Our experience of the EU blockathon

EU Blockathon part 3

Day 3 – Award Critera

As the hackathon drew to a close, the venue filled up with judges who would score every team on the three challenges, consumer, logistics and customs depending on their professional background and industry.

Each presentation would last only several minutes and should be modified to suit the needs of the judges. Each presentation relating to a specific challenge (Consumer, Customs Authority, and Logistics Operator) will be scored as follows:

  • Prototype points (28 maximum) This is the technical judgement of your prototype software code and canvas, and the judging of its technical compatibility, interoperability, novelty and viability. Attention is paid to the core usage of blockchain technology in the prototype.
  • Impact Canvas points (32 maximum) Using the Blockathon Impact Canvas, your team will explain the solution, the impact on society, the relevant stakeholders and your requirements for the next one hundred days to progress towards a first production pilot.
  • Ecosystem Contribution points (16 maximum) This relates to the degree to which the solution is Open Source and how the solution facilitates further technical innovation in this field.

Here is the exact breakdown of these three categories:

Based on the above award criteria, we knew we should receive a lot of points. From what we had seen, we had the most ready, well thought out and implementable technological solution and it also hit all of the impact canvas requirements. The red arrow was annotated by the team as a reminder that we should not forget to familiarize ourselves with the EUIPO tools and integrate them if possible.

Day 3 – Presentations

This was all kind of a haze for us, since sleep deprivation really got the best of us by now. I remember thinking that we managed to pull off surprisingly effective pitches, but maybe that was just my tired mind playing games on me. We were very happy with how the pitches went.

Customs

For the customs pitch, we highlighted the conversion from document flow to data flow, and how combining this with digital twins would allow risk assessment and customs clearance to occur even before the plane would take off, leading to a reduction in workload for customs but also the elimination of transport on goods that wouldn’t make it through customs in the first place. This way, part of the “parcel tornado” wouldn’t even reach our shores to begin with.

Consumer

Our whole solution was built from the ground up starting from the customer and working our way backwards. We still don’t know exactly why we lost this challenge. By limiting their solution to the basic concept of digital twins, it made the solution look elegant even though the problem itself is kind of hairy when you try to apply it to all the challenges. The experts also hammered us on the fact that it was important to know exactly what’s inside the shipments and that digital twins wouldn’t let you know for sure whether or not this is the case, so that put us on the path to develop a solution based on smart parcels.

We have been working on Seal for a while now, so we are intimately familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of digital twins, unlike the uninitiated. We already solved the most important weakness, which is keeping the digital and physical version of the product synchronized. The EU Blockathon was an opportunity for us to deal with the problems that arise once digital twin based items are containerized. If we could solve those, we would have a system that would also be waterproof for logistics and customs purposes. The reason why containerization is an interesting problem to try and solve for us in the first place is that by facilitating better government oversight with Seal, we might be able to receive top-down support from the public sector which could help drive commercial traction and prevent fragmentation of standards and solutions.

In the end, our total solution probably went over some of the judges’ heads. Without implementation problems it is already hard enough to understand such a complex and interdisciplinary solution. Our misstep was that we were not able to simplify the solution to a soundbite. We were dealing with problems that you would face after you figure out that digital twins are the solution. We came into the event with an implemented digital twin demo after all. Seal remains the only team with answers to the actual implementation problems you run into when trying to bring digital twins into the real world. To Cryptomice’s credit, they did a great job presenting their solution in the finals.

Logistics

During the logistics presentation we were able to show off our DHL smart parcel that lets you see what’s inside the box without opening the box, to a judge from DHL. That definitely helped us, but it was not the only reason why we won a prize in this category. We had something that was not theoretical, but implementable immediately and something that solves a current problem.

With Seal, products can be shipped in a secure parcel, which are sealed with a tamper-proof chip that links to all the products inside the parcel, so you can see what’s inside without opening the product. This is useful for customs risk analysis and results in zero liability for logistics, which are often penalized when actually the sender should be. As the box passes through packaging and transport, the relevant stakeholders can add information to both the boxes and products inside, for example the weight of the overall box or the route taken. This way, we could ensure the digital twin and the physical product would remain synchronized when containerized.

Day 3 – Award Ceremony

The award ceremony was a true nailbiter. During the award ceremony we were struck by a lot of emotions. When the results finally came in one by one, we experienced anticipation, upset, surprise, confusion, anger, happiness and in the end fulfillment. We won a prize in the logistics challenge, even though we were primarily a consumer driven solution. At some point, Vinay Gupta was on stage speaking about the exact things we had listed on our impact canvas, but it was not us who he was speaking to. We had listed Mattereum on our impact canvas, and brought forth Seal’s potential impact on other fields like the circular economy.

It did take us a few days to process the outcome, which admittedly, consisted of non-stop sleep for most of us. We are very grateful and look back on it very positively. The real prize was the connections we made, the amazing experts who helped us learn what would have normally taken us many months if not years to understand, and the fact that the European Commission is serious about taking a constructive approach to blockchain and the startups it has created along the way. The entire purpose of the event was the validation of Seal’s vision.

We won our award by staying true to ourselves. We were adamant that we play by the rules and in the spirit of a hackathon. We were going to come up with an original idea on the spot and produce a working product from scratch within the timeline given to us, no matter what. By being authentic and playing it fair we were able to earn our spot at the table of the political body of the European Union. The Blockathon was Seal’s version of hell week. After the curtain call, the team fell asleep at the venue. With just 3 hours of sleep and 55 hours of consecutive work, we made it and earned our badge of honor.

We couldn’t have done it without you.

Thanks.