Jenny in Wonderland — my debut in the blockchain world

Me, James Brown and Rosalie Prom — our team for this weekend’s art #blockathon

Two months ago I jumped aboard a speeding rollercoaster called “Blockchain Technology.” This is my journey thus far.

This was daunting (also I stole this from UCOT’s Victor Huang… thanks by the way!)

My first day on the job, I was thrown into EDCON2019 where I met a whole bunch of wizards and unicorns (including the great Daniel Bar 丹尼尔👩🏼‍🎤 of bitfwd) while shaky and nervous. (He also puts my Mandarin to shame.) Dai-Kyu Kim also traumatised me by getting me to touch his live neural network (i.e. HIS BRAIN). (IT WAS MY FIRST DAY, DK).

They insisted on the filter. My god.

Since then, Sydney Blockchain Centre has welcomed me into their team with open arms.

This weekend I also attended my first hackathon: the @blocumenta art #blockathon — something I didn’t have the courage to do so before because I was afraid that I would add no value to my team.

Just like this entire journey, I had a lot to chew on and digest. (Literally as well… I ate four burritos during the second half of Saturday...it’s Monday as I’m writing this and I’m still feeling those burritos.)

I met James Sangalli and James Brown from AlphaWallet, as well as Rosalie Prom from bitfwd and worked with them on a product.
I’m super glad that this was my first hackathon as it related directly to what I’m so passionate about: breaking the barriers between arts and sciences and building a world where both work together!

Ibis drawn by yours truly. Font is OneSignature from https://fontbundles.net/haris-prawoto

Our final product was artXplorer: a curated interactive art experience using tokens!
This made use of @AlphaWallet’s TokenScript to create an art geocaching game (think Pokémon Go but classier) where people get to have a say in which artworks are important and should be viewed rather than the people with big money. Art should never discriminate between the poor and the wealthy.

Pitching our final product — I have terrible stage fright. (Pic stolen from Dai-Kyu Kim.)

At the end of your trail, you get to keep a digitised souvenir consisting of tokenised versions of all the artworks you’ve visited as well as donate to any artists whose work you appreciate and you wish to see more of!

Introducing myself at a UCOT internal staff event, hosted by Sydney Blockchain Centre

This has been my first step out into the ‘real world’ and I’ve been so lucky to only have met and talked to the nicest and most patient people. Special thanks to Daniel Bar 丹尼尔👩🏼‍🎤 from bitfwd, Hao Fu and Mark Pereira from Alice for being so welcoming and nice to me. Last but not least, thank you to everyone from UCOT, Sapien Ventures and my team at Sydney Blockchain Centre!