Blockchain Charity - DataArt won the Malta Blockchain Summit

DataArt team won the largest blockchain hackathon recently held in Malta. For two days, colleagues developed a platform for conducting online charitable lotteries and won a prize of 25 thousand dollars.

Stories of winners and links to the project under the cut.
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The Malta Blockchain Summit took place in the Maltese city of St. Julians in early November and gathered about 8.5 thousand people, although the organizers expected about half as many participants. That's what MBS writes about Forbes .


DataArt team at the presentation of the main prize hakaton. Photo: MBS

The blockchain-hackathon actually preceded the conference, which opened with the announcement of the winners. The best was the DataArt team, which presented a platform for charity lotteries.

application

With the Blockchain Charity Lottery platform, charitable organizations can be integrated, and the lottery itself, through the use of the blockchain, is completely open and transparent. All payments are made in cryptocurrency (DataArt team used Ethereum), but potentially the project can be integrated with the exchange.



Anatoly Rubtsov, Product Design Consultancy DataArt, St. Petersburg: “A very big problem of charity, according to many, is the lack of a sufficient level of trust. There are concerns that donated money will not reach the people who really need them. Blockchain solves this problem. You can see from which wallets transactions went, who won, to which charitable organization’s purse the amount went. That is, the main feature of our lottery is complete openness and transparency. Plus, it's gaming, which has recently been very closely associated with the blockchain. ”

Vladislav Dmitriev, Team Lead / Senior Java Developer DataArt, Kiev: “The platform allows benefactors to create their own lotteries. In the simplest version, implemented by us in two days, a certain fund should contact the administrator on our side, transfer the data: description, ticket price, time, etc. With further development, registration can be made by transferring the functions to the administrator on the side of the fund itself ”.

Team

Competed teams of five people. The rules suggested a team leader, architect, two backend and one front-end developer.

Igor Kozhurenko, leader of DataArt iGaming practice, team lead, St. Petersburg: “We can say that we were at the hackathon by chance. But as one of the Kung Fu Pandu cartoon characters said: "Accidents are not accidental." It all started when the MLS CEO sent me an invitation to get a free VIP ticket. The event was planned to be steep (it turned out even steeper than expected), and when I saw that the hackathon would also pass in Malta, I immediately thought that we could put together a team. After all, we really have been dealing with the blockchain for a long time and seriously. ”

Together with Igor, the team included Vlad Dmitriev, who acted as an architect and helped with the backend, Maxim Chernikov, who dealt directly with the smart contract, its integration with Java and DevOps, Alexander Kuzmenko, who took over the rest of the application structure, including the frontend, and Anatoly Scar, which had a grocery component and design.

Vladislav Dmitriev, Team Lead / Senior Java Developer: “We have been working with Sasha and Max for quite some time, in the last project, where I was a team leader, we all worked together. Therefore, when Igor (we also did several projects with him) offered to assemble a team, I immediately decided to call them - these are some of the coolest developers I know. ”

Anatoly Rubtsov, Product Design Consultancy: “All of us were highlighted at different times in the projects of our iGaming practice, so Igor and Vlad called us. Personally, not everyone was familiar with each other, but we managed to quickly move from the state of the working group to the state of the team, the benefit of all the experience is quite large. We delimited the areas of responsibility and took up business. I think if I had to repeat in the same composition, now we would manage in a day. ”

Training

From the very beginning, it was known that projects based on the blockchain and associated with gaming will be involved in the hackathon (gambling is also allowed in Malta). The teams filled in the application formulating the general idea of ​​their application, but the organizers promised to announce the final list of restrictions on the eve of the start. Therefore, the DataArt team did not waste time on in-depth analysis and especially homework.

Maxim Chernikov, Senior Java Developer, Odessa: “We went to look at the summit and Malta itself, make new acquaintances, including with potential clients, to see how others work. Participation in the hackathon was the next item on the program, although we wanted to show ourselves, to do something beautiful and cool. But we waited that people who do some absolutely phenomenal things would compete with us. Therefore, we initially looked at the result calmly. ”

Alexander Kuzmenko, Senior Java Developer, Odessa: “On the morning of the first day of the hackathon, we were told that we can do what we said on the registration form. There was no additional input, but in any case we did not prepare anything in advance. ”

Hackathon

On the development of the project was given two days. All teams worked in the same room; in the process, mentors and some conference participants could observe them. The commits were made pointwise, the code was sent to a special environment and was available on GitHub (now the code can also be viewed here ).


Igor Kozhurenko, Alexander Kuzmenko, Vladislav Dmitriev, Maxim Chernikov, Anatoly Rubtsov. Intercontinental Hotel, St. Julians, Malta. Photo: Facebook Vladislav Dmitriev

Alexander Kuzmenko, Senior Java Developer: “On the first day we wrote the code for five hours on the hackathon - we were allowed to stay there until eleven. Well, a little work at night. The second day was written entirely from eight in the morning until eleven in the evening, on the third at noon was the code-frieze, and we just before 12 finished fixing bugs and rolling out minor additions to the functionality. ”

Vladislav Dmitriev, Team Lead / Senior Java Developer: “When you are busy with code, you find it difficult to be distracted by communicating with mentors, which are many on the hackathon. Igor and Tolya took over all the conversations with us, they showed our achievements to those who approached with questions, talked with them, analyzed some recommendations. ”

Igor Kozhurenko, the leader of iGaming practice: “Hackathon is very interesting, but there, of course, is not fun — you just don’t look up. I tried to make sure that we all went to breathe from time to time, and of course there were breaks for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We slept for six to seven hours so as not to cut down during the day. I stayed until the last day, but before the presentation I started to drink Red Bull. ”

Difficulties

Most of the decisions in the team were taken collectively, the responsibilities of each participant overlapped, and given the tight deadlines, we had to constantly discuss our actions. Staying focused for two days was not easy, it was not without technical problems.

