[INTERVIEW] Dejan Jovanovic: “Hive Project Team will deliver a state-of-the-art product and a user-friendly experience.”

After the successful release of the Hive Project Proof of Concept at CoinAgenda Global in Las Vegas, we sat down with our Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Dejan Jovanovic, to talk about Hive Project’s technical development roadmap as well as the innovations that Hive Project brings into the space.

Q: You are a seasoned executive with over 25 years of experience in software engineering and leading large technology teams. Now you have ventured into the blockchain space with Hive Project as a co-founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

Yes, it’s a very exciting time for me. I’ve spent most of my career at the cutting edge of technology, but blockchain has completely changed the way we think about and design systems. The potential and opportunity offered by blockchain technology, especially the Hive Project concept, is tremendous and just too exciting not to be involved in …

Q: Hive Project won “Best ICO 2017” at CoinAgenda in Barcelona. One CoinAgenda Global conference later, we have a working Proof of Concept. What are your thoughts on the Hive Project Platform development so far?

I think we are a great example of how a company can get funding through an ICO and keep developing the end-product with the same dedication through the post-ICO phase.

Q: Under your guidance, Hive Project’s development team has been hard at work since day one. The pace of development has been unrelenting — from designing the system to support all the crowdfunding activities, to the Proof of Concept and beyond. Could you comment on that process?

Obviously, our main focus was to ensure that the funds raised during the ICO were stored securely, which is what drove the decision-making process there. That is one of the reasons why we decided on a one bitcoin and one ether address per user account. This meant that there was a slight delay in the delivery of the tokens, but we were not ready to take a risk and continue using the smart contract system to collect and distribute the HVN tokens. We will definitely take the same approach to our security processes in the future, but with some improvements.

We had some cases where the wallet of a user has been compromised in the time between making the contribution and receiving the tokens. If we had used a smart contract in that case, the contributor’s HVN tokens would have ended up in the hands of the scammer, but this way our Hive Project Tokens (HVN) were delivered to the contributor safely. I think this not only speaks volumes about the technical goals we strive for, but also gives our blockchain technology a human face. Although we pride ourselves on our tech, we also understand how important the human element is in the “user experience”.

Q: It’s great to see that the working Proof of Concept for the platform is now available on GitHub.

Yes. We believe in developing the Hive Project Platform in a transparent way, and transparency is deeply rooted in Hive Project’s mission and ethos. Regardless of whether the code is running on a public or private blockchain, we believe that our code should be publicly accessible. We very much welcome any feedback and we take all comments and suggestions on board. In our mind, this is the best way to achieve the optimum fit for the product in the market.

Q: Speaking of the Proof of Concept, what lays ahead? What changes do you plan to introduce?

The current version of the Proof of Concept is a Meteor application that users need to download to their computer and run to test. At this stage of development, it takes a user with some technical know-how to do that. However, in the next iteration of the Proof of Concept, which is scheduled to be released by the end of the year, that paradigm will be changed.

We’re already designing sitemaps, wireframes and user flows for the Hive Project platform and it is likely that we will provide that in the form of a mock-up application that allows our design & development teams to enter a rapid prototyping cycle. This Hive Project Platform application will become an integral component in the roadmap for both of those teams and will give the Hive Project community an insight into our day-to-day work.

In order to demo both sides of the platform, users will be able to register and choose whether they would like to take on the role of invoice buyer or invoice seller. We expect some users will in fact use the platform in both roles, and so we need to give them the ability to test all the functionalities on both.

Q: What are the biggest technical challenges Hive Project has to master?

The biggest challenge that Hive Project has to overcome is the performance of the public blockchain. The current delay on the public blockchain is at least 17 seconds, which is the time required to create a new block. This is not acceptable from a user perspective and this is one of the reasons why we are looking at technologies such as Tindermint or Hyperledger to tackle this.

Q: How many people are involved with Hive Project Platform development at this point & what are your plans for scaling?

Currently we have a team of 5 resources as part of our delivery team, focusing on areas such as project management, UX designer, developers and QA. Currently I am planning to keep the team small and agile, but there is potential in the future to add more development resources for additional products and DAPPs, such as, for example, a mobile investors app.

Q: You spend most of your waking hours building the Hive Project Platform. If you had to single out its most important feature, what would it be?

The first thing that comes to mind is that it needs to be an amazing user experience. It must be incredibly easy to engage with, not only for the SMEs seeking financing but also for the invoice buyers during the peer-to-peer lending phase. The Hive Project Team will deliver a high-tech product that is complemented by great design. And if the experience — from uploading the invoice to the Hive Project Platform to invoice settlement — is straightforward and runs smoothly, then the users of the platform are much more likely to return again and again.

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