Parallelisms Between RuPaul’s Drag Race and Ethereum Hackathons: A Comprehensive Study
Hackers, start your engines, and may the best Decentralized Application, win!
If you’ve never been to an Ethereum Hackathon then it’s time you got your life together — it’s completely free for hackers of all experience levels that have a passion for Decentralized Applications, and as I can personally attest to having attended ETH Buenos Aires and having created Crypto Against Humanity, it’s a life altering event. To give you a dramatic, over-the-top, and gif-tastic overview of what it’s like to be at an Ethereum Hackathon, it’s the Ethereum Hacker’s equivalent of RuPaul’s Drag Race…
The Entrance
Perhaps the most exhilarating part of this series of hackathons is just showing up. With destinations such as Berlin, India, and Buenos Aires, getting off the plane (or car or train) is an event in and of itself. Feel like a true queen as you descend the tarmac and arrive in fashion, knowing the party has yet to start, and you are ready to slay with laptop in tow. Be transported to a foreign land with limitless and unforeseen opportunities steps away.
I highly recommend arriving at your city of choice early, ready to partake of the local culture’s food, art, and architecture. In Buenos Aires, the amount of culture was boundless and it calmed my nerves before the competition and gave me great insights and respect to place I would call home for the next few days.
Meet the Q̶u̶e̶e̶n̶s̶ Hackers
So you’ve spent a day or two in your city of choice and you are ready to slay. Luckily for you, the event is hosted in a beautiful space that has been themed to the 9’s to commemorate the ethereal experience you will have at your hacker battleground.
But, the venue is nothing compared to the beautiful and eccentric people you’ll meet on your first day of the hackathon. Much like the queens on RuPaul’s Drag Race, the fellow Ethereum Hackers at a hackathon are the most memorable and important part of your experience. These are your sisters. You will share the same room with these people for many a hour. Like RuPaul’s Drag Race, you are entering a currently niche community of people who are passionate about what they do, passionate about the future of humanity, and most importantly, passionate about decentralization and decentralized application development. It is like meeting your long lost family for the first time. Everybody I met at ETH Buenos Aires was not only friendly, but excited to meet a new member of their small but growing group.
Many of the new people you’ll meet will come with beautiful ideas that they want to share with you. These are the ideas that will grow into the projects that will be made at the hackathon. My advice to you, don’t be shy, meet people, network, find and idea that really leaves you inspired to work, and form an unstoppable team of talented and passionate individuals.
The Guest Judges (and Speakers)
At ETH Buenos Aires, day one was all about meeting new people and ideas. After a brief meet and greet with included breakfast (and more importantly, coffee), all the hackers gathered to listen to presentations of some of the freshest ideas and technologies by some influential personalities in the Ethereum Community.
Influential Ethereum companies and organizations not only make an appearance, but help fund these events. Aragon, ConsenSys, Zeppelin, Decentraland, and many more had tables and we’re serving up swag at ETH Buenos Aires. If you’re a lurker in the Ethereum Development community, this is your time! The people behind these organizations want to know you, want to help you, and want to see you, and the decentralized space to succeed! Be bold, make an impression, leave nothing behind. (bring business cards)
You Better Work!
It’s day 2, you have a team and an idea, now it’s time for rubber to meet the road. Don’t sweat the small stuff, the organizing team will have you covered. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are all included, as well as late night necessities such as a toothbrushes and toothpaste.
This is the time for you to really cement your idea, figure out how to split up the work, and flex your hacking muscles. Mental blocks will be hit, adrenaline will be rushing, and exhaustion may rear it’s ugly head. Luckily mentors fly in from all over the world like glittered butterflies to guide you, and the organizing team provides a place to nap, and coffee to fuel your nervous excitement. It’s a time to truly bond with your teammates and it’s also a time to explore what other teams are working on (be it espionage or friendly curiosity).
To me, this was the most important part of the ETH Buenos Aires Hackathon. I made lasting friendships and learned an intense amount of Solidity, React, and DevOps in 36 hours. After about 12 hours of working, you’ll have to rely on pure passion to pull out your vision, but every hour of sleep deprivation is worth it for…
The RuVeal
Your project is finally together and working. It may have taken blood, sweat, tears, and (a lot of) jerry rigging, but the project has finally been born unto this world and is ready to be RuVealed! You only get 10–20 minutes in front of the judges, but that’s all you need. You’re lacking sleep, but full of nervous excitement, and bringing something potentially revolutionary to the judging table. Bring your A game, because if you win, you get to present your idea to the entire Ethereum development community.
After a few hours the judges convene and decide on the tops of the weekend, with a little luck, a good idea, and a lot of hard work, you will be one of a handful of teams to be asked to present in front of a live audience.
Our team was delighted to present CryptoAgainstHumanity.io to the world as a general winner at ETH Buenos Aires, and let me tell you, the feeling is incredible. These are the moments in life that make waking up a journey, and by attending and Ethereum Hackathon, you open yourself up to these opportunities, just by showing up, you’ve already shown your more passionate and full of gumption than most other developers on Earth.
The Afterparty!
Every good hackathon has a good afterparty! At ETH Buenos Aires, drinks were provided, and good conversation was boundless. Everybody is in high spirits and sharing ideas, twitter handles, and toasts. People will regale each other with stories of how they cobbled together a project in under 36 hours, they will tell tales of a future world where governments are disinter-mediated and corporations are decentralized, they’ll speak of past start ups and future ventures. You will be in a maelstrom of the most beautiful and crazy conversations. My advice is to take a nap in your hotel room before the after party, because you’ll want to be there until close with the amount of inspiration you will be exposed to.
It’s a time to celebrate and a time to mourn, but fret not young hacker, the next Ethereum Hackathon is only months away…
ETHBerlin sign up to hack now 😉 September 7–9, 2018!
