Building the Decentralised Web in Canberra

Greetings from the start of Solid 2026 Hackathon: Building the Decentralised Web in Canberra, at the Australian National University. Solid is a standard from the W3C, the people who look after the web. It allows individuals to decide who has access to their data. Solid uses  Personal Online Data Stores (PODS) which hold user data & they can choose who can read it. The problem, as I see it, is what would motivate for-profit companies and government agencies, to use the Solid standard, when their business is based on appropriating user data. Perhaps some of the teams today can come up with some business models to make Solid profitable.

Come and Build the Decentralised Web in Canberra at the Solid 2026 Hackathon

Solid Hackerthon Free Tickets

Just been talking to Jess Moore, who is organizing the Solid 2026 Hackathon. This is a free event anyone can sign up for 14 to 16 July 2026 at the the Canberra Innovation Network (CBRIN) Canberra. This is run by the Australian National University's  Software Innovation Institute.  The Solid protocol (SOcially LInked Data) is a way to have secure data under the control of the owner and has been adopted as a standard by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), based on work by Tim Berners-Lee. As well as protecting personal information, this has application in military and security systems, where sensitive information needs to be provided on a need to know basis. This is particularly difficult when working with allies you don't entirely trust.