Pi Network Utilities

Last July to September of 2021, Pi Network hosted its first Hackathon for the community to build Pi apps that would run on Pi blockchain. It was an opportunity for technical developers to connect with the project teams. The #BuildPi2gether Hackathon is a collaborative event where Pioneers and developers join to build the future of Pi together, thus, the hashtag #BuildPi2gether was formed. The event spanned from the weeks of 28th of June to 30th of September, 2021.
There were two categories of apps to build: 

• ECOSYSTEM APPS - apps that improve the Pi ecosystem nd functions.
• BUSINESS APPS - apps that serve a consumer or commerce product.

In total, Pi Network awarded $100,000 USD and 100,000 π  to top team projects. Based on placement, winners in each category received:

• 1st prize = $20,000 USD + 20,000 π 
• 2nd prize = $15,000 USD + 15,000 π 
• 3rd prize = $10,000 USD + 10,000 π 
• 5 Honorary mentions = $1,000 USD + 1,000 π each 

You maybe thinking what the heck is a Hackathon? Apprently, when I first heard of the term Hack-athon, my knee-jerk reaction was to focus on the term "hack" which, in my own understanding, is to attack and find the weaknesses of the app. I guess that's your initial reaction too! Funnily enough, Hackathon has nothing to do with hacking the the app and such. As mentioned in the introduction above, Hackathon is the way of the Core Team to incorporate Pioneers who want to get involve in building Pi Network's ecosystem and/or business apps. This was a chance to see what kind of ideas are out there that could be of interest so we can innovate and think outside the box and I think that's great! 
Currently, there are three utilities residing in the Pi Network app. These utility apps are Chat, Brainstorm and Fever IQ. There will be more apps to be added on this list, led by the winning apps, as we are nearing time to launch the open mainnet.

These are the Hackathon Winners:

• Pi Workforce Pool (#1 business app) - Marketplace to hire skilled Pioneers or get hired for work
• PiCare (#1 ecosystem app) - Bug reporting platform for Pi apps and ecosystem apps
• Pi Chain Mall (#2 business app) - E-commerce marketplace for buyers and sellers of various goods and services
• World of Pi Championships (#2 ecosystem app) - Social match-three puzzle game to compete for prizes — non-profit for the developer.
• Watugot (#3 business app) - Marketplace for local businesses to publish their coupons and discounts

and Honorable mentions:

• Pi Game Platform (business app) - Platform for developers to post and monetize their games
• Pi Barter Mall (business app) - E-commerce Marketplace for buyers and sellers of various physical and virtual goods
• PitoGo Travelers Handy Platform (business app) - Travel platform to book arrangements including hotels, flights, and cars.
• Pi Webinars (business model app) - Video platform to sell and buy exclusive content
• Pi Games from Latin America (ecosystem app) - Numerous games including chess against an AI chess bot. All code is open-source.

Now with more than 30 Million people, you're not going to get everybody's idea in place, right? There is going to be a lot of ideas that a lot of people have and only a very few that will make it to the very top and that's just part of it. It doesn't mean that your input is not valuable either. It just means that only a few things are going to bubble to the top that make it to the core team's attention on what to build. The other thing is this, because Pi is built on top of Stellar and because it's got an open API and an SDK, you can really build anything you want. So this is what's exciting! A lot of utility apps can be developed during the open mainnet. You think about an ecosystem like a crypto ecosystem. Once we go into open mainnet, you can build your own web platform, you can build your own app that uses Pi as an intermediary which is really, really exciting!

The Hackaton proved that there are actually a bunch of smart technical people that are involved in Pi Network and I think that's awesome. That gives us the capability for a lot of people to build a lot of things. Now keep in mind, if Pi releases in the mainnet and let's say there's 30 or 40 or 50 different apps that are already out there that are built upon Pi or Pi is the undergirding blockchain technology that drives it, many of them may not be successful but the key at this point in time is not to be successful. The key is to innovate and to try things so we can find what works and then we can make it better; or we can find what doesn't work and understand why, so that we can innovate from there. It's much more about iteration and trying things and seeing what sticks in the community. I think it's a good thing that we have so many apps that are out here. I think a lot of people are honing on where Pi is most useful. Pi is based on Stellar and is really a high-speed payment mechanism. When Pi is used in a method like that, I think the more Pi apps that we have coming out gives the opportunity for us to explore and see what's possible. It also gets people interested and gives people the opportunity to create something innovative and brand new in a space that's exciting and blowing up.