May 2017. A 24-hour hackathon run simultaneously in Helsinki and Singapore — 10 teams competing to improve Neste's Supplier Due Diligence System. Roy Lai and I built a private blockchain-based traceability system for first-mile raw material suppliers. No prize. Roy went on to found InfoCorp Technologies based on this idea, raising US$14.3M during the ICO era.
the problem
Neste sources raw materials — palm oil, fish fat, used cooking oil — across a complex first-mile supply chain. Monitoring supplier certification, performance, and compliance was manual, tedious, and not scalable. High-quality data at the first mile is critical for sustainability claims, but the tooling to collect and verify it didn't exist at scale.
what we built
A private blockchain-based traceability system with RFID and GPS hardware at the field level.
The core insight: a private blockchain as a single source of truth for supplier certification and worker identity. Once data was anchored on-chain, it became tamper-resistant, auditable, and shareable across the supply chain without exposing confidential commercial details.
What it enabled:
- High-resolution traceability — GPS and RFID tracking from field to mill, covering all raw material types
- Anomaly detection — automated flagging of certification gaps or compliance deviations
- Paperwork reduction — transparent, on-chain records replacing manual documentation
- Scalability — the same architecture applied across palm, fish fat, and used cooking oil supply chains without redesign
The pitch was simple: cheap to implement, transparent, trusted, and high-resolution.
the context
Neste ran the hackathon in Helsinki and Singapore simultaneously. The Singapore track had 3 teams; Helsinki had 7. The €10,000 grand prize went to a Finnish team with a digital supplier engagement platform. The judges noted that blockchain-based proposals — including ours — brought "fresh perspectives on balancing confidentiality and transparency."
what happened after
We didn't place. But Roy took the idea seriously after the weekend.
He went on to found InfoCorp Technologies — a blockchain-based agricultural supply chain startup built on the same thesis. During the ICO era, InfoCorp raised US$14.3M.
I joined as Head of Business Development for a year. I didn't found InfoCorp — that was Roy's company — but I was a founding member and helped build the early commercial side before moving on.
The idea was right. The timing, in retrospect, was exactly when the world was most willing to fund it.