Nature 2.0 at the Odyssey Hackathon, a preview

The road to extraordinary achievements

Imagine walking up to a huge building in the middle of a deserted terrain. Hundreds of people flock to the hidden entrance on the back of the building. It feels almost like a walk to the temple of the oracle. Looking for answers for the future, prophecies. Imagine this is actually a true happening, and it’s happening now, in the city of Groningen in The Netherlands.

The hundreds of people, over 1500 in total, attend the biggest blockchain and artificial intelligence hackathon on our little blue planet, trying to solve the societal challenges of our time. One of the eleven tracks of this hackathon is called Nature 2.0 and aims to create commons, ecosystems of abundance, ownerless ecosystems.

The Nature 2.0 track is the one we cover via this Medium-account. Eventually this will be a complete repository of information on what the ten teams in this track build and achieved. Some will reach great heights, some will uncover unimagined problems, some will maybe even fail. None of this matters. What matters is we ask questions nobody ever asks and share those stories. This is a journey and we all tag along.

Back to our temple for the forthcoming days. After entering, the creators of the future follow a path lit by stroboscopic lights. We’re in the basement of the former Sugar Factory in Groningen. It’s called ‘De Suiker’ these days, which translates to ‘The Sugar’. After ascending a narrow staircase to the first floor, the participants enter the former factory floor which is turned into an altar of our future common ground in the digital world and its connection to the real world. Filled with hundreds of tables, hubs, switches, power connectors, chairs and coffee dispensers filled with liters of coffee and hot water for tea, people find their seats.

The Nature 2.0 track resides in the far west corner of the building with a huge Nature 2.0 logo projected above the tables of the tracks teams. Some of the teams have team members who have been part of the hackathon last year when it was still called ‘Blockchaingers’. Those teams have ‘fluffed up’ their game with many gadgets, like farmers clothes or orange vests.

“After setting up the tables and all gear, it’s sticker time”

After setting up the tables and all gear, it’s sticker time. Every laptop at least needs one sticker. You cannot do without. Tagging, branding, showing you’re there. T-shirts with logo’s, name tags, everything. And The Waiting. Less than an hour away from the official start. Some teams know each other already for a while or even a long time, others just met the night before.

Finally something happens. All lights switch off, except for a few. A tuba player emerges. The live band plays … All computer screens start flashing the same colors as the lights above our heads, projectors illuminate all sides of the inner walls.

After this impressive introduction, the speaker of the house introduces Rutger van Zuidam, our chief for the weekend and ceo of the Odyssey organisation. Together they introduce all different tracks and via the special website play.odyssey.org only the computer displays of specific tracks flash at the same time. Makes for quite an introduction.

Then, when having so many projectors at your disposal, the hall becomes the projection screen for the grand vision: a world where Me becomes We. Where people work together, using digital systems, Web 3.0. The Commons. After this impressive show, finally the countdown clock shows us: 47 hours and 59 minutes to go.

Yes, the Odyssey Hackathon has started and the Nature 2.0 teams are a great part of it with many vibrant ideas.