Hack4Climate. Thriller in four parts

During 12–16th of November the Innosoft team took part in a really great event — #hack4climate hackathon in Bonn, Germany.

This might have been just an event but even Hollywood writers would be jealous if they knew what difficulties did organizers and participants experience before the event and what an amazing job was done by #hack4climate team to make real the idea connecting together blockchain technology with global climate change issues.

Part 1. The preparation

At the end of September, 2017 we knew about an amazing event going to happen in Bonn, Germany soon: the blockchain hackathon associated with COP23 conference.

Innosoft as a company has a lot of experience in both parts: me personally was working with weather stations, radars and forecasts for almost 5 years (2010–2015) for Intelligent traffic systems in Minimax-94 company, one of the team is working now with Metro model and computer vision systems, during last year we won several large blockchain hackathons (CaliforniaWantsUs team) and even introduced in production our cross-border blockchain implementation for document exchange in Yorso and created new generation investment platform Investore.

In the middle of October three people got invited: me, Vyacheslav Lukin and Maksim Skorikov.

We were so much excited to join that I even decided to cancel my stay in California and return to Moscow on November, 4th instead of 12th to be able to get visa done and participate. Thus, we started the preparation.

Part 2. The crisis

The communication with organizers were fine and on regular basis. I already changed my travel plan and tickets and even got a message October, 30th from #hack4climate team to book tickets to Bonn. Since that time some strange things started to happen.

The booking had two days to expire and after 24 hours I become nervous, the team didn’t answer anything. In 48 hours booking was expired and I was charged small amount of money. November, 1st deep at night we got a video record from Nick Beglinger telling us that everything went bad and with high probability event will not happen. It was a brave and honest decision to tell everyone that there are issues with the sponsors but I personally was shocked: I already changed my trip plans in the USA and even lost some money for tickets which were even not existed. Even though in the video we were told to not worry about compensation but still it was a crisis situation.

The lucky part is that crisis really made closer everyone who knew about the event: the official slack channel was full of ideas and proposals on how to reduce the expenses, all the #hack4climate team was responsive and doing their best at all levels. I would even say that they did a lot of steps written in my research paper about crisis situations. The only thing we had to do since now is to wait…

November, 5th deep at night we got one more video from Nick: the event will happen as it was initially planned November, 12th! I still don’t know how but the #hack4climate team finally did the best hackathon ever visited: I only can guess how was it possible from their side to organize an excellent event in just 5 days thus it’s a special THANKS from my side to all of you, guys!

Part 3. The event

It couldn’t be just an event: at least the preparation crisis made it special and unforgettable. Luckily, it was not the end and more magic happened later…

We got a flight to Frankfurt and agreed on slack with one of the participant — Richard — to drive us to Bonn on his way from Switzerland. Well, nothing interesting? Yeah, except the fact about car: it was a Tesla bought for bitcoins in 2017 which were earned in 2011 for paragliding lessons! Don’t you think it’s a future of human-to-human relationships?

The place for the event for not just another conference hall or a hotel: we were planned to stay for four days on the real swimming boat which is a 5* hotel!

The event had several parts: the conference, the introduction of the sponsor’s cases with blockchain (Volkswagen, Swiss SBB, FutureICT, IOTA and many-many more) and the hackathon itself!

One more special thanks to make the hackathon not just another one local IT event:

• the team organized a really cool networking space: before running the hackathon we got a chance to know each other during excursions, dinners and team activities which definitely made us closer to each other; in other events you just visit some place in the middle of nowhere and start working right away
• participants were from all over the world: North and Latin America, Asia, Europe, Africa, even New Zealand and Fiji Island! What other events do you know with such a great geography diversification? Since now we know: climate doesn’t have borders and nationalities
• the diversity was also in skills: one third of the participants were climate experts and other one third — analysts and managers; with another one third of software engineers it was a nice way to finally find a great approach on how to apply new technology to real life!

We formed a team of six: to our Innosoft guys joined the MIT Student Stephen Lee (American, data scientist), Fedor (German, IT Consultant from Deutsche Bank) and Alex Daurkin (Russian, IT entrepreneur and hardware guru).

