Can you be in the present and the future all at the same time? Being at a hackathon is somewhat like that. Almost indescribable, but once you enter the Denver Sports Palace, you feel it. A building made up of about 6 open level “floors” winding where it almost seems like one melts into the other. Where you almost feel like you are always in the middle of the action. Panels, discussions and workshops that easily allowed audience members to flow in and out and easily take in the hackathon teams’ process as they develop innovation right in front of our very eyes; again very much in the present but seeing where the future is going.
It sounds unreal, but it was a weekend of great nuggets and takeaways from many perspectives of blockchain and cryptocurrency in its present and future states. As someone coming from communications and marketing, many of those topics particularly piqued my interest. Adding to the magic, with coffee from a local shop, Amethyst Coffee, which flavored their latte with marshmallows from “lucky charms”… yes there is such a thing and yes, it was delicious.
I spent most of my time Day 2 melting into a beanbag chair near the Bufficorn Stage taking in discussions about governance, digital security, social impact, which turned out to be a big part of this conference, finance and security.
However, the one I found most interesting from my perspective was a panel titled “The Next Million” featuring Emily Coleman (ShapeShift), Lily Liu (Earn.com), Nabil Naghdy (Status), and Marguerite deCourcelle (Coin Artist).
Emily started the conversation about bringing the next wave of users in with something near and dear to me, bringing in people to whom blockchain is a brand new subject.
“I know marketers that are very talented coming from different worlds, even from finance, and there is a little bit of a fear of, ‘do I belong there? Will I be accepted? Will I ever understand this?’ I was in hospitality and tourism industry before and I had those same fears but I also joined a company where our CEO and everyone who was around me was helping me. They didn’t make me feel like it wasn’t doable for me to get there,” she said.
“What I like is we use this term ‘inclusivity’ and bring people in, which is a big part of the ethos side of this industry. I was out at the food truck today and a guy came up to me and we were chatting and he’s in the medical field and he said ‘I’m trying to figure out how I get in (blockchain),’ and I brought the point up that you actually have background in things that could be very interesting and usable here and he said, ‘I didn’t really think about it that way,” Emily continued. “We should help people identify how they can be part of this ecosystem and bring their talents and that might not be technological.”
The other panelists also brought up great points of how we can change the narrative to be more relatable to help adoption of blockchain by those who will not necessarily be developing in the space, but using the technology.
“The narrative around privacy needs to be re-branded into digital security. Sometimes I feel like we should talk more to why this is important to hundreds of millions of people rather than talking technology, which is cool, but we need to talk about the other side of the conversation,” Lily said. “That narrative needs to be much simpler, and use cases need to be simpler, as well. I don’t think that censorship resistance is a narrative that will bring in anymore people beyond the appeal it is right now. Maybe we need to talk more about freedom and security rather than censorship and privacy. The later sounds like you have something to hide and freedom is more aspirational… Where as security and safety is something everyone can understand.”
Nabil also touched on the ole’ how you describe what you do for a living to people (I know I have a “fun” time with this one, too) and helping to shift that narrative to create a more telling view of what blockchain really is and can do.
“Blockchain is contributed to the cryptocurrency valuation for the vast majority of people. If I have family ask me what I do I say, ‘I work in cryptocurrency,’ and they say ‘Ahh..you work for bitcoin?’ and usually I concede ‘yeah, sure, fine.’ So that misconception of language, which comes back again to Blockchain vs. bitcoin, vs Ethereum. Maybe web3 is the answer but there is this misconception of this whole space that its about currency speculation and people making money and it’s more than that,” he said.
In fact, leading into Day 3 it was 120 projects that entered into the ETHDenver Hackathon. With a number focusing on social impact and social good as a focus of their projects. You can check out a list of Finalists and Bounty winners here. Projects ranged from government task marketplaces, aimed at helping underprivileged citizens can fulfill government-specified bounties and get rewarded for their contributions in the form of welfare benefits (Wel-fair), to a sketch collaborative on the Ethereum blockchain using instruction to a real handmade 2d plotter to see everyone’s doodles (EthASketch).
The closing after party was nothing short of the entire culture of ETHDenver 2019 throughout its entirety: fun, eclectic, surreal and welcoming. Definitely one to not miss next year and of course mark your calendars for ETHBoston, Sept. 6–8.
