Brave new world
Adapting to new circumstances
It’s been just over 6 months since we launched BSV Wales as the first daunting step in bringing blockchain education in Wales to the next level.
Back then, we couldn’t have imagined the incredible response we have since received from the tech community in Cardiff and South Wales in particular.
In our first half-year, we’ve grown to a community just shy of 150 members, spanning our official Meetup page (below), our private LinkedIn group, and we have even managed to grow a 1000-strong following on our twitter page, spanning many prominent sectors in Wales including fintech, development, education and primary industry.
During our boot-strapping phase, we’ve been incredibly lucky to have been supported by a roster of incredible speakers spread across our first 7 events since kicking-off back in October ’19, when we were hosted by Acuity Law.
A few of our personal highlights included:
- Nicola McNeely from HCR Law, who spoke about her experiences of blockchain in the legal domain;
- Sharon Henley of Cardiff-based digital assets startup Coincover Global, who gave our members an excellent introduction to the fundamentals of cryptocurrency;
- Cerian Jones (Cerian Jones IP) who provided excellent insights as to how intellectual property law operates in the realm of blockchain;
- Paul Shepherd from WeBuildBots, who educated our attendees on the importance of AI in modern society; and
- Dan Pelusi from Swansea-based startup Wallets, who spoke about innovative solutions addressing the usability of digital assets.
We’re fortunate to have quickly found a home amongst the many other fantastic meetups based in Cardiff, and we’re extremely proud to work with them however we can in the future.
In particular, we were thrilled to collaborate with the wider Cardiff tech scene on these occassions:
- GDG Cardiff DevFest
- AI Wales meetup
- Christmas cross-meetup social
We met some fantastic people, speakers, and organisers across these events, and all of us at BSV Wales are keen to continue to work with the rest of the community in Wales to help provide education wherever we can in the future.
Covid-19 — What now?
There’s no need to beat around the bush — the global Covid-19 pandemic has clearly changed the landscape for us all in a way that seemed unimaginable just a few short weeks ago.
The decision to cease all in-person meetups and events was taken by us well in advance of the guidance the UK government has since put in place, and we have already had our first taste of remote events just last week our with our inaugural webinar.
Originally, we had planned a very exciting developer-focused event, in conjunction with Yolk Recruitment and the Cardiff Tech Talk meetup, as part of series of educational workshops on blockchain development.
This was slated to take place on March 26th, which of course was not possible under the circumstances. Instead, we held a brief introductory webinar to technical outline the scope of the future webinar workshops we are hoping to hold remotely.
BSV Wales has now officially taken all operations online/remote.
We aim to continue delivering our educational content to our members and the wider Welsh tech community during these unprecedented times. Things may seem bleak, but we hope to turn this crisis into an opportunity to up-skill the technologists and developers in our community and beyond.
There has arguably never been a more important time to add to our own personal toolkits, and we feel that the current situation only strengthens the case for fast-tracking a blockchain-powered society equipped to deal with such events.
We are to here to help in this effort however we can, and any support we can provide the community in terms of new skills and knowledge we will strive to deliver.
Call to action
We have just launched our public LinkedIn page as the central hub for information, educational material and support for anybody looking to learn and gain skills related to blockchain development Wales.
Follow us here to keep up-to-date, and we encourage you to ask any and all questions that you would like answered by our team.
We are also very much open to suggestions from the community on which content you want to see us produce, and when. If you have any suggestions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us on any of our social platforms.
Thank you,
The BSV Wales Team.
