Over the weekend of 20-22 July, heavy rain poured on the streets of Munich. Which did not prevent 20,000 people to demonstrate against xenophobia at Königsplatz, also went more or less unnotced by the 150 participants of the BlockchainedMobility hackathon who met to create blockchain-based mobility solutions.
Hacker teams of leading European mobility players, such as BMW, Volkswagen Group, Bosch, Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Telekom, Amadeus, and others mixed with freelance developers, designers and business experts to work on IOTA and Ethereum. On Sunday afternoon, the jury saw 18 project teams presenting a broad variety of mobility solutions, from specific applications, such as a EV charging station finder, to more generic solutions like a mobility API to match offerings of mobility providers with the needs of the end user.
Georg Eisenreich, Minister of the State of Bavaria
The hackathon started on Friday with a keynote by the Minister of State for Digital, Media and Europe, Georg Eisenreich, who highlighted the importance for collaboration of the State of Bavaria with on the one hand corporations, such as the hackathon‘s sponsors, on the other hand with the technology – or more specifically – the blockchain community. Minister Eisenreich emphasised the role of the State of Bavaria in providing a sound economical framework for blockchain startups and projects. He encouraged the participants to be creative and dare to found companies in order to foster Bavaria‘s and Europe‘s competitive advantage in the area of blockchain.
Michael Reuter (Datarella), Peter Busch (Bosch), Dominik Pietsch (BMW) Alisa Maas (IOTA) Klaus Schaaf (Volkswagen Group), Herbert Mangesius (Vito Ventures)
After the keynote, the representatives of the main sponsors Dominik Pietsch (BMW), Klaus Schaaf (Volkswagen Group), Peter Busch (Bosch), and Alisa Maas (IOTA) discussed the state of mobility and the expectations of the mobility players for the hackathon with Herbert Mangesius (Vito Ventures) and Michael Reuter (Datarella). At BMW, Volkswagen Group and Bosch, blockchain has obtained an important role within the areas of technology to work on. Dominik Pietsch, Klaus Schaaf and Peter Busch all agreed upon the importance their companies put in blockchain as a foundational layer for mobility solutions. Particularly in regard to the complex regulatory requirements for large corporations in any case of collaboration, blockchain serves as a neutral technological layer that allows for a joint use of mobility data provided by different players within the ecosystem.
Deutsche Telekom. Breakout Session
During Saturday and Sunday, hackers worked highly concentrated and steadily to create their applications they had to present towards the jury. Breakout sessions by the sponsor teams and Yoga interludes gave variety in the workflows. Some teams, e.g. Bosch and Deutsche Telekom, provided not only APIs but sensor-driven hardware the hackers could integrate into their projects.
Sunday evening, the jury announced 3 winners out of 18 projects, who received IOTA’s in worth of USD 5,000 (#1), USD 2,000 (#2) and USD 1,000 (#3) as well as 50,000 XSC (#1), 30,000 XSC (#2) and 15,000 XSC (#3). Additionally, Lewis Freiberg of the IOTA Foundation announced a special prize: the opportunity to receive USD 50,000 in IOTA tokens provided by the IOTA ecosystem fund for the best open-source project.The hackathon‘s winners were:
#1 OMS – Open Mobility API: USD 5,000+ 50,000 XSC + the opportunity to receive USD 50,000 from the IOTA ecosystem fund
OMS – Open Mobility API
#2 AgentFinder – EV Charging Station Finder USD 2,000 + 30,000 XSC
AgentFinder – EV Charging Station Finder
#3 Pac-Man On Wheels – Crowdsourced Incentive Scheme For Privately Collected Driving Data USD 1,000 + 15,000 XSC
Pac-Man On Wheels
We will publish short interviews with each project team over the next few days.
After the jury‘s decision, the hacker crowd gathered for a few more hours to get themselves the last drinks and discuss next steps: since everybody enjoyed this weekend and we received so much positive feedback from the community, we have already started thinking about how to build upon the success of the BlockchainedMobility hackathon. Hopefully we – and new sponsors and participants– will meet again, soon!
