Recently, the Konsolidate brand became part of ZinderLabs. With their diverse technological background and core values that align closely with the purpose of Solid, they are the perfect fit to take our Solid-vision to the next level. One of the first orders of business is to spread technical and practical knowledge throughout the ZinderLabs team. And what better way to do this than with a practical hackathon? Our mission? To introduce Solid, explore its philosophy, and build practical applications.
Getting to Know Solid
Our tech break began with a deep dive into Solid. We explored its core principles, discussed its philosophy and specification, and learned how it empowers users to control their data. The ZinderLabs team’s curiosity turned the presentation into an engaging discussion, with ideas and questions flowing freely. It was an exciting exploration of the possibilities Solid offers.
Introducing Our Persona
To make Solid more tangible, we introduced “Sonya Solid.” Sonya is a fictional character with her own Solid pod—a secure place for her health data and fitness goals. Through Sonya, we demonstrated how Solid allows precise control over personal information. Sonya’s pod became our testing ground.
Creating Apps
Konsolidate challenged ZinderLabs to create different applications interacting with Sonya’s Solid pod. These included a fitness app, several shopping apps, and a fitness coach app. ZinderLabs went the extra mile by exploring different technologies for interacting with these apps: JavaScript, Java, and .NET. They delved into Inrupt SDKs for JavaScript and Java and explored LDO for JavaScript. For .NET, they took a manual approach—handpicking components for tasks like OIDC authentication and RDF parsing (dotNetRdf).
Conclusion
Despite the limited time and the diverse technologies, our tech break was enlightening. While we couldn’t fully implement all the functionality, we definitely achieved our goal of familiarising the team with Solid technology and its possibilities! Let us know if your tech team would be interested in a similar tech break!
