Blockchain project EcoCoin has won the Dutch international energy hackathon 'Hackenergy 2016' that was sponsored by ENGIE Nederland, Energy Academy Europe, the City and Province of Groningen and backed by Groningen's IBM Client Innovation Center.
According to reports, the EcoCoin project team involved three hackers Brendon Geils (US), Simon Appel (Germany) and Hodge Hodgson (Germany), who built a blockchain-fueled peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading system on the open source Linux Foundation-led Hyperledger blockchain.
"It was a great event, bringing the energy transition where it belongs: with people who want to work with our future, and a great way to connect knowledge, innovation and business. We look forward to welcoming new energy business ventures and to hosting following edition!" Maurits Alberda, Manager Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Energy Academy Europe said.
The EcoCoin project team spent the 1st-day brainstorming and formulating the idea and constructed it in 25 hours. The team plans to take part in Ultrahack 2016 in Helsinki in November, which is an international hackathon league with winners from more than a dozen other hackathons in Europe competing for a share of over €1m in investment funds. The EcoCoin team will receive a €1,000 grant to attend the Slush festival after Ultrahack, one of the largest tech events in the Nordics.
"The first night we spent the entire night brainstorming then by 11am the next day we conceived the idea," Brendon Geils, one of the hackers said. "At that point, we had 25 hours left to hack — and we did it in the next 25 hours."