So I did a thing! My first Hackathon!

So I did a thing! Back in May, I attended my first ever hackathon. The Activate x Wormhole Hackathon, not only did I get to go but I also got sponsored by Blu3 DAO, thanks to StorJ and Harmony.

I was on the train to London Luton Airport when I found out about this opportunity, after moments of self-doubt followed by a few encouraging words from friends I decided that I would take the plunge and apply, after all, what is the worst that could happen? By the time we were on the last leg of our journey, I had completed my application, said a quick prayer and sent it off. On the 13th of May, at 17:14 PM (Mykonos Time) I received the following message from a lovely lady at Blu3 DAO:

Hi Heike! This is Daphne from Blu3 DAO

We have one open spot left in our scholarship to Activate Miami and we'd love to offer it to you. You must be able to fully attend May 16-May 23rd. You will receive a 1,000 stipend. Please get back to me in the next 2 hours if you are interested, thanks!

And just like that, only four days later I was on a plane to Miami.

A bit about Blu3 DAO

Blu3 DAO is a DAO with the mission to empower women, nonbinary, and allies to learn, earn, and play in web3. They do this by bringing people together, creating a space to network, participating in hackathons and exposing you to different opportunities.

Pre-Hackathon Experience

The days leading up to the hackathon were full of workshops and talks.

One workshop that I particularly enjoyed was the Storj one given by Shawn Wilkinson the founder. Storj is a decentralised cloud storage platform that allows anyone to benefit by renting out their storage space. What this means is instead of storing things on let's say an S3 bucket they can be stored with Tom in Scotland. This is done via a storage node network. And yes I know this doesn't sound very secure but the data is encrypted on the client side before it ever gets to Tom and not only that but the data is actually split into pieces and stored across a distributed network so Tom will never actually have all the pieces to the puzzle. The last thing to note, let's say one of the pieces goes missing or is damaged when you want to retrieve it you would still be able to get all your data back with the pieces you have left.

The Hackathon

Just before the Hackathon started we formed our team and decided what skills we would need to bring our idea to life. I had such a great time hacking with my team and was able to function as a UX/UI designer. Although I do not do this as my day job, I was the only one within the team that had some experience using Figma so I had to rise up to the task.

Overall this was a very challenging, nerve-racking yet rewarding experience. Here are some encouraging words and key lessons I brought back with me:

• You are qualified - Do not take yourself out of the race before you have even had a chance to run. I was not going to apply for this because I thought I was not qualified but I thank God I did.

• You may not get it the first time and that’s okay - our team didn't win any of the main prizes but having the experience means it’s only up from here.

• You are not an imposter - Feel the fear and do it anyway. I felt serious imposter syndrome at some points, but once I started talking to people I realise that most of us were feeling the same way. So never let fear rob you of your experience.

• If you don’t know just ask - we can oftentimes shy away from asking questions because we don’t want to look like we don’t know, well guess what… you don’t know it’s better to ask than keep going through life not knowing.

• Network and learn from people - hundreds of people came together from all over the world there were real opportunities to learn from them. One major thing I learned was the ability to network well.

I hope I was somehow able to encourage you to do something that is slightly out of your comfort zone, whether it’s a hackathon or entering the great British bake-off. Do it!

Peace and Love

Heike Faith