All is set at  to unfold the second edition of Hackathon however, this time, the venue is different.

The first edition of the event was held around one year ago. It was a three-day event that had only 30 teams in participation, with Thomas Bertani’s Camp.iudex being declared the winner of the 2015 Hackathon event.

The virtual accelerator

Registrations for this year’s event began in July 2016. Ether.Camp claims to have received over 2000 individual registrations with over 300 different ideas submitted so far.

This year’s event, however, has seen some changes and improvements compared to what was attainable one year ago. CEO of Ether.camp, Roman Mandeleil tells Cointelegraph that this year’s event goes beyond merely competing to produce the best idea. Instead, he states that the environment has been designed to attract funding and partnerships for competitors.

Mandeleil says:

“This time we are making more than just a hackathon. We have designed the full functioning Virtual Accelerator, that over the timeframe of five weeks will help startups to get funded and find partners based on the skills they are going to present.”

Another major adjustment to this year’s event is the fact that this hackathon will not be held in a particular physical location. The event will be hosted online which will permit anyone, from whichever location across the globe, to fully participate and compete for the ultimate prize.

Hackathon suitable environment

Erik Voorhees, Shapeshift founder and CEO, whom is also one of the judges in the upcoming Hackathon, says that this model fits well with the nature of the Blockchain industry.

Voorhees said:

"Online hackathons are a very cool idea. Especially in this industry when it’s supposed to be global and allow anyone in the world to participate in the new financial system.”

He goes on to point out the fact that online hackathons have the potential to completely overhaul the way a business raises starting capital. He says that by making it cheaper to compete, online hackathons could open markets to sources of innovation that had previously been overlooked.

Another point noted by Voorhees is that a lot of the people in the world don't have the means or resources to fly to the urban center of a western country and participate in front of a panel of VCs. So the ability to get off the ground from various locations is what he describes as “pretty revolutionary.”

The official token

Another innovation this time is the creation of an official token, HackerGold (HKG) for this event, as well as in other future hackathons. Mandeleil says that this will ensure a secure funding system for startups. According to him, the token has been launched and is designed to fuel the company’s crowdfunding apparatus.

He also describes the recently created platform as one which democratizes opportunity for everyone, from entrepreneurs gaining access to early funding, to anyone in the community, by being able to identify and back opportunities at an early stage.

Mandeleil concludes:

“We wanted to build something that’s truly valuable for the whole community.”