Welcome to the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight, curated by HackerNoon’s editors to showcase noteworthy tech solutions to real-world problems. Whether you’re a solopreneur, part of an early-stage startup, or a developer building something that truly matters, the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon is your chance to test your product’s utility, get featured on HackerNoon, and compete for $150k+ in prizes. Submit your project to get started! Welcome to the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight, curated by HackerNoon’s editors to showcase noteworthy tech solutions to real-world problems. Whether you’re a solopreneur, part of an early-stage startup, or a developer building something that truly matters, the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon is your chance to test your product’s utility, get featured on HackerNoon, and compete for $150k+ in prizes. Submit your project to get started! Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight Proof of Usefulness Hackathon Proof of Usefulness Hackathon $150k+ Submit your project to get started Submit your project to get started We sat down with Ehsan to discuss Functionland Fula, a project dedicated to creating decentralized storage solutions for everyday people. By developing affordable, user-owned hardware nodes that integrate seamlessly with Web3 infrastructure, the team aims to combat data centralization and censorship. Functionland Fula What does Functionland Fula do? And why is now the time for it to exist? Creating a decentralized storage for the masses. Now’s a good time for Functionland Fula to exist because data censorship and misuse by massive centralized entities are becoming critical global concerns, making affordable, user-owned storage infrastructure essential for the future of the web. How many people does Functionland Fula reach? We are targeting businesses and applications that are using S3-compatible APIs to connect to central storage servers. Since our APIs are filly s3 compatible, the change ok their side is simple Who does your Functionland Fula serve? What’s exciting about your users and customers? They gain a fully decentralized storage backend supported by the IPFS network and cheaper storage What technologies were used in the making of Functionland Fula? And why did you choose the ones most essential to your tech stack? Functionland Fula is built upon foundational Web3 and decentralized networking technologies, specifically utilizing IPFS, IPLD, and Solidity. These core components were chosen because they provide the robust, peer-to-peer data addressing and smart contract capabilities required to securely manage a distributed storage network at scale. What is the traction to date for Functionland Fula? Around the web, who’s been noticing? Functionland Fula has demonstrated strong market demand by securing over $500K in sales during their early Indiegogo hardware campaign for their "Box" device. Furthermore, they are actively onboarding real users to their storage network through their dedicated cloud portal and a native mobile application available on the Google Play Store. cloud portal Google Play Store Functionland Fula scored a 98 proof of usefulness score (https://proofofusefulness.com/report/functionland-fula) Functionland Fula scored a 98 proof of usefulness score (https://proofofusefulness.com/report/functionland-fula) https://proofofusefulness.com/report/functionland-fula What excites you about this Functionland Fula's potential usefulness? The data censorship or data misuse by AI algorithms is becoming a hot topic. Everyone talks about AI, but not the underlying layer powering AI, which is data, and the first layer of data is storage. It takes millions to build a data center, but just a few dollars to join the Fula network! Meet our sponsors Meet our sponsors Meet our sponsors Bright Data: Bright Data is the leading web data infrastructure company, empowering over 20,000 organizations with ethical, scalable access to real-time public web information. From startups to industry leaders, we deliver the datasets that fuel AI innovation and real-world impact. Ready to unlock the web? Learn more at brightdata.com. Bright Data: Bright Data is the leading web data infrastructure company, empowering over 20,000 organizations with ethical, scalable access to real-time public web information. From startups to industry leaders, we deliver the datasets that fuel AI innovation and real-world impact. Ready to unlock the web? Learn more at brightdata.com. Bright Data: brightdata.com Neo4j: GraphRAG combines retrieval-augmented generation with graph-native context, allowing LLMs to reason over structured relationships instead of just documents. With Neo4j, you can build GraphRAG pipelines that connect your data and surface clearer insights. Learn more. Neo4j: GraphRAG combines retrieval-augmented generation with graph-native context, allowing LLMs to reason over structured relationships instead of just documents. With Neo4j, you can build GraphRAG pipelines that connect your data and surface clearer insights. Learn more. Neo4j: more Storyblok: Storyblok is a headless CMS built for developers who want clean architecture and full control. Structure your content once, connect it anywhere, and keep your front end truly independent. API-first. AI-ready. Framework-agnostic. Future-proof. Start for free. Storyblok: Storyblok is a headless CMS built for developers who want clean architecture and full control. Structure your content once, connect it anywhere, and keep your front end truly independent. API-first. AI-ready. Framework-agnostic. Future-proof. Start for free. Storyblok: Start for free . Algolia: Algolia provides a managed retrieval layer that lets developers quickly build web search and intelligent AI agents. Learn more. Algolia: Algolia provides a managed retrieval layer that lets developers quickly build web search and intelligent AI agents. Learn more. Algolia: Learn more

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Functionland Fula Earns a 98 Proof of Usefulness Score by Building Decentralized Storage for the Masses

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