Odyssey, formerly the Dutch Blockchain Hackathon and Blockchaingers, returns for its third edition as a blockchain and artificial intelligence hackathon. The event brings 100 teams together to build s
Odyssey, formerly the Dutch Blockchain Hackathon and Blockchaingers, returns for its third edition as a blockchain and artificial intelligence hackathon. The event brings 100 teams together to build solutions for 20 societal challenges. The Dutch government, central bank, financial regulator, and major corporations including Deloitte and KLM are backing the event.
The problems teams will tackle span energy transitions, public utilities, governance structures, self-sovereign digital identity, biometric data transmission, financial inclusion and security, cargo insurance, digital infrastructure, wildlife restoration, food supply chains, and disaster response.
One track asks participants to design a European digital identity system with government backing, built around the individual rather than the state. The Dutch interior ministry wants "a truly new approach to reliably, easily establishing a digital identity." The solution must run on consumer devices, put citizens in control of their own data attributes, and achieve "substantial" system strength.
A separate challenge from the same ministry seeks an open-source GDPR-compliant privacy detector that flags potential breaches when governments release open data to existing fields.
Raymond Knops, state secretary for the Interior and Kingdom Relations, said: "The Dutch government wants to be a partner for everyone who can co-create the digital public infrastructure that is needed to take society forward in the 21st century." He added: "The Odyssey hackathon goes beyond exploring the potential for blockchain and AI; it showcases the real-world capabilities of these technologies through economically viable solutions and unlocks new markets for businesses to provide products and services."
Kadaster, the agency managing Dutch land registration and geographic information systems, is pushing to modernize infrastructure using blockchain and advanced technology. The agency seeks an open distributed ecosystem where "all information on real objects is readily available to authorized persons and machines."
The hackathon runs April 11 through 15 in Groningen, with 1,500 people expected to attend. The top 20 teams share EUR 200,000 in combined prizes, presenting their solutions to investors and industry partners willing to accelerate their prototypes. They progress to the Odyssey Incubation Programme, where they have 100 days to launch, test, develop and scale solutions with consortium support through 2019 and 2020.
Last year's edition drew 1,000 attendees who produced 64 prototypes. Two standouts have gained traction. Kryha combines blockchain and artificial intelligence to coordinate drone swarms for search and rescue operations. The team now works with Ocean Protocol and MIT researchers on a project called GREX, building a decentralized hivemind. Unchain built a system for tracking expired and counterfeit drugs across Africa, addressing the EUR 33 billion in annual medical fraud and improving humanitarian supply lines.
