Explore Web3 and Earn Bounties — The Indian Ocean Hackathon Workshop:
Experts keep saying that Web3 is the future and crypto is the next gold. This made me curious; I started exploring about Web3. Luckily, I saw an announcement on the Ocean Protocol channel that they are organizing a Web3 workshop. The Indian Ocean Outreach Program and the Phoenix Guild were hosting this community call. The core objective of their partnership is to spread awareness about the Web3 and also the Ocean Protocol, thereby creating more opportunities in the ecosystem.
Before discussing about the Hackathon, let me share a few words about the organizers of this event.
Ocean Protocol
The Ocean Protocol is a chain-agnostic data protocol that allows individuals and businesses to easily unlock the value of their data and monetize it through the use of ERC-20 based data tokens. Put simply, it enables you to have better control of your data.
Indian Ocean DAO
The Ocean DAO is a monthly round grants program that provide grants to teams that aim to drive the WEB3 sustainability loop and establishing trust between Ocean tokens and Ocean DAO. You can propose a project in the Web3 space and get grants from Ocean DAO. The Indian Ocean Outreach Program is an initiative which is funded by the Indian Ocean DAO whose mission is to share the Web3 knowledge among Indians and drag the Web2 developers towards Web3.
Topics discussed in the Community call:
The main concepts that were discussed in the community call include — Basics of Web3, Introduction to the Ocean Academy, About Ocean Protocol, Core Initiatives on Ocean, Ocean Ambassador Program, Hackathon discussion and tips, Common Q&A on Ocean Protocol.
Here comes the interesting discussion about Web3, which was narrated by Gnana Lakshmi from the Phoenix Guild of Ocean DAO.
What is Web3?
We rely on Internet for everything these days. When we are hungry, we order food in Zomato/Swiggy. When we are in need of any book or bag or product, we purchase it on Amazon. When we need to travel somewhere, we book a cab in Uber or Ola. You might have realized that all these are third-party services; we feed our requirement and they serve us. What you might not have realized is that, these third-party services are selling our data in marketplace to earn revenue. Just remember this golden statement — “When you are not paying for the product, you are the product.”
The Issue: So, the issue is that, everything is Internet seems centralized. Giant whales like Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc. are ruling the entire ecosystem. Even though we trust them and use their service, there’s a risk of data theft, security breach, loss of control, lack of interoperability. Most of the shopping websites have saved your credit/debit card details in their server. What if they take your hard-earned money without your knowledge?
Solution: The only way to safeguard our data is to OWN it, so that it won’t fall into the hands of bad guys. The power of online ecosystem should be with the public citizens. If you are posting anything on social media, if it violates their community protocol, they will remove your post or even suspend you. This can’t be happening if the entire system is decentralized. That’s what Web3 is all about! Moving from authoritarianism to liberalism!
So, how will a Web3 enabled Internet be? Your data will be accessed, but it won’t be controlled by service providers.
Blockchain:
What’s so special about blockchain? Experts like Satoshi Nakamoto have designed the blockchain protocol in a way that, there won’t be any central authority; power is distributed equally to all the participants. Simply put, you are migrating from a client-server architecture to a peer-to-peer architecture. You no longer have to blindly trust the giant monopolies like Google and Facebook in the online ecosystem. Less trust and more truth!
The building blocks of blockchain — distributed system, cryptography, peer-to-peer networks, consensus algorithms. Cryptocurrency is analogous to fiat currency; the nodes in a blockchain network validates your transaction, checks whether you have sufficient balance in your wallet and then confirms your transaction and adds it to a block. And it creates a trust factor using consensus; ensuring that only one chain is followed and it contains the truth. So, we can wave goodbye to those intermediary applications which we were using for a few years now!
I got excited about owning my data and I started imagining about how the Web3 ecosystem will rule the globe, while Gnana Lakshmi wrapped the Web3 session. Next came the Hackathon discussion, which was hosted by Dr.Prakash Kamraj, the Indian Ocean Lead. He explained about the Ocean Protocol, their mission, initiatives, the Ocean Ambassador Program, hackathon tips, and concluded the session by answering the FAQs on the Indian Ocean Hackathon. Set up your wallets and be ready! More bounties on the way!
What is a DApp?
