What is Devcon about?
Now that we’re well into the new year, our Devcon team wanted to share some of our thoughts on what’s coming up for Devcon this year. With new goals driving this year’s effort, we’ve learned from the successes and challenges of the past few years, and will provide some advance details on what’s to come.
For those new to the Ethereum family, Devcon is the only annual meeting held by the Ethereum Foundation, dating back to a small gathering in Berlin (ÐΞVcon-0) about a year before the network launched. For some members of the Ethereum ecosystem, Devcon is something of a family reunion, while for others it’s a great arena to discuss the latest content breakthroughs ranging from technical research to app releases and more.
Over the years it has become clear that Devcon serves the community in other ways as well. As we plan for Devcon 6, we’re working to define those goals and ensure that Devcon achieves each one:
1. Collaboration and knowledge sharing
Devcon is a place where a lot of work gets done. It’s a chance to be in the same room as everyone else in the community working on a specific problem. It’s critical that attendees can find a space to meet, a space to talk, walk up to a whiteboard, and get to work.
2. Teach, communicate and generate new ideas
Devcon is an opportunity to learn and teach! People travel to Devcon to understand the cutting edge in the Ethereum space and share what they have learned over the past year with a large audience both at the event and online.
3. Use our largest stage to send a message
Devcon is a critical opportunity to communicate with the world about Ethereum. As our industry’s largest conference, the largest tech space, and top organizations pay attention to Devcon. Let’s show them what we’ve accomplished.
4. Using Ethereum-based technology through “dogfooding”
Devcon is a conference made by and for our community and should make use of tools created by our community whenever possible and beneficial to attendees. In the spirit of educating our community and supporting Ethereum-based projects, Devcon should allow attendees to experience first-hand with products built on Ethereum.
5. Grow the Ethereum ecosystem
Devcon is an opportunity for each of us to interact with people from other teams and communities, both from Ethereum and blockchain related teams and newcomers from other industries. In recent years, we’ve collaborated with UNICEF and the Internet Archive on stage, bringing the zero-knowledge community into the fold. Many people who are not familiar with the Ethereum ecosystem attend Devcon, and while this is a developerescaped scamreference, they should feel welcomed and inspired by our amazing community by the end of the week.
listen and learn
Our ecosystem has matured and is constantly improving, and we know Devcon has to keep up. In this, the whole team wanted to first pass along a Thank you for the constructive comments that we are sure will help to achieve the best event we have held to date.
Specifically, Devcon’s schedule (dc⟠vi) has focused on 6 key areas to improve the attendee experience.
Specifically, our goal is to find a place with:
- modern Wi-Fi infrastructure and connectivity
- improved crowd flow, meeting space and stages
- easy, in-house catering options for attendees of all needs and diets
We also took a hard look at internal processes and are excited to talk about these topics soon:
- an improved scheduling and scenario selection process
- fairer and more diverse ticketing systems
- more ecosystem integration (dogfooding)
Addressing some of these shortly, a modern, high-speed WiFi infrastructure will smooth out streaming capacity for a worldwide Ethereum user base that deserves to see every stage live and attendee workshop experiences. No matter how many friends are on the site, they will have ways to connect.
Over the past two years, Devcon’s speaker request process has been decentralized through a multi-track process and over 50 reviewers. This year, our goal is to improve the experience for all applicants, gauge attendee preference for help with stage selection, and more.
Our goal is to provide the best possible experience for all attendees, while remaining true to the roots of Ethereum. This year, we think we’re on the right track to make this a reality, and we hope everyone will participate.
Whats Next
We are well into planning for the first Devcon where the eth2 beacon chain is live and ether is staked! In addition to the improvements listed above, we are planning an event with continued internal testing, a smoother ticketing process, and more, all of which will be outlined in future posts.
As for this year’s region, the search for Devcon 6 started before Devcon 5 with the understanding that the further along we are in terms of planning, the smoother the process will be for all attendees. After listening to community feedback and conducting a thorough site search in over 10 cities, we’re confident we’ve found a region and venue that truly deserves the event and achieves all of the goals set out above to help make this event a reality. the best Devcon of all time.
We will be announcing the Devcon 6 location soon — keep an eye out for the EF Blog for more information on site selection and for information on early application and more.
Update (03/27/2020): Out of respect for those within our own community and around us currently facing the ongoing global health crisis, our team has decided to temporarily hold the scheduled Devcon announcements, which were first mentioned. previously. While other news will follow and our planning continues, we appreciate your continued patience and hope everyone is taking action to stay safe!
We hope you’ll be as excited as we are and somewhat surprised when we share more information in the next Devcon update over the next few weeks 🌎. These updates will be coming a bit sooner than in previous years, so check back often!
For now, thanks once again to all of our attendees for joining us in Osaka, to the presenters, to the supporters who made the event possible, and to you (the community) for your feedback over the past few months.
Moving forward while we remember…
Looking for clips and more from Osaka? We have some albums and playlists to share that you might want to check out! Check out the photos and videos below!
Below, we know the talks have been shared widely, but if you’re looking for something specific or for your presentation (both on the main stage and in meeting room playlists), check out the links below.
main stages
Breakdowns and highlights:
Devcon had its share of highlights, including major Eth2 announcements, presentations on eWASM Y eth 1x progress, the celebrity appearance of the world’s most famous dog, Kabosu (the original “Doge”), and much, much more. Wow.
Photo credit: Alex van de Sande
And if you missed the keynote, click here for a opening from osaka citythe opening of the UNICEF Crypto Fundand more.
Most importantly, Devcon remains focused on the developers and researchers who make Ethereum what it is, and our own team will continue to learn from all of you. This relentless pursuit of improvement will help ensure that dc⟠vi it’s the best Ethereum gathering yet, and we look forward to seeing everyone there.
🦄
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development team
