The top performing teams of the 2018 Unlock The Block blockchain hackathon were recently announced.
Hackathon participants worked on solving real-world problems using blockchain technology.
A special prize for innovation was awarded to team EWAN from Berlin, who built a curation market application.
The second place prize, awarded to team Sudo Tesla, included a month at Absa’s Rise facilities at the Woodstock Exchange in order to further develop their project. The project aims to provide an alternative means to manage water resources in a crisis by representing water as tokens.
The overall first prize of R100,000 was split between two teams: the first being BlockPoll by Team WhenMoon?, who built a blockchain voting system facilitating better governance in companies, as well as transparency and security in elections.
The other winning team was Proof of Steak by Yuna, which is a solution that allows farmers to use livestock as collateral in order to secure alternative means of finance. The team described this as a “uniquely African” and “contextual approach” which would “allow anyone in the world to invest in your cow”. Farmers register their cattle on the blockchain, which functions as an immutable ledger, and investors provide funding to the farmer.
The 10-day hackathon event was hosted by Linum Labs in partnership with the African Institute of Financial Markets and Risk Management at the University of Cape Town (AIFMRM).
