First post on xLog, let's start by simply bringing the IG article here. For this 2023 ETHTaipei Hackathon, our team chose the themes of Autopass and PSE to brainstorm ideas, and in the end, we won the Silver Award for Autopass.
Team Composition#
In the past, participating in Taiwan's Hackathons felt like a presentation. This time, we challenged ourselves with the unexplored Web3 field and participated in a Hackathon after eight years. We invited a friend who used to work with us in the telecommunications industry to handle the frontend, while I took care of the backend and smart contract development. I thought that I might not be able to handle the final presentation after the 40-hour challenge, so I invited two friends who are skilled in presentation creation and business logic to take charge of the final presentation.
Sponsor / Topic Selection#
Hackathons nowadays mainly rely on the challenges and prizes offered by sponsors for selection. Since our team had no experience in Web3 development, we chose Autopass, a Web2 to Web3 conversion project. They provided three challenges:
- How to provide a more secure, reliable, and efficient payment method through blockchain features.
- Use blockchain technology to establish a car owner's driving history, protect privacy and sensitive data, and provide a way to verify data to create value from driving history, such as providing it to insurance companies as underwriting data.
- How to reduce transaction fees through cryptocurrency transactions.
Originally, we wanted to come up with an intuitive wallet transaction service. However, we realized that about 80-90% of the teams participating in Autopass were working on wallet transactions, so we shifted our focus to the second challenge. Since I have applied for Gogoro, Irent, Zip Car, and other car rental services before, I found it annoying to repeatedly upload dual identification documents. Additionally, Irent had a data breach due to hacking, which means that using a service that requires dual identification verification adds an extra layer of risk. It was from this perspective that we came up with the idea for ZeroPass.
My Preparation#
My role was backend and smart contract development, as well as organizing. Besides my full-time job, I also take on freelance projects, so I have invested in many development tools:
- JetBrains suite
- Vultr server
- Domain
- ChatGTP plus
- Github Copilot
These tools allow me to quickly produce and deploy to an online environment for frontend integration and testing.
During the Competition#
During the competition, I met many talented developers, including developers from Japan and other countries, as well as students from the blockchain course at National Chiao Tung University. We exchanged ideas and learned a lot from each other during our free time. Although we initially didn't choose the PSE project, after hearing their explanation on-site, we realized that we could use the Semaphore protocol to achieve the authentication part we wanted. After discussing with PSE's mentor and confirming its feasibility, we started studying the usage of Semaphore, contracts, and working with the frontend to create a Web2 demo flow system. We also had discussions with Autopass's mentor and confirmed that our ideas addressed their pain points.
After the Competition#
The 40-hour challenge came to an end, and our ZeroPass service was not as complete as I had imagined. However, the topic was interesting, so we decided to continue improving it. A few days after the competition, the CEO of a Web3 company from Vietnam contacted me on LinkedIn to discuss our service. This gave me the motivation to continue developing this project. After winning the award, I had a conversation with Autopass's team, and they also believed that we could continue building this service. I watched workshop videos and discovered the UniRep protocol, which can achieve what we want to do - monetizing our data in the service.
Continuing to Participate in Hackathons#
After participating in this Web3 Hackathon, I regained my passion for development. Compared to Web2, Web3 applications are still relatively scarce, and there are many service areas to explore and build. We plan to participate in online Hackathons, which usually last for more than a week, allowing us more time to create products (although we can only work on them during weekday evenings and weekends).
The Hackathons we plan to participate in are:
Autonomous Worlds
HackFS 2023
ETHOnline 2023
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