Welcome to the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon report series, curated by HackerNoon’s editors to spotlight standout 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 report series, curated by HackerNoon’s editors to spotlight standout 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 report series Proof of Usefulness Hackathon report series Proof of Usefulness Hackathon Proof of Usefulness Hackathon $150k+ Submit your project to get started Submit your project to get started In this interview, we catch up with Robert Esentals to discuss QuantumLayer, a developer-facing risk intelligence engine. This project translates climate and infrastructure uncertainty into actionable data for system integration, testing, and failure analysis. QuantumLayer What does QuantumLayer do? And why is now the time for it to exist? QuantumLayer is a developer-facing risk intelligence engine that helps translate climate and infrastructure uncertainty into something systems can actually work with. It’s designed for integration, testing, and failure under real-world constraints — not for dashboards or slideware. Now’s a good time for QuantumLayer to exist because technical systems and infrastructure must increasingly operate under climate uncertainty, requiring tools that treat risk as an integration problem rather than just a reporting metric. What is your traction to date? How many people does QuantumLayer reach? Currently reaching a small group of early technical users, collaborators, and pilot discussions (tens to low hundreds per month). The project prioritizes depth of use and real integration over broad visibility at this stage. Who does your QuantumLayer serve? What’s exciting about your users and customers? QuantumLayer is for developers, researchers, infrastructure practitioners, and public-sector teams working with systems exposed to climate, environmental, or long-term risk. It’s especially relevant where decisions must be made despite uncertainty, incomplete data, and real consequences. What technologies were used in the making of QuantumLayer? And why did you choose ones most essential to your techstack? QuantumLayer utilizes custom data models and an API-first architecture to manage complex geospatial and temporal data. The team consciously prioritized explainability and interoperability over proprietary tooling to ensure the system supports robust scenario modeling in diverse production environments. What is traction to date for QuantumLayer? Around the web, who’s been noticing? Traction is currently defined by exploratory integrations and pilot-oriented use cases rather than vanity metrics. Feedback from these early technical discussions is actively shaping the data models and interfaces to ensure they function in real decision contexts. QuantumLayer scored a 118 proof of usefulness score (proofofusefulness.com/quantumlayer-report) proofofusefulness.com/quantumlayer-report What excites you about this QuantumLayer's potential usefulness? The most interesting potential is whether risk and uncertainty can become something systems and developers actively work with, rather than abstract concepts handled after the fact. If useful, QuantumLayer helps decisions be stress-tested against reality before consequences arrive. 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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QuantumLayer Earns a 118 Proof of Usefulness Score by Building a Developer-Facing Risk Intelligence Engine

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