystem for shopping for sales on cross border purchases
Betting Prediction Market — Bet on outcome of major events
Other projects worth mentioning: VPN Service, Holochain Network Monitoring, Alignment Incubator, D-List/ To Do List,
Testimonials
“It was fascinating and exciting to see what happens when we were designing applications with Holochain at the Hackathon. The structure unlocks new and fresh thinking about what apps can be and how we can mimic natural human relations in an extended digital realm.” — Victor Zaunders
“I love how intense and informative the hackathon was. It’s just incredible how much I learned and how many inspiring people I’ve met. I would definitely recommend attending one if you’re interested in a deeper understanding of holochain.” — Thomas Starzynski
“The vision Holochain wants to create in the world, we are living now at the event” — Adam El Jaouhari
“I got introduced to a great community and got clarity on the next steps to take.” — Sylvie van den Meerendonk
“Coming to the Hackathon to get to know the people behind the software I got about everything I wanted, incl. some contacts that may provide us with a good coder & partner. The degree of information transfer was great, and even entertaining at times! I made some great contacts in all kinds of direction. So for me it was very interesting and helpful. Thank you Holo crew!” — Mushin J. Schilling
