London EOS hackathon ended less than an hour ago (I think some people are still having some drinks and snacks at the closing event) so, as promised, I will try to give a small review of this - unexpectedly well organized - event.
Raw Data
- more than 470 participants
- 70 mentors
- more than 30 Angel Hack / Block.One staff support members (that's not an official number, just my estimation)
- 90 projects submitted
- 2 x Most Valuable Mentor prizes ($3000 each)
- 1 UX / UI prize ($3000)
- 3rd place price ($3000)
- 2nd place prize ($10,000)
- 1st place prize ($100,000)
The Good Stuff
The event was incredibly well organized given the size of the crowd and the challenges of the location. As I said earlier, the hackathon took place in an actual museum (London Science Museum) in 3 different rooms. There were 2 hackathons happening in parallel (they just couldn't fit all the people in one room), one in the Welcome Wing (basically a basement) and one in the Flight Room (2nd floor room) with actual exhibits in it (like planes, rockets, engines and so on). There was also a lot of activity going on in the IMAX, the cinema hall of the museum, where the opening and closing ceremony were held, as well as the breakout sessions for entrepreneurs, C++ programmers and web programmers.
There was an incredible amount of food and beverages, for the entire duration of the hackathon. People had always some snacks, if not cooked food, at any time of the day.
Mentors got a full day of preps before the event, which included a 5 hours long workshop in which we got familiar with the overall hackathon rules, as well as with the tech stacks that we were supposed to know and give help about.
Please keep in mind that the hackathon took place while the museum was opened to public. They weren't allowed in the hackathon rooms, but in the rest of the building was just business as usual.
The Bad
Nothing, really, other probably than my own subjective choice for the finalists. I think some of the projects in my room could have been easily selected to be among the top 10 finalists, if not in the top 3 winners.
My Personal Takeaway
I signed up for this thing literally on a whim. I applied for a mentor, and, after a couple of weeks (during which I completely forgot that I even did this) I got an email saying that I was accepted and I had to confirm my availability. I cancelled another event I had planned for this weekend, but I don't regret at all.
Here is, in a very digested form, what I'll take away from this event:
- there is a fantastic community of very talented blockchain programmers out there (and some of them are becoming really good in EOS)
- I met some very nice and clever mentors, with which it was an absolute pleasure to discuss and exchange ideas and concepts
- I met
in person and had the chance to talk for a few minutes. I would have loved to have a more relaxed context to talk, but maybe next time
- I realized, at the end of it, that this was mostly a marketing event for EOS. Nevertheless, a very successful and smart event.
- If I'll be asked to mentor the next one as well, which will be in San Francisco, I'll go, but I'll make sure I'll be there with a lot more sleep on board than this time. It was more demanding that I thought it would be. At the end of the day it was a very satisfactory experience, but still demanding in terms of physical and mental energy (I really wanted to give as much support as I could to anyone, and I'm happy most people with whom I interacted came to me after the event to say "Thank you").
All in all, good stuff.
Now, back to work.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me 
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