This section aims to help you better prepare for the hackathon.
Berlin has one airport called Berlin Brandenburg Airport "Willy Brandt" (BER) and is well connected with railway. You can take a train from European cities such as Amsterdam and Paris to travel with the convenience of comfortable high-speed trains with internet access, avoid the long security lines, missing luggages, and decrease your CO2 footprint. Check the Deutsche Bahn website for routes.
Berlin is a bike friendly city. Most of the times the quickest and easiest way to getting from A to B is by bike. If you are staying longer than just a few days, you might want to consider renting a bike from Swapfiets. You will also find many scooters and bikes that you can grab around the city.
On the Jelbi App you can conveniently find the public transportation tickets and info as well as carsharing, scooters, bikes etc.
The hackathon has a nap room where you can rest, but not make it your home. Beanbags are provided, but sleeping bags are not allowed. If you want a good sleep, then you need to find somewhere else.
Join the couchsurfing chat if you are offering or looking for a couch: #couchsurfing (Matrix)
Aside from hotels and AirBnbs, you can try to find someone in Berlin renting out temporarily for cheaper options. You can check WG-Gesucht and Facebook groups for offers and can place your own request post there. However, please be wary of the risks and potential scams.
We recommend the districts Treptow, Kreuzberg, Neukölln, or Friedrichshain due to their proximity to the venue.
Are you missing a team, a hacker, an idea? Or you have an idea that can be implemented during the hackathon? Find a match on Github or join the Hacker Matchmaking session on Friday after the opening ceremony.
The only official communication channel is the ETHBerlin Matrix space. Use it to connect with hackers and mentors, and to get updates from the organizers throughout the hackathon: #ethberlin:matrix.org
ETHBerlin will cover all meals and drinks for the entire Hackathon, and conference coffee breaks. There will be vegan and vegetarian options provided. Just come with an open mind, a knowledge-thirsty brain and enthusiasm. Meal and snack times will be on the program.
Hacker teams are made up of maximum of 5 people. You can find some rules and resources useful while you are hacking here.
All participants will receive ETHBerlin EtherCards for hacking. To encourage the usage of the cards and to simplify logistics, all cards come pre-charged with Goerli and Sepolia Testnet Ether!
The public addresses for the handed out EtherCards are available on Github: github.com/ethb3rlin/attendees
You can use it for your hacks, drop funny tokens to these accounts or use it for voting systems where only participants can vote. Be creative and let us know how you used this list!
This year we are going to try something different. Please study the following section carefully.
The open-track prize is the main hackathon award. Every project is eligible, given they are respecting the hackathon rules. The open track will be judged by everyone attending the event. There will be no pitches and no judges. All the attendees can vote using their EtherCards.
The winning project will be presenting at the closing ceremony and the prize is 10000 DAI. There is only one.
Track awards are based on covering specific topics. Each project can only submit to one track maximum. It is not possible to apply for multiple tracks!
One team member pitches in front of the judges. The domain experts will evaluate the projects according to defined parameters. Judges will also review code and ensure hackathon rules are respected.
These are the four tracks:
The winning projects will be presenting at the closing ceremony and the prize is 7000 DAI for each track. There is only one per track, four in total.
Meta awards reward certain aspects of your project. Every project is eligible, given you are respecting the hackathon rules. Projects should indicate which meta-award they think they qualify for in the submission form.
There will be no pitches and our judges will review submissions asynchronously during the track award pitching.
These are the three meta awards:
The winning projects will be presenting at the closing ceremony and the prize is 6000 DAI for each award. There is only one per award, three in total.
You can find sponsor bounties in this repository.
Ooops! You had an amazing idea, but now you are stuck? No worries, our experienced mentors will help you as best as they can. And here's how to get in touch:
You have to register and create your project at ethberlin.devfolio.co for submission before Sunday, 11am.
Make sure to provide a link to your open-source repository, a video or a demo, and if applicable, the contract address(es) of your deployed application, either on a testnet of your choice or mainnet of a platform of choice.
All submitted projects will be eligible for the main hackathon prize. In addition, you have to select a category (track), which you would like to pitch for, and up to two meta awards.
Don't miss the deadline! Sunday 11am!
You can find the prizes and bounties in the above section.
This year, we will use a different platform for your submissions. We decided not to use devpost for this edition, since they are sadly excluding participation from some regions by default. This discriminatory and overly compliant behavior is kind of a "no" for us, so instead we shall be collaborating with the much more decentralised crew at Devfolio.
Each team will have one person pitch their project for 3 minutes followed by a 2 minutes Q&A session. The pitch will be in front of three judges each with different areas of exptertise. The presenter should bring their laptop and use it for the pitch. All judging will take place on the second floor. A schedule will be shared after 11:30 Sunday. Please be there at least 5 minutes before your allocated timeslot.
We aim to continuously improve the process. This is why this year we will have three different approaches to judging:
Overall, we also want to increase the transparency of the judging. This is why all judge voting sheets will be made publicly available after the winning ceremony.
Judging will take place on Sunday 18th September and the judges will be reviewing project submissions, and watching pitches, from the 11am deadline until just before the closing ceremony. Note: we will also be shuffling the judging teams halfway through just to make sure there is no relative bias.
The track specific judges will watch live pitches, while the judges allocated to the meta awards will review the submissions digitally. There will be 24 track judges (8 groups of three), and each group will include one technical person, one product/wildcard and one business/VC judge.
As mentioned above, the meta specific judges will review submissions digitally and there will be two pairs of judges per meta award.
The judges will be reviewing each submission with the following criteria in mind.
ETHBerlin is a hackathon first but not a hackathon only. We have different experiences for our hackers to enjoy during the weeekend:
What else is there to be done after 50 hours of hacking? Right, the afterparty! This year we are celebrating our achievements at the Watergate; doors: 21:00.
You will receive an afterparty wristband during the hackathon registration. If you don't want to or cannot attend on Sunday evening, you can share it with your friends. There will be no additional tickets or guest lists!