In September 2018, Blockstack embarked on a global speaker and Meetup series entitled the “Decentralizing the World Tour,” which ran through January 2019. The tour included speakers such as Nick Grossman, Farida Nabourema, George Gilder, Vinay Gupta, Megha Rajagopalan, and William Mougayar among many others.
First, thank you to those who joined us on tour, helped us organize an event, welcomed us to your community, spoke, sponsored, or otherwise contributed to making it a special learning and networking experience for everyone. If the tour was any indication, the future for decentralization is bright!
The tour included 29 meetups worldwide and 3 larger events in NYC (September 13, 2018), London (October 1, 2018) and Hong Kong (January 10, 2019). Over 2,400 of you joined us at one of these stops or a Meetup!
There were so many great events in so many places, there’s no way anyone could make it to all of them, so please enjoy the highlights below and visit the tour site for even more presentations and content from the tour.
New York:
The NYC city stop covered the topic “Why Decentralization?” with presentations from Muneeb Ali (Blockstack PBC), Justin Hunter (Graphite), Avthar Sewrathan, Richard Adjei and Felix Madutsa (Afari), Farida Nahourema (Togolese blogger and human rights defender), Megha Rajagopalan (BuzzFeed News) and Alex Gladstein (Human Rights Foundation). Event highlights included: Farida’s talk on “Internet Repression”, followed with an overview of Blockstack decentralized apps: Graphite and Afari as well as the “Promoting Freedom through Decentralization” panel, which gave the audience a look at how we could have positive change through decentralization.
- Farida Nabourema: “Internet Repression: A Threat to Democracy”
- Megha Rajagopalan: “Surveillance and Censorship in China”
- Graphite: “Decentralized and Encrypted Productivity”
London
London’s event theme was Crypto Economics as it relates to active participation in networks, investments, and protocols. It made for a lively discussion among all speakers. Additionally, we touched on Blockstack app updates and a decentralized app solution with Misthos, a Dapp that allows you to decentralize your cash flow. Vinay’s talk on “Why global trade will inevitably move to the blockchain” was a crowd pleaser along with the Crypto Economics panel. Speakers included Muneeb Ali (Blockstack PBC), Larry Salibra (Blockstack PBC), Richard Muirhead (Fabric Ventures), David Fauchier (Cambrial Capital) and Justin Carter (Misthos).
- Vinay Gupta: “Why global trade will inevitably move to the blockchain”
- “Crypto Economics” Panel
- Muneeb Ali: “Crypto Economy After the 2017 Spike”
Hong Kong:
On January 10, Blockstack held an event at the Hong Kong Exchange that featured thought leaders in the crypto world and supporters of decentralization. Speakers took on important topics with both global and local importance such as Decentralized Governance, Decentralization and the Great Pendulum of History, Digital Rights, and Building with Blockstack. It was Blockstack’s first official stop in Hong Kong and not the last. Muneeb summed up our thoughts on the HK community with his tweet:
New ideas might face less resistance in China than the West.
People there are more hungry for innovation, craving the bleeding edge.
— Muneeb Ali (@muneeb) January 12, 2019
- William Mougayar: “Peeling the Layers of Decentralized Governance”
- Nick Grossman: “From Agile to Immutable: Balancing Innovation and Trust in Decentralized Systems”
- Katherine Wu: “Brave New World: Decentralization in the New World Order of Technology”
- George Gilder: “Will Life After Google be Blockstack?”
- Jude Nelson: “The Stacks Blockchain”
- Pindar Wong: “Ensuring Internet Symmetry: Topology Over Geography”
- Dan Jeffries: “Decentralization and the Great Pendulum of History”
Tour Meetups
Meetup Highlights: Local Connection and Inspiration
Paris, France: In Paris, Blockstack participated in the annual Global Internet Governance Forum (IGF) organized by the UN bringing various speakers to Paris Digital Week to share their vision of #InternetofTrust.
Portland, OR: Blockstack also took part in the PDX Blockchain Summit where Jude Nelson and Hank Stoever spoke and mentored at the Summit’s Hackathon. It was twenty-four hours of deep-diving into the blockchain industry’s most cutting-edge developer tools.
Bangalore, India: The tour made it out to Bangalore with a Meetup focused on helping people understand the dilemma of the current Internet stack and why decentralized solutions are of importance. They also got to see the current status of Blockstack’s app ecosystem through the demonstration of privacy centric apps such as Afari, Stealthy and Graphite.
Tokyo, Japan: In Tokyo, a Blockstack meetup was held in conjunction with NodeJapan where Larry Salibra was a panelist. He discussed the differences in Ethereum’s and Blockstack’s approaches to building DApps.
Newark, New Jersey: Last but not least, the tour ended on January 24th in Newark where Patrick Stanley and Jude Nelson introduced Blockstack to the area while also talking about decentralization and its impact to the city.
This tour would not have been possible without you and the help of our local evangelists and co-organizers. We would like to thank each and everyone for making this tour a success. As George Gilder said:
'Not a winner take all internet, but an internet where we are all winners' Click To TweetDecentralizing the world is a long journey and because of you, this tour was another great step toward the better future we know is possible.
Take back your digital rights by building and using the apps of the decentralized future today:
- Find quality dapps via App.co
- Join App Mining and get paid monthly to build decentralized applications
If you’re interested in Blockstack events near you, check our community events page and follow us on Twitter.
Thank you to our tour partners and supporters
