The University of Manchester Blockchainers Team won the UK vs US Blockchain Hackathon during the weekend 21 April 2018.
The team included: Nathan Dane, Sami Al-Shatri, and Anastasija Starkina from Blockchainers and The University of Manchester. They won the top prize in the UK pipping the US to the post at a blockchain hackathon supported by Decenture, Stellar.org and CryptoBatesGroup. Sami, Anastasija and Lewis are all current MEnt Master of Enterprise students.
The UK team included representatives from the University of Manchester, Newcastle University, University of Liverpool and University of Leeds. Representatives from the US came from Columbia University, Binghamton University, Cornell University, The New School and CUNY.
The theme revolved around the problem of student financial pressures including student debts, expenditures in the higher education system and inefficiency in the legacy system.
According to Lewis Laidin, BBA Student Rep: “We had a great time exploring problems in the industry and stakeholders involved to build a working back-end on Stellar platform demoed in Iphone 10.
“It was a mind-blowing, challenging, great fun and rewarding experience. We got to manage teamwork, UI and design, and also spontaneous presentation. Massive congrats to everyone involved.
“Listening to educational events is one thing, but being able to actually participate in hackathons really boosts that learning process whether it is technical or non-technical points of blockchain. Looking forward for next blockchain hackathon!”
Lewis Laidin is the BBA Student rep at the University of Manchester. He, and the team at Blockchainers, are hoping that they will increase their graduate employment opportunities by engaging in blockchain technology.