Woop Woop, our entry was submitted with 2 minutes to spare! 
About the experience
There were supposedly 26000 people but it did not really feel this way - I think I probably missed a lot of the activity. Also, there was a lot of preparation needed before to find mentors etc- which I did not have time to do.
I wanted to see what others are building, get a sense of how we need to position the work we are and have been doing and build new collaborations to move forward.
For me the big win was meeting @rowenahen and @Tuukka as well as getting to hang out with @felix.wolfsteller. Also quickly ran into @chiara.certoma : )
Rowena is doing a number of really interesting things around remote working and distributed collaboration. She was there generously helping several projects and I very much appreciate her having taken the time to video chat and bounce ideas, share helpful advice and offer to connect us with several people and organisations. You can learn more about here work here.
Tuukka 's company builds with community software and they are exploring local economies/local currencies in context of community value creation. He was telling me about their work helping a village in Italy that is suffering the big financial consequences of their food and art festivals being cancelled. Check out their work here.
Lessons learned
- If you are there “alone”, put up a description of you project with the results you already have waay before the submission deadline, first thing that you do, so that you are sure to meet the deadline. For me at least the fast pace does not work well with actually working on stuff - like design or coding. Also, I do not feel it is a healthy way to work, glued in front of a screen for 3 days - especially not now that we are doing this so much in our everyday lives.
- Use your own introduction to test how your project description resonates with others - if people show up and want to work on it, you may have something worthwhile - if not, maybe go back to the drawing table or think about how you can better frame your work so it fits the context. It is there that you link people to your project description.
- The slack channels called brainmarket and Introduce yourself are good channels to find and connect with people who have profiles which can be helpful for your project.
Big thanks to @owen who got the app demo up in time for us to submit! See here: https://alicebot.netlify.app/
The project continues regardless of the outcomes of the hackathon, come help if you can!
It’s easy - just create an account on edgeryders.eu and introduce yourself here: Tell Us About You - Edgeryders
We will then connect you to where the action is!
What was your slack-handle (can send me as PM)?