Another one! Label A’er Robin wins Dutch Blockchain Hackathon!

Robin de Boer, one of our back-end developers, amazed us all here at Label A. Together with his team he won the Dutch Blockchain Hackathon, the biggest Blockchain Hackathon EVER. With four other students from the Blockchain Education Network, he hacked the Future of Pensions by utilizing Blockchain technology. They went against ten other teams of big companies like Deloitte, Accenture and Ortec Finance. Another outstanding accomplishment by one of our talented developers!

What’s Blockchain?

In short, Blockchain is a decentralised, distributed database that we can use to exchange information between all the different parties in a network. These transactions are secure, reliable and also done in a way that that they cannot be tempered with. It is quite an abstract concept but this video goes a little bit more in-depth about how it works.

Transactions through the Blockchain can be about more than just money and this is what makes it so interesting. They can be shares in a company, kilowatt-hours in energy, a digital certificate of ownership or perhaps even votes during elections. Each transaction is validated by the system itself without the need for accountants, banks, notaries, etc.

For these reasons several key artists and musicians have turned towards blockchain. DJ Hardwell started using Blockchain in 2016 to manage his payments and the distribution of royalties. Imogen Heap founded Mycelia, a Blockchain based collective of music lovers, creatives and professionals. It’s a protective ecosystem that pushes smart contracts as a way for musicians to share free-trade music and to ensure the profits go back to the artists.

Blockchain is also the underlying technology of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin and it’s expected to store about 10 percent of the entire global GDP by 2027. Needless to say, it’s a pretty big deal.

Solving the problems of our current pension system

The Dutch Blockchain Hackathon was held in The Big Building In Groningen. A total of sixty-five teams participated, filling the entire 4000 m² surface area. The teams could choose between five different tracks: digital identity, international trade and entrepreneurship, reinventing government, energy, and the future of pensions.

The challenge for ‘the future of pensions’ was to find solutions for the issues our pension system is currently facing. The first problem is a decreasing ratio of working people/retirees because of an ageing population and an increasing trend of independents (startups, freelancers, fast changing careers) that don’t build up pension through a large employer. Also, the coverage ratio has been negative for the past two years. Freelancers don’t contribute to the pension pot but retirees still need to be paid and this causes a negative balance.

Secondly, individuals have a hard time understanding their pension and what they can expect of their future, which indicates that either it is too complex to understand or there is a lack of transparency. There is no information as to the specific investments made on behalf of the individual by their pension fund.

The solution: NestEgg

Robin and his team came up with a new way of organising pensions: NestEgg. In short, it registers all transactions concerning your pension in a personal trail on the Blockchain, which would be controlled by your pension company.

These transactions are auditable and permanent, which lets the customer check real-time what their pension is worth and what projects their money is invested in. This transparency and auditability upgrades current pension infrastructure, renewing confidence in pension funds. It also eliminates the need for fraud departments which would save pension companies between 70% and 80% in costs, according to APG.

NestEgg would allow user profiles to be easily transferred between companies without data loss or data corruption. Chains could also be combined, in the case of the passing of a spouse or a child becoming an orphan. In this case pension can be inherited.

Future-ready

The system they came up with is also prepared for a future sharing economy. Uber payed millions of dollars to deploy self driving cars in Pittsburgh. This is not scalable for the whole world for just one company. In the future you will see these kinds of projects being funded locally, in a kickstarter kind of way. With NestEgg, individuals can include those investments as well. People could for example invest in one local self-driving car with a couple of neighbours. The money it earns by picking people up will automatically be deposited into their pension as dividend.

Want us to hack YOUR company?

Blockchain might forever change the way we do business. Which is why it is important that we, as a development company, already have the knowledge to put the Blockchain to use. And not just Blockchain, but any technology that we can use to create a smarter future.

We love getting involved in creating a smarter future. Which is why we like to challenge companies to challenge us. Do you think that you can hack a smarter future with your company? Try us and we will happily prove you right!

If you’d like to get in touch, feel free to give Oscar Kolthoff a call at +31629209275 or visit our website.