Decentralized applications, which are commonly known as DApps, are the applications that has blockchain as the backbone; they are free from the control of a central authority. The common types of DApps include DeFi (Decentralized Finance), NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), and social tokens. The core logic of any decentralized application will be encoded on the Smart Contracts. Caution! A smart contract cannot be changed once it’s launched online. Hence, it’s important to run security audits and ensure that it is bug-free before deploying it on the mainnet. The key advantages of any DApp include — security, speed, anonymity, and reliability.
The Ocean Protocol
Ocean Protocol is one such DApp which is based on the Ethereum blockchain, whose mission is to serve as a decentralized data marketplace, connecting the data providers and the data consumers. Data providers can monetize their data, while preserving privacy and control. Data consumers can purchase private data and compute algorithms on them.
In our daily life, we have millions of images which can be used to train AI algorithms. But, those raw data can’t be used directly. Raw data should be aggregated in order to analyze them and gain valuable insights. So, as a data owner, you can aggregate your data and sell it on the Ocean marketplace so that the necessary data consumers can purchase your data and train their algorithm. The icing on the cake here is that, neither the data consumer can view your private data, nor you can view the algorithm which is used by the data consumer to train and analyze your data — everything is anonymous!
Main Initiatives of Ocean Protocol
1. Ocean Marketplace is a place where you can buy/sell private data using datatokens.
2. Ocean DAO grants funds for coming up with initiatives and DApps that runs based on the Ocean Protocol.
3. Data Farming and Data NFTs are upcoming V4 marketplaces with great incentives for data consumers. They have ENS like mechanisms for Ocean holders.
4. Indian Ocean Ambassador Program allows people who want to jump into Web3 to get paid to learn about Web3 and the Ocean. You can also enjoy the ambassador perks which includes a wide genre of activities like promoting Ocean on social media, writing blogs, and posting videos on Ocean and Web3, technical and general contribution to the Ocean protocol — which can earn you more dollars.
Indian Ocean Hack — January 2022
You might have attended quite a few hackathons or you might just be a beginner like me! The Hackathon is open for all of us. This Hackathon is a great place to start exploring the Web3 ecosystem and the Ocean Protocol. The good news is that they have a prize pool of 4000$ USD in Ocean. The Hackathon quest format is of 5-fold — quests for writers, designers, and core-tech developers
1. Writer’s Bounty — You can contribute some articles on Web3, Ocean Protocol, any new project proposal, etc. 500$ USD in Ocean Prize Pool exclusively for writers.
2. Media Bounty — You don’t feel comfortable in writing articles? Cool! Who wants to read long articles, when we can actually watch videos on almost anything! You can create a short video-review of any topics on web3 or the ocean protocol concepts and submit. 500$ USD in Ocean Prize Pool exclusively for video reviewers.
3. Design Bounty — Are you a web developer? You can suggest for improvements in the UI/UX design recommendations for the Ocean protocol’s webpages in creative ways. 500$ USD in Ocean Prize Pool exclusively for designers.
4. Core Tech Bounty — You can come up with the best DevOps implementation for the core tech issues like data NFTs, mobile data DAO, decentralized social media, building comments and ratings. 500$ USD in Ocean Prize Pool exclusively for developers.
5. Ambassador Challenge — If you are already an Ocean Ambassador, you can submit for additional track of bounties. 500$ USD in Ocean Prize Pool exclusively for ambassadors.
You can work on any of the above bounties and win rewards. If you are a beginner like me, you can start from the writing bounty. If you need more details, you can check out here — Ocean Hackathon Details
And the meeting concluded on a grand note with promises to strengthen the Developer community, EVMOS ecosystem with more information to follow-up on Ocean Hackathon, bounties and other strategic partnerships.
References
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15_oI7eTm350vG-fLDbaSqvopazFh9eUxi3Sj2Dm4LwU/edit
https://indian-ocean.gitbook.io/indian-ocean-outreach-program/
https://indian-ocean.gitbook.io/indian-ocean-outreach-program/indian-ocean-dao
https://oceanprotocol.com/press/2021-10-07-ocean-protocol-foundation-announces-140M-USD
https://indian-ocean.gitbook.io/indian-ocean-outreach-program/indian-ocean-hackathon