Giveth co-founder, Vojtech Simetka joins as a judge for the Status Hackathon

We are honored to announce one of our favorite people from one of our favorite teams as a judge for the Status Hackathon – #CryptoLife.

We had a quick chat with Vojtech to learn a bit more about his past, what projects he feels aligned with, and some advice for hackers of #CryptoLife.

1. What is your role with Giveth and how long have you been working on the project?

I’ve helped to shape Giveth from it’s beginning - January 2017. Currently I am leading development of the Giveth Donation Application (DApp).

2. What were you doing before joining Giveth?

I was a developer at CERN leading the development of an internal tool similar to Google Street View. While at CERN I helped to organise and coach a number of humanitarian hackatons where we've combined creative minds from CERN and non-profit organisations in interdisciplinary teams to work on current humanitarian problems.

3. Giveth has lead the charge in charitable giving and altruistic community building. Are there any DApps, you feel are closely aligned with the goals and vision of Giveth?

Most of them are not DApps but there are a number of projects trying to achieve social impact like givedirectly.org, alice.si, usizo.org, idbox.io, slavefreetrade.org, ethichub.com, b4h.world, helperbit.com or denominatorgroup.org … However, in terms of the Giveth galaxy (our wider efforts to promote the use of blockchain for good) we also relate to ethereum projects like Swarm City, Status, Aragon or MyCrypto.

4. What do you think is most valuable about these community hackathons?

To have 3 days where you can create a community around your cause and walk out with a first prototype.

5. Any suggestions or tips for the hackers?

Don’t make the common mistake of hacking now and thinking later. Start with sketches, validation that the idea is solid, build first simple UI and only after you’ve done all of this write your first smart contract.

Join us in Prague October 26 - 28 and have your work judged by Vojtech :). Apply on our Hackathon website.