Excuse me? Hackathon? What exactly did you say? … That was my first reaction to the email from Rutger van Zuidam that I found in my mailbox on 4 November last year. This was the start of the mail:
Dear Mr. Smits, Dear Willie,
I have received your email address from Prince Constantijn van Oranje. I discussed the project that I want to present to you below with him, on which he enthusiastically informed me that he had just explored similar ideas from the Bernhard Natuur Fonds.
Partly as a result, he has indicated that he is very interested in you and your plans. Finally, he said that you knew his grandfather well, as well as the current members of the John Loudon and Gerhard van den Top fund.
At the end of his Email, Rutger added the following chart that was supposed to “clarify” what exactly was meant … can you imagine what I thought…
But the reference to my good friend Prince Bernhard, who was a great supporter and the patron of my orangutan projects in Indonesia, was the deciding factor in answering this email. Shortly afterwards I spoke from a jungle camp in Borneo with a very formally dressed young man travelling in a fast car whilst talking to me via Skype. What a difference with the man in T-shirts and a “hoody” that I got to know better later! I am not sure if I understood everything correctly, but the twinkle in Rutger’s eyes and the genuine enthusiasm for whatever it was that he intended, meant that I agreed to his request and invitation. I then tried to investigate more about what a hackathon might be and how such an event could possibly support the work of our Masarang Foundation and the aims of all the Masarang supporters, volunteers and staff and of course the local people we work with.
Well, it was quite the journey! Rutger promised a donation of 5,000 Euro for Masarang and the travel costs for two trips to the Netherlands. The first trip was at the beginning of February to present the Masarang challenge for wildlife conservation at a so-called “deep dive” in Den Bosch. My lexicon has expanded considerably with exotic expressions because of these meetings and new experiences! There in Brabant I was allowed to present the work of the Foundation and our challenge to help to save Nature. First, I gave information in a lecture for hundreds of people in a church and then, in more detailed sessions, with groups that were possibly interested in taking on the challenge. And in effect, it turned out there were registrations from groups of interested people who were willing during the hackathon to use their specialist skills with blockchain and artificial intelligence as well as processing satellite images to help Masarang protect animals and their habitat. Volunteers, Adrienne Watson, founder and chairperson of Masarang Hong Kong and Hans van Willigen, chairman of Masarang International in the Netherlands as well as friend and Foundation supporter, Gaia, also came to Groningen for the Hackathon.
I worked in the Hackathon together with Anne Alexandre from the Prince Bernhard Nature Fund, who worked long hours every day with all the teams and ensured they all remained on track. Anne was also a member of the jury to judge the five teams that had taken on the challenge and the Prince Bernhard Nature Fund kindly agreed to support the winners of my challenge to come to Indonesia to see for themselves the situation and ensure their solution is the most appropriate possible. In addition to Anne, another core team member was Alwine van Heemstra, a dedicated practitioner from lighthorse.nl. Alwine and Anne ensured all members were prepared, informed and supported wonderfully! As you can see in the picture above, we made a good team :-).
According Rutger it was the first time that an NGO was participating in such a Hackathon and it was a great honor that the Masarang Foundation was chosen to open such potential avenues for other NGOs in the future!
So what exactly is a Hackathon? Well, with 1.500 people, we spent three days working in the dark, without daylight, in a former sugar actory where 100 teams of computer specialists were discussing and coding for almost 48 hours non-stop to create workable solutions to a variety of problems. Have a look at this clip and you will understand what I am talking about! I was told that this was the world’s largest Hackathon for Blockchain and AI. The people who participated all want to use their knowledge to create open source solutions for the various challenges. In addition to the participating 100 teams, there were also hundreds of experts who likewise voluntarily shared their knowledge with the groups. At the end, prizes were awarded for the best solutions and on the final day, several “super-accelerators” offered support to some of the winners to further develop their solution and take it to the World.
I was the challenge holder, and had several other roles with exotic titles, I believe, so it was easier to just have ‘Willie’ written on the back of my “hoody”. I supervised five groups that had chosen the wildlife challenge and were all extremely knowledgeable, intelligent and experts in their I.T. fields. They kept me talking for about ten hours a day in order to understand more about the environmental problems, how the field situation was, what facilities local people in Indonesia had, etc. and how they could help to find solutions to these problems.
Four of the five teams that selected to work on the Masarang challenge, worked on methods to make my “recipes” for reforestation more accessible. It was wonderful to see how the coding specialists worked together with the other experts in the teams. Good division of tasks, lots of discussions and adjustments where necessary. One of the teams called “ReWild4Good” was extremely fast to make an application that directly retrieved all kinds of data about plant growing conditions around the world from existing online databases so that the plant species adapted to those locations could be selected to be included in the recipes. I was extremely impressed with their work. The ReWild4Good team in the end came out in second place. But I was so impressed by their work that I also hope to continue to work with them to support our large-scale Indonesian Rebuild reforestation program.
