Buidling a community-driven conference just like building an open source software together.
The First Community-driven Ethereum Developer Conference in Korea, ethcon Korea is finally over!
…Or is it?
Nope, we think it’s only the beginning of something much greater.
For the past 5 months, around 20 people across different fields in the industry — developers, biz dev managers, designers, marketers, guys, girls, from 20s to 50s — gathered after work to build this together. The only common thing between them was that they all believed in decentralization and supported open source movement. On 27–28th May, ethcon Korea 2019 was successfully held with 60 speakers, 500 participants, 16 donators, 16 sponsors, and 11 media partners. We believe in decentralized community. We aim to suggest a new direction for the future of the decentralized community. Now we introduce you — ethcon.
Have fun!
from Ethereans in Korea
Ethcon Korea
is a non-profit Ethereum developers’ conference.
supports decentralization.
is run solely by community volunteers.
does not speak for a specific organization or group’s agenda.
will not be privatized or become a private organization.
supports all open source campaigns.
why ethcon Korea?
The reason why we started ethcon Korea, with EDCON, ETHDenver, and many great conferences already out there, was very obvious. First, the language barrier. Because of language issues, many Korean ethereum developers haven’t had a chance to fully open and share their research, development updates, and discuss with others, thus limited in taking leading roles in the global community.
Second, there hasn’t been a window of opportunity for all the developers to gather and speak for themselves. As you all know, almost every conferences in 2018 were bombarded with airdrop events, models, with no one actually listening to the speech sessions. We wanted to change it. We wanted to make it new. A new gathering where speakers share their hardships in development, tips and know-hows, and most importantly, failures. Fully focused on one’s story. No shilling, just sharing. So that people are willing to listen to the speech, and can discuss freely and actively with each other.
How ethcon Korea differentiates itself?
The top priority was that ethcon Korea shouldn’t speak for a specific organization or a company. We don’t, and we never will. But as it’s too easy to say, it’s too hard to achieve. So the first step we took was to start off as a non-profit organization. All the volunteers gathered with the single purpose; Contributing to activate and expand the Korean Ethereum community.
Also, speech session should be solely representing the speaker’s own stories, and nothing else. Thus we received proposal from around 80 developers, and conducted a blind test — hiding the speaker’s name and the company — and a total of 53 developers were selected! I believe I will have a chance to elaborate more about the speech session later ;)
Lastly, we pursue a Decentralized Organization. All volunteers have equal voice, and each person exercises the same power when making decision. Anyone can propose an idea and if no one objects to it, the person has the right to proceed it. If there’s a serious argument, the decision is made through voting systems. Through maximized transparency and equality, we aimed to make ethcon Korea truly made by volunteers’ contribution.
How it went?
How was it? I would describe it “The greatest sense of accomplishment and the most meaningful adventure to realize the true power of community”.
I could deeply feel that this conference was solely run by volunteers, speakers, sponsors, medias, and the participants. Total of around 500 people participated, and the conference hall was packed even before it started. During the speech sessions, most of the participants stayed in the session hall — thankfully. Speakers focused on their personal development. One speaker talked about why his DApp failed and the journey along with it, and even a middle school student joined as a speaker. It wasn’t about tremendous and huge success. It was about what they tried, what they felt, what they learned, and a small delivery of it.
“How can I help you?”
Cannot count how many times we got this question. Reporters from blockchain medias showed their full support with our vision, and they actively advertised our story with series of articles. 16 companies joined as a sponsor and operated booths, with their ingenious contents for familiarity and higher accessibility to public. 10 volunteers helped us on the conference day itself, which enabled the conference much smoother. 4 university blockchain research organizations and 4 companies joined as a partner for our program ‘Ether Hacking Challenge’, a mini-hackathon. Until our closing ceremony and the closing declaration of ethcon Korea 2019, half of the people in the hall remained and joined us.
I admit. It was not the most gorgeous conference with fancy catering, a professional MC, and expensive lighting effects. There were many things that we could’ve done better, and we will be better prepared next year. However, I would dare say that it was the most meaningful gathering of people who fully believes in decentralization and care about Ethereum ecosystem.
“We built this conference as if we build open-source software together.”
Moving Forward
Our goal is to expand the Korean Ethereum developