One of my favourite parts of the Planets project was the service developers’ workshops. The events brought together the developers from across the project (and from outside too). In each and every one, it was always clear that the people in that room really cared about this stuff, and really wanted to push things forward together…

But once the funding ended, and while we awaited any follow-on funding, I was deeply concerned that this first Hackathon event would not be the same. That the numbers would be fewer, that the energy would be lower, that the commitment would be less. That the momentum would be lost, and that later work would suffer because of that. 

It has been an immense relief to see that the momentum has not been lost. The idea of bringing practitioners and developers together, and focusing on concrete use cases, has proven to be a very useful way to drive things forward. There are more people here than in any of our previous workshops. There are more voices, more opinions, more arguments, and there is more progress, more optimism and more clarity than ever before. The people in this room care about this stuff, and want to work together and move things forward.

My concerns have been vaporised.

This project has a future.