Meet the person who offered a comfy bed for 'scrappy' hackers during ETHDenver

Thousands of developers, hackers, and crypto and blockchain enthusiasts descended upon Denver, Colorado successful the United States for the ETHDenver league from Feb. 24 to Mar. 5.

With accommodation a constricted assets successful the Colorado superior city, galore opted to question refuge from the crowds and choky quarters astatine "hacker houses" — wherever slumber is optional and networking is the goal. 

Jessy, the sanction down 1 specified location — Jessy’s Hacker House — organized 4 "hacker houses" that hosted 50 participants from the ETHDenver league and BUIDLWeek — a bid of workshops and events arsenic good arsenic a BUIDLathon allowing teams to vie for prizes and investments.

Meeting with Cointelegraph astatine 1 of their houses connected Feb. 28, Jessy and co-organizer Waylon Jepsen kept engaged mounting up posters and checking up connected the guests’ comfort.

Eth Denver was large this year! We had a batch of astonishing residents with @wehack247 this year. I’m truthful gladsome to telephone you each my friends. So bullish connected the aboriginal we are each gathering ❤️ pic.twitter.com/nlFkzx8dzO

— Waylon Jepsen (@0xjepsen) March 6, 2023

According to the hacker-house host, she had been moving astatine a task superior steadfast successful 2022 during the past ETHDenver league erstwhile a fig of radical based overseas posted connected societal media they were looking for a spot to enactment successful the Colorado superior city. Like galore successful attendance astatine the 2022 event, Jessy and her location guests tested affirmative for COVID-19 but were inactive capable to web and make projects.

“The information antecedently was similar ‘hey, these are chill radical — let’s conscionable big them and get to cognize them’,” said Jessy. “For the longest time, it was a conveyance for maine to find my ain co-founder and observe what ideas I wanted to join.”

Jessy astatine 1 of the hacker houses astatine ETHDenver 2023

“The magic happens erstwhile you transportation the astir applicable radical [...] We transportation a divers radical of people. We person radical who are precise crypto native, we person radical who are from academia who are doing cryptography and circumstantial probe [...] You person radical who are similar 19, 18-year-olds — who are freshmen — who are conscionable starting their career.”

The 4 "hacker houses" scattered astir the Denver Metropolitan Area were location to much than 50 radical arsenic good arsenic a fewer visitors during the week of the conference. Roughly 300 technical-minded individuals applied for a spot to slumber and networking opportunities astatine the houses, which were funded by sponsors successful the blockchain abstraction and overseen by Jessy and Waylon.

A hacker location impermanent moving away

Though Jessy said determination were immoderate fiscal incentives to participating successful the hacker houses — e.g. connecting with VCs and imaginable co-founders — guests could besides personally payment from the experience. 

“You’re present to marque semipermanent friends,” said Jessy. “I deliberation the 1 exemplary that we truly person is play semipermanent games with semipermanent people. Part of the interrogation process is that we prime radical who we deliberation acceptable the vibe, are genuine — genuine scrappy successful the space.”

View of the Rocky Mountains from the extortion of the hacker house

Related: Fake Ethereum Denver website linked to notorious phishing wallet

ETHDenver concluded connected March 5, but different ample conferences related to crypto and wallet successful the contiguous aboriginal see Paris Blockchain Week and Consensus successful Austin, Texas. Though ETHDenver had not released authoritative numbers connected attendance astatine the clip of publication, much than 30,000 radical reportedly registered for the conference.