It’s no secret that the last two quarters were a difficult time for anyone invested in blockchain technology. I won’t pretend to know why markets rise and fall, but the big question many of us had after the crash was simply: What do we do next?

For the developers that learned to write smart contracts and distributed applications, this wasn’t too hard to answer. By 2019, we had more blockchains to choose from, they were much faster than Ethereum, and the price of deploying smart contracts had dropped significantly — both because these new blockchains intrinsically had lower gas costs and because of the lower prices of blockchain assets in general.

So when our partner TomoChain offered us the chance to train developers in Ho Chi Minh City to use their product for an upcoming hackathon, I jumped at the chance. We’ve been using TomoChain internally for our smart contracts, mainly ERC-721 tokens that certify students that pass our training courses. From a development standpoint, it was much faster and less expensive than Ethereum, while remaining fully compatible with Solidity.

We held the training from April 6th – 7th at Intek Institute, a vocational training academy for aspiring software engineers. It was an intense two days, and we covered quite a bit of material! Many of the attendees were students there and were already competent developers. Our partners at Kambria also made a good showing, and it was fantastic to have such a talented audience!

Many excellent technical discussions continued well after the course ended

Besides Solidity development and token deployment, we talked about project architectures and preparation for the TomoChain hackathon from April 20th – 21st, which I’ll be attending as a mentor. For any engineers looking to make a name for themselves, I can only encourage you to participate! It’s a great opportunity to show your talent and a good addition to your resume (even if you don’t win). After all, the job of hackathon organizers is to showcase your work and make your team look good!

If you’re planning to attend (you really should!), I have three tips for you. First, in the hackathons I’ve been to, often the projects that win are the ones with the best time management skills — so it’s helpful to have a general idea of what you want to do before showing up, and how much time you plan to spend on each task to build it. Second, always Google your project idea before committing to it — if it has been built a hundred times already, you’re not going to score many points for innovation! Finally, the best idea in the world will fail to win unless it is presented well, so be sure to allocate enough time to your presentation. Often, it helps to identify the best public speaker in your group and have them handle this part.

Speaking of winning competitions, I’ve heard that the grand prize will be the equivalent of US$500 in TomoCoin, with the two runners up receiving US$300 and US$200 worth. Of course, the biggest reward in a hackathon is the satisfaction of participating (and the boost that it gives to your career), but these prizes can be quite helpful in continuing to develop your idea!

I’d also like to take a moment to thank all the fine people that made this training course and hackathon possible: TomoChain for their blockchain and awesome technical support, and Intek for allowing us to use their venue. The code review and hackathon judging tool is generously provided by Kambria, and CoinGecko helped sponsor the prizes, along with providing an API that was very handy during the class.

About Asia Blockchain Review

Asia Blockchain Review is the largest initiative for media and community building in Asia for blockchain technology. It aims to connect all blockchain enthusiasts on a regional scale and facilitate the technological foundation of blockchain through a range of group discussions, technical workshops, conferences, and consulting programs.

Our goal is to cultivate and encourage a collaborative community for our members to gather, share their experiences and endeavors in the blockchain space, and brainstorm the potential uses of blockchain technology.

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