January 25, 2021
Foundation

Hackathon Guidelines, Rules, and Programme

Make sure you don’t miss the Liberate Data Week, a Fair Data Society organized event, that will run from 8–14 February 2021.

Liberate Data Week

Fair Data Society is organizing a Liberate Data Week that will consist of two major parts: the hackathon and the supporting events. The main theme of the hackathon is fair data economy.

Register now — click here.

About the event

The hackathon kicks off on Monday, 8 February with an opening event, where participants get their final instructions and details of the hackathon. Presentations and demos of Fairdrive and Swarm follow, to serve them as a starting point for using the software.

Teams decide upon the dApp idea they are going to work on and form teams if they registered as individuals.

Presentations and talks will be held throughout the whole week (see the agenda at the end of the document). Each day will cover an important fair data economy-related topic.

Teams will be able to seek technical support and guidance through a dedicated Telegram channel, where Swarm and Fair Data Society team members help them solve problems.

Sunday late afternoon, the jury will gather to judge the projects. Teams will be able to present their creation in a 5-minute presentation, with a 5-minute jury interaction follow-up.

At the closing ceremony on Sunday night, the winners will be announced during a joint call. Every team is invited to join the after-party.

The hackathon starts on Monday, 8 February 2021, and ends on 14 February 2021.

The goal of the event

The goal of the event is for participants to learn how to install and run their own Bee node, discuss fair-data-related topics, and understand Swarm incentives and how these can benefit dApp developers by plugging into the Swarm network in its early stages.

The ultimate goal, though, is to bootstrap the use of Fairdrive as the go-to solution when developing thin dApps on Swarm and to build your first one at the event.

How to participate in the hackathon

There are two ways to apply for the hackathon:

  • As a predefined team
  • As an individual

If you signed up for the hackathon as an individual (and you don’t intend to work on a project alone), you will need to find a team and join them on a project. The best way to do so is via the official hackathon Telegram channel, where you can introduce yourself and pitch your skills to other people.

You can register for the hackathon here. Registration closes on 8.2.2021.

The competition rules

Rules and guidelines for building dApps:

  • dApps must use Swarm features (incentives)
  • All dApps must be open-source
  • Users must be the owners of their data
  • All dApps must be aligned with Fair Data Society principles
  • Each prototype or mock-up presented at the Swarm hackathon must be an original work.

Thin dApps ideas — wish list & suggestion:

  • Reddit PoC
  • Music player (playlist sharing smart folder)
  • Markup editor
  • Video player/playlist management
  • Photo Gallery (iPhoto-like clone)
  • Uncensorable twitter-like service for news
  • Auto updater for Bee node
  • Backup data
  • Magic wormhole — encrypted peer-to-peer file exchange without server example
  • Connect any devices to Fairdrive

Data-driven ideas — wish list & suggestion:

  • OpenStreetMaps visualiser on Swarm
  • Ethereum state on Swarm
  • Project Gutenberg on Swarm
  • Public Domain Movies
  • Open Science Logs

The jury & judging criteria

The jury will consist of some of the brightest minds in the Ethereum and Cypherpunk space.

The final decisions of the judges are to be based on the following parameters:

  • Data interoperability: explain how the user’s data is owned by the user, and how this enables fluid GUI experiences over different apps.
  • Technology: How technically impressive was the feature? Was the technical problem the team tackled difficult? Did it use a particularly clever technique or did it use many different components?
  • Completion: Does the feature work? Did the team achieve everything they wanted?
  • Vision: What is the overall idea of the submission, and how does it add value to Swarm’s vision? Is the code useful for future dapp developers?

The judges will assign a score to each parameter. They will weigh the criteria equally. The winners of the hackathon will be the three teams with the highest total scores.

Prizes for the winning teams

  • 1st place: 5.000,00 BZZ tokens
  • 2nd place: 3.000,00 BZZ tokens
  • 3rd place: 1.000,00 BZZ tokens

Product presentation

All teams will present their work on Sunday afternoon (16:00). They will have 5 minutes to demo their dApp. Teams will also need to share the link to their code.

A short break will follow for the jury to evaluate the projects. The winning teams will be announced at the closing event at 20:00.

Support for the teams

Documentation:

Official communication & tech-support channel

All technical support and other questions will be answered by the team via the official hackathon channel. Please make sure you follow that channel at all times for important announcements, programme updates and similar.

Agenda for the week

Here is the agenda for the week. Please note that each day is dedicated to a specific topic and will be packed with valuable talks, workshops and demos.

Day 1 — Opening Event (8.2.2021)

Day 2 — dApp day (9.2.2021)

Day 3 — Bee day (10.2.2021)

Day 4 — Free press & publishing day (11.2.2021)

Day 5 — Fairdata economy day (12.2.2021)

Day 6 — Open day (13.2.2021)

Day 7 — Closing Event (14.2.2021)

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