A team from Wageningen, my alma mater, made an application to predict where in the future deforestation is likely to take place and to select priorities for agroforestry-based systems with predictions of income when these alternatives are realized with the local population. This was a great application that could possibly truly help prevent deforestation. A team, named FOREST ironically dressed up as lumber jacks in their red shirts. They were a winner in the two last Hackathons and came up with an integrated platform to arrive at final solutions for land management through selection of areas and recipes for reforestation, supported by an expert center.
Another group, named Giveth, produced a complex system with tokens that could in some way generate income for projects, such as implemented by Masarang, through an online system. Even after 20 minutes of technical explanations by Griff Green here in the picture enthusiastically explaining, the token and money-generating system still remained very abstract to me personally, but I was convinced of their good intentions and wonderful skills and that it might have potential. Griff is an extremely knowledgeable IT specialist and he made a good job of explaining the whole hackathon concept to Adrienne and I on the first day.
The winning team in my challenge, however, was the BerChain team from Berlin. They then were one of 20 winning teams selected from the 99 participating teams. A wonderful feat! However, on the final day, this team were also selected as special winner by a super accelerator/investor named Ewald Hesse (who happens to come from Berlin as well!) who has offered further specialist and financial support to help realise the concept for practical implementation, which made them one of the six ultimate winners of the Hackathon. Here is a link to the explanation by the team themselves of how they believe their solution can help NGO’s like Masarang.
This team came up with an idea and application that appealed to me and also the other two jury members. This concept is a badge to validate NGOs. That badge could help an NGO to get more support because it is based on clear KPI or indicators and assessments. Companies would therefore be more inclined to support such NGOs with good transparency and professionalism. It also offers a level platform for all NGOs and not just the NGOs that have the funds available for expensive marketing! This can also save a lot of money and avoid the need for all kinds of certifications for the relevant NGOs. The BerChain team will use Masarang and our work as a test case for the further development of this system. This is a wonderful promising concept!
Why did I ultimately vote for this team? For years, I have been annoyed by projects and organizations that make nice brochures and pitches, but which provided results that were different from reality. This system from BerChain provides clear criteria and indicators of what a good project is and on which criteria it is assessed. This helps smaller local groups to better understand what is expected of them and how they can work more professionally. For example with regard to reports, financial administration, legal aspects, objective and independent control options, etc. The badge will also have a kind of wreath with extending arms that shows in which part an organization excels. A potential sponsor can then easily select the right partners in the field and also know what to expect. Anne Alexandre also mentioned this as an advantage for her as a sponsor of many projects. This feature could save her a lot of time for evaluation and checking. NGOs often also submit the same project to multiple sponsors, and a central database with verifications can also prevent possible abuses of the system.
Such systems are of course not an absolute guarantee for success, but they are self-learning and thus sincere and professional projects will get better and survive while less good
(rightly!) receive less support. The BerChain team will soon come to Indonesia with the support of the Prince Bernhard Nature Fund and will try out their methodology with Masarang as a test case. Here is what the Odyssey published about it:
Below is a chart that explains more of the principle approach of BerChain.
They were strenuous and long days in Groningen, but most of all very inspiring. With so much misery in the world around us, it was refreshing to see that there are still many people who are committed to a better future without the pursuit of profit being the main motive. Moreover, they combine that inspiration with an enormous amount of knowledge. His Royal Highness Prince Constantijn of Orange also spoke eloquently and with great insight and in impeccable English on the final day. For some reason I never expected royalty to be so
versed in these complex and new technological issues. I really learned a great deal too!
A special mention needs to be made for Rutger van Zuidam with his vision, Stefan Kunst with his incredible organizational talent and Nick Stevens, the MC, with his lightning-fast, accurate, appropriate and very humorous interactions. They are genuinely doing something fantastic. It was worth the many flights from the interior of Borneo to Amsterdam and I also got to learn a great deal about Blockchain and Hackathons and what they may mean for the future!
Below some more photos of the Hackathon.
Willie Smits, April, 2019
Somewhere at 30.000 feet between Amsterdam and Jakarta
Four of the teams I guided. Bottom right BerChain, the winning team that will soon come to Indonesia. On their left the ReWild4Good team with whom I will also work in the future.
An impression of the huge former sugar factory hall with 1.200 people working three days without daylight in a very noisy place. But still amazing results!
The teams had to produce a canvas, a working prototype and a roll out plan. Here the team, we called the lumberjacks because of their distinctive shirts and mission, during the jury session.
The last minutes of the Hackathon together with the winning team and Ewald Hesse the German ‘super-accelerator’ that will work with BerChain to help realise the concept for practical implementation.
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