Vladislav Dmitriev, Team Lead / Senior Java Developer: “In the team I was formally listed as an architect, but we did the whole backend of the three of us. We programmed a lot directly with Max, sometimes sharing tasks. Many problems arose with basic things: Ethereum, Geth, web3j, Solidity. We had to choose versions that would work correctly with each other. ”

Alexander Kuzmenko, Senior Java Developer: “In principle, I had quite understandable technical tasks. The most difficult thing was to do everything quickly and maintain concentration, despite the noise around. Behind a fabric partition there was a restaurant in general, where forks rang and something constantly fell. ”

Maxim Chernikov, Senior Java Developer: “The second day was hard: there were problems with the smart contract and the test network, which was set up for a long time. In addition, we changed the approach to solving the problem of randomizer. At first we wanted to use Oraclize in conjunction with Random.org and trust the generation of random numbers to a third-party API, but we stopped at the Provably fair algorithm. By the way, Igor suggested solving this serious problem at dinner. ”

Igor Kozhurenko, the leader of iGaming practice: “The most difficult thing was to make the right decisions for the project that would not make the process longer. Technically, the most difficult area was the randomizer on the blockchain - a problem that, apart from me, no one in the team had before. We decided not to integrate with third-party systems, fearing not only bugs, but in general the specifics of the code. And the decision to take a randomized protocol saved us a lot of time. We could get stuck at this stage and generally fail the whole idea, but we figured out what to do in time. And Max - well done - quickly figured out how to fasten the selected protocol, and the question was decided right away! ”

Presentation

A separate and very important stage of the hakaton was the presentation of projects. In the DataArt team, Igor Kozhurenko and Anatoly Rubtsov, experienced experts with a wealth of experience in public speaking, took on this part. All the speeches had to be laid in 5 minutes, not counting one or two minutes for questions, and far from everyone was able to do it. Many teams, trying to tell as much as possible. They did not have time to fully submit their projects.

Igor Kozhurenko, the leader of iGaming practice: “We made the last commit at 12 o'clock, when the code-freeze was announced, and fortunately, everything really worked for us. Immediately after that, we went to train the presentation. They all divided into parts, sat for two hours with a stopwatch and were ready to perform. ”

Maxim Chernikov, Senior Java Developer: “Before the presentation itself, I again had doubts about winning, when I saw how serious the projects of competitors look. But in the end it turned out that these were mainly presentations, mockups and videos. We offered a product that could be tested in a test network. In addition, everything was worked out from a technical and visual point of view. As soon as the presentation began, it became clear how strong our project was. ”

Victory

From the very beginning, they tried not to think about the victory and the prize in the team. But admittedly, the draft lottery turned out such that not to win or at least not to enter the top three winners would be insulting. The main secret of success turned out to be a task that is technically complex enough to be interesting and impressive, but difficult enough so that it can be convincingly solved in the allotted time.

Anatoly Rubtsov, Product Design Consultancy: “There were moments when we were very worried. It even seemed to us that other teams were peeping over our shoulders and copying us. But in the end they did not even enter the top three. In the end, we relaxed and decided - come what may. When the winners were announced, they didn’t even immediately realize that it was us. ”

Alexander Kuzmenko, Senior Java Developer: “We have the most complete project. Other teams had interesting ideas, someone already screwed devices with voice control to their project, etc. They invested a lot of labor, but in fact did not have time to finish what they were going for 48 hours. ”


On a tour of Malta after the hackathon. Photo: Facebook Vladislav Dmitriev

Igor Kozhurenko, the leader of iGaming practice: “We managed to combine to combine a well-thought-out technical solution, business idea and charity. To show that using the game you can directly do good to people, and the blockchain allows you to eliminate doubts about the honesty of the one who is playing this game. ”

Prize

The final decision on the prize was made by the organizers at the last moment. Initially, 50 thousand euros appeared in a cryptocurrency for a single team, but in the end they stopped at 50 thousand dollars with an ordinary bank transfer, which the three teams would share. DataArt team as the winner will get half (the second and third teams will receive 15 and 10 thousand dollars, respectively).


The organizers decided to divide the prize fund between the three winning teams. Photo: Facebook Anatoly Rubtsov

Maxim Chernikov, Senior Java Developer: “The girl and I had planned for a long time a trip to Germany and even had time to put off the money for it, but the prize will allow us to feel more comfortable after returning. Doshyrakom not have to eat! "

Alexander Kuzmenko, Senior Java Developer: “I'm definitely not going to spend prize money. I plan to postpone them and add them to those I save for the car. ”

Anatoly Rubtsov, Product Design Consultancy: “Prize money is quite physical, but you must first get it. I now want to change the gearbox.

Vladislav Dmitriev, Team Lead / Senior Java Developer: "For now, I think I’ll just put my share of the winnings in the bank box."