The high level architecture

We did a really cool project concept: the smart Data-as-a-Service IoT ecosystem for pollution tracking, identification and prediction.

• On the basement there is a “sensor community” (both opened and closed) with raw data and contribution from any user. Sensors data are stored in the BigChain DB with periodical snapshots to public Ethereum. Since now data is trusted!
• On top of it — the marketplace for user’s applications like AppStore does to provide new services. Stephen even implemented his one during the hackathon to solve the inverse problem using Gaussian plume model; this is not just another freak thing — using exactly same method Shell searches for oil places in the ocean to start drilling.
• Each data contributor and app developer is being rewarded with ecosystem tokens issued using Waves platform

To tell the truth, for the first time in my hackathon career I’m thinking on continuing working on this project, do the marketing analysis and start the ICO. Moreover, it’s not just my thought: a lot of people came to us after presentation part and told that they are ready to invest in the team and especially in this project: both from IT part and climate experts. Well, will see if it is feasible soon.

In total there were 21 projects and each of them was cool: people proposed ways for supply chain to reduce CO2 emissions, ways to save the forests and a lot more. Sometimes it’s really cool to broader your mind and get out from your everyday activities!

#Hack4climate team, THANK YOU for this!

Part 4. Back home

Initially it was supposed to be only three parts but suddenly my return home became an adventure too. It started from meeting with Anurag Maloo: the Techstars representative in Asia and #hack4climate core team member.

Anurag supposed to fly to Dushanbe for the next Techstars event and bought two different tickets: one to Moscow VKO Airport and another one with two hour gap to Dushanbe from the same airport. Because it was not a connection flight but two different stories there was a risk with delay and missing the next flight on own responsibility. As you already guessed — it happened :)

Staying in the queue to 2-hour delayed flight to Moscow from CGN Airport we realized another one issue for Anurag waiting us in Russia. He didn’t have visa which brought new challenge on getting his suitcase and register to some other flight: to access the luggage we had to pass the passport control first! The other challenge was to find the new flight to Dushanbe: the most appropriate one was from ZIA Airport but Anurag didn’t have rights to enter Russia. We decided to not cancel the flight to Moscow and do our best in Russia: at least I was Russian and was able to help there in place with language and negotiation process. The next three hours after landing in the Vnukovo airport were the following:

1. I went to passport control and explained the situation with my Indian friend. They suggested not to even come him to passport control because of immediate deportation and allowed me to get his luggage from Russia to transit area back
2. We went together with Anurag to transit area staff: they gave us more optimism and suggested just to book another one flight, register to it with their help and the luggage will be transferred to the needed flight by airport staff too
3. Then we connected with hosting team from Dushanbe and were trying to find the flight: all their options were telling that Anurag will be in place not earlier than Saturday morning which was completely inappropriate.
4. We found one more “not connection flight” by ourselves with 3.5 hour gap in Istanbul which was suitable but Anurag needed a visa to Turkey and get through the same procedure without my help or any other local guidance.
5. According to Turkey rules we bought special transit e-visa for just 43 bucks in 5 minutes! Since now we were at least sure that Anurag will be able to pass passport control, get his luggage and register to the new flight in place.
6. Vnukovo staff helped with registration and assured that with luggage everything will be fine. I left Anurag and went to the passport control zone. Their staff was wondering where was I hiding for three hours. I told them the full story, the tears of tenderness were in their eyes and they allowed me to return to Russia.
7. Sudden call on my phone: “This is Elena, I’m from transit area, Anurag’s luggage is lost”. “AAAAAAAAAAAA” — was my first reaction. I asked to call Anurag and told him to not worry: if his suitcase in Bonn still I’ll get it soon and help with sending in any place he needs. Otherwise, it must be somewhere in the Airport. We were again lucky: in the room with lost luggage near my bag was also the Anurag’s bag.
8. Happy end! Anurag successfully facilitated an event in Dushanbe.

Epilogue

Dear #hack4climate team, big thanks to you one more time: you are really great to host an event with so high level of service and organization even in such a tough conditions! I wish you all the best and new great events which will be definitely the aim for our next visit and will definitely help the climate not just with words but with real actions.