Blockchain innovations from Novi Sad
Solutions for counterfeit medication, gun control, corruption in public procurement, and more
Last weekend, Startit Centar hosted one of the biggest hackathons in Novi Sad history, with more than 14 teams competing. Twelve of the teams worked on their solutions throughout the entire 48-hour event.
The topic of the hackathon was Blockchain for Business featuring Hyperledger solutions. Both Hyperledger and blockchain are relatively unexplored technologies in Serbia, so we didn’t expect to be blown away by the solutions our participants came up with in only two days.
We were surprised.
Jury member Ivan Bjelajac shared this to say about the competition:
“This was, by far, the best hackathon I’ve been to and judged in Serbia. There were several teams that could have easily won some of the previous hackathons, with elegantly implemented and well-crafted solutions that would be a pity not to see in real-life use. Judging by the number of good-quality teams, I’d say this hackathon has set the bar high for future events.”
GameCredits chief operating officer Alex Migitko shared his impressions of the event, as well:
“This was definitely one of the most impressive hackathons I’ve ever seen, judging by every angle. The number of teams, their creativity, and the execution made the whole event very exciting.”
In addition to Bjelajac, the jury included GameCredits chief technical officer Nikola Đokić and Dušan Gajić, a college assistant at the Faculty of Sciences in Novi Sad. The prize pool of 5.000 euros was claimed by the winning team, Samsara.
What kinds of solutions did the teams develop?
In just 48 hours, the teams came up with some very diverse examples of blockchain business usage, developing proof-of-concept demo apps that clearly showed how their products would function in real life.
Preventing corruption in public procurement
The winning team, Samsara, developed a platform called Tender.ly which is intended to prevent corruption and rigged bidding processes in public procurement.
This innovative use of blockchain gives total anonymity to all of the participants in a public procurement tender. The tendered offers are cryptographically signed, with the signatures stored in the blockchain. Once the tender period is closed, the offers are published and paired with the matching anonymous signatures. This prevents sudden changes and ensures that no one sees the offers before the tender period ends. This solution ensures transparency, security, and fairness to all participants while abiding the law and promoting the best interests of the public. Samsara’s demo can be found at https://tenderly.rs.
A team called KoloTree tried to solve the same problem. Like the winning team, KoloTree developed a blockchain solution that addresses the issue of trust between the participants and organizers of a tender. With KoloTree’s solution, participants send encrypted bids that are recorded on the blockchain. Once the bidding period is closed, the second phase begins. The keys for decryption are sent, and only then can both the participants and the organizer see all of the offers.
Connecting dog breeders
The Blockfail team developed JackieChain, a platform for professional kennels, their clients, and dog owners. JackieChain supports registering, purchasing, and discovering breeding matches for your dog. The goal is to make the search for the right match easier while creating a network of trust between breeders and owners.
Blockfail’s solution uses blockchain technology to help ensure that all of the information on dogs is valid, including pedigree, ancestry, competition records, vaccinations, and so on. The team was able to eliminate intermediaries between the official institutions that make these guarantees and the dog owners who rely on them.
Gun registration on blockchain
The Belgrade Duckies presented a solution on Sunday, 25 March. The team worked on improving the existing system of recording gun ownership and sales in the United States. Current problems include inefficient and cumbersome paperwork, variations among state record-keeping standards, and distrust between institutions and individuals. Moreover, the centralized registration of guns is prohibited by law. This makes Hyperledger the perfect platform for a technically revolutionary solution.
The team’s application could make police work easier, improve public safety, reduce gun violence, enhance the privacy of gun owners, and reduce the expenses of archiving data in regulatory institutions and gun shops.
Telcos and counterfeit medication
A team called Shady But Lovable worked on problems related to telcom operators and roaming charges.
Under current systems, local operators get information on user activity only after it occurs, resulting in a failure to inform users of their spending. Shady But Lovable’s Hyperledger Fabric-based solution resolves the problem by supporting instant roaming data, instant transfer between operators, unlimited options for B2B cooperation both internationally and locally, and a trusted medium for user call data to be transferred and appropriately shared.
Hyperledger found another interesting application in the field of pharmaceuticals. A team called RAFchain used Hyperledger as the foundation for an application that documents the pharmaceuticals supply chain and holds the potential to reduce or eliminate black-market drug sales. The solution follows each product’s supply chain from the factory to the consumer, recording each movement in the Hyperledger. Consumers can verify whether their products arrived through legal channels and check if all paperwork and fees were handled appropriately simply by entering the product’s serial number.
Invoicing
The HyperERP team took on the problem of invoice management and third-party data-exchange systems — essentially, centralized invoicing apps. With the help of HyperERP’s blockchain-based platform, business systems could communicate with each other directly. Sensitive information could be accessed only by parties engaged in business transactions.
This problem was also tackled by the A Hundred Euros Each team, whose project, Meerkat, is a distributed invoice-exchange solution. With Meerkat, companies get insight into basic business metrics of potential partners in order to increase efficiency, reduce risk, and minimize expenses in exchange for goods or value. The solution was implemented on HyperLedger Fabric.
Conclusion
The GameCredits team is always eager to participate in hackathons in order to see exciting implementations of new technology and find new talent. The potential of blockchain technology solutions goes well beyond the gaming industry. Going forward we’ll continue to host, judge, and attend such events.
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