The first DIF-sponsored hackathon wrapped up with a Meet The Winners Twitter Space earlier this month which highlighted how the event has supported skills development, engagement with the decentralized identity community and participation in DIF’s work.
Five winners shared the main DIF-funded $10,000 prize pool, with additional prizes scooped by winners of challenges sponsored by DIF members TBD (Block), Trinsic, Polygon ID and Ontology.
Participants included people both new to and experienced with decentralized identity.
“The number of submissions and the breadth of ideas, projects and levels of experience on display exceeded our expectations. We are particularly pleased that so many projects used DIF work items. A number of people from the web3 space used Decentralized Identifiers and Verifiable Credentials for the first time, thanks to some interesting challenges from our sponsors, and many participants explored the exciting possibilities of Decentralized Web Nodes” said Limari Navarette, DIF’s Senior Director of Community Engagement.
Several winners of the main DIF prize pool are currently studying at university, and submitted research projects that combined DIF work items and sponsors’ SDKs to create sophisticated solutions to real-world problems.
“We are thrilled to have helped so many talented young developers upskill around decentralized identity, which also expands the talent pool available to our members” Limari added.
Participants, including those with significant experience working with decentralized identity technology, said the hackathon has helped them feel more connected to the community, with the technical masterclasses, Office Hours support and Discord server all singled out for praise.
The hackathon has also sparked new participation in DIF, including two proposed new working groups, plus new work items for established working groups.
Here’s a flavor of the insights shared by DIF Hackathon winners during the Twitter Space on 10th January:
“This was my first time working with DIDs and DWNs. I fell in love with how revolutionary this is, and the possibilities for applications” Harsh Tyagi, HealthXProtocol - Third Place, DIF Main Prize Pool & TBD Prize Pool.
“This project is inspired by an effort I'm involved in to build a trust framework for the home buying and selling industry in the UK. It aims to make it safe and easy for individuals and organizations to share data during the home buying and selling process”. Edward Curran, TrustBox - Honorable Mention, DIF Main Prize Pool.
“I’ve been in the automotive space for a while, removing friction for businesses. Otto told me about the hackathon and I deployed my team just a week before submissions closed. I came up with a use case and challenged the team with it, because I wanted them to learn and develop around primitives such as VCs, since we’d like to use them in our own product”. Aaron Wuchner,Titleblox - Third Place, Trinsic Prize Pool.
“Pop up events at big conferences present a challenging use case. All current solutions are “Prove this at home with your private key, then go”. But if you're at a conference and an event pops up, how do you prove ownership of an NFT? I didn't want our members walking around the conference with the private keys to their NFTs in order to sign a transaction to get in the door. I came to the hackathon specifically to learn Polygon ID and to use its privacy features to disconnect “Am I a member of the DAO?” from “What's my crypto wallet address” and my potential crypto net worth at a public event. Bob Black, ATX DAO - First place, Polygon ID Prize Pool.
DIF Main Prize Pool winners
First Prize: Decentralinked
Second Prize: Anonymous Door Unlocking
Third Prize: HealthX Protocol
Honorable Mention: TrustBox
Honorable Mention: Mail5
Click here for a full list of prize winners.