Pears, the leading open-source peer-to-peer live data protocol, announced the winners of its Global Pears Hackathon, the first global Peer-to-Peer focused Hackathon. From a pool of more than 1,000 registrations, WhereFam, a private peer-to-peer location sharing app, won first place.
The Peer-to-Peer Chess app won second place, and Hypersketch, a real-time P2P whiteboard, won third place. Alaric, a decentralized app and room store, received an honorable mention. "We are on the cusp of an ecosystem populated by peer-to-peer apps and the interest, quality of projects and excitement around the Global Pears Hackathon is proof that this is a growing industry," commented Mathias Buus Madsen, Chief Executive Officer of Holepunch, the company responsible for Pears and the development of Pear Runtime.
"We thoroughly enjoyed seeing the creative and diverse applications created with our open-source peer-to-peer platform. Our mission is to empower developers to build private, scalable apps with zero infrastructure costs, and we hope these Hackathon projects inspire developers around the world," Madsen continued.
All of the entrants integrated Pear Runtime's open-source peer-to-peer technology into their app and received mentorship from industry leaders such as Pear Platform Principal Architect David Mark Clements, decentralization advocate and podcast host Guy Swann and others.
There was an overwhelming response to the Hackathon with over 1,000 registrations, 400+ participants, and 90+ innovative projects. "We were impressed with all of the entrants, especially in their ability to quickly understand our peer-to-peer open source infrastructure and integrate it into their apps," commented Pear Platform Principal Architect David Mark Clements.
"Nothing is more important to users than the privacy of their family, and WhereFam is an excellent example of how peer-to-peer technology enables safety and security," concluded Clements.
Finalists in the Hackathon included:
HyperSketch: a real-time peer-to-peer whiteboard
Alaric: decentralized app and room store
P2P Investigations: censorship resistant platform for crowdsourced investigative journalism
WhereFam: private peer-to-peer location sharing app
P2P Chess: low-latency real-time chess with no intermediary servers
Ekya: fully decentralized document editor enabling peer collaboration
Owe-No: easy, private way to split expenses peer-to-peer
PearGame: real-time peer-to-peer rock, paper, scissors game
Judging for the Pears Hackathon, conducted in collaboration with Geek Room and JetBrains, evaluated the entrants across components such as creativity, usability and use of P2P technology.
"The massive trade off of centralized platforms is that you are being harvested for every ounce of data large corporations can siphon from you. While you can find encrypted, or private alternatives, they almost invariably come with more friction, a poorer user experience, and other limitations.
What has excited me the most about the Pear Stack - and what this hackathon was able to showcase - is the possibility of getting that sovereignty back, without losing the functionality and user experience. WhereFam is a great example; save or share your location with no one but your friends.
Not Apple, Google or Amazon, just with exactly who you want to," added Hackathon judge Guy Swann. Swann concluded, "After having so many discussions and brainstorming sessions about the incredible things that could be built with the Pear Runtime environment, it was a little surreal being part of a hackathon where so many talented builders were bringing them to reality. It's gotten me excited for how fast this could all expand in the coming years."