Compete and collaborate: The Blockchained Mobility Hackathon brings together the biggest players in Europe’s mobility ecosystem with the brightest independent developer teams for 2.5 days of blockchain mobility hacking! You’ll use bleeding edge blockchain tech to imagine and build prototype solutions for a sustainable mobility ecosystem. Network and innovate in an open sandbox with industry peers! All participants will get free tickets to the DAHO.AM Tech Conference in Munich on July, 24th2018 and the hackathon winner will receive prizes to be announced at the event. (more…)
In 2018, the cryptocurrency market has lost roughly 50% of its 2017 value. Some crypto exchanges had to close, others find themselves preventing regulatory bodies from shutting them down because of lacking KYC/AML procedures.
Tonight, we have banker Dr. Michael Hasenstab, CEO of ACON Actienbank AG, and crypto expert Johannes Angermeyer, kick-starting the evening with a joint introduction on ICOs vs IPOs. Then, representatives of crypto exchanges presenting their views on how to provide a secure, legally compliant, cryptocurrency trading for mainstream users.
Our first talk: Dr. Michael Hasenstab, ACON Actienbank AG & Johannes Angermeier, Black Pearl Digital AG (more…)
The Convergence Thesis: We strongly believe that blockchain technology will prove as the key underlying technology stack for the technologies that emerge with numerous applications on top of it. This view has been influenced by Outlier Ventures’ Jamie Burke, who coined the term ‘convergence’.
Blockchain provides an infrastructure for emergent trends like; IoT, 3D Printing, Autonomous Robotics (drones) to scale securely. More specifically, there are a handful of emerging technologies that hold the most promise for this blockchain-enabled convergence:
– Artificial Intelligence (AI)
– The Internet of Things (IoT)
– Autonomous Robotics (Drones & Autonomous Vehicles)
– Virtual Reality (VR) & Augmented Reality (AR)
– 3D Printing (more…)
Confronted with new technologies, market participants quite often choose to become members of some kind of group, organisation, alliance or initiative. Same with blockchain technology. In this meetup, we will hear about some practical experiences of members of the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance and B3i, the blockchain initiative of insurers.
Our first talk: Oliver Volk, Allianz SE
We’re happy to have Oliver Volk, Allianz Re Blockchain Expert and B3i Representative, to present his perspective. (more…)
Sometimes, old ideas experience a renaissance triggered by the advent of a new technology. The decentralized architecture of the blockchain finds its equivalent in traditional co-operative schemes as they exist in many different shapes throughout the world.
In this meetup we will discuss how blockchain technology is used to shift power from centralized entities to cooperatives. The Collabor8 (C8) Community Token which aims to develop a protocol and token to support a global ecosystem of decentralized but interconnected platform coops focusing on P2P exchange of assets, services, money and time.
Boyd Cohen, C8’s Economy Director and the author of ‚Post-Capitalist Entrepreneurship‘ will present the community process of designing tokens and the cryptoeconomics needed to motivate people to work and interact in a decentralized, collaborative way.
On blocks, tangles and meta-chains – what is the next step for Blockchain?
This time, we will return to the more technical aspects of blockchain: what is the actual state of different platforms, what’s going on with Bitcoin, IOTA, etc., and where does this all lead us to?
In the first talk, Datarella CEO Joerg Blumtritt will provide us with an outlook, especially on the following aspects:
ICOs are all the rage in the blockchain sphere, these days. Tales of hitherto unknown projects selling their tokens and raising millions of US-Dollars within hours or even minutes have made it to mainstream media. With the traditional Venture Capital VC model, another industry seems to be ready for disruption.
In the past 12 months, blockchain-related projects have raised 2.4 times more from ICOs than venture capital firms and early-stage investors.
In this meetup, we will approach the ICO from different perspectives, trying to get hold of this phenomenon:
Together with a team of the World Food Program WFP, the Datarella team will showcase the Building Blocks project. And where to better discuss this exciting project than in WFP’s office in the heart of Munich?
What started with a Proof-of-Concept in Pakistan in early January this year, has been transformed in a fully functional Blockchain pilot being rolled out in Jordan in May, 2017. The Building Blocks project not only demonstrates the power and the impact of blockchain technology enhancing to potentially enhance the lives of millions but it is proof of the efficiency of a humanitarian agency, such as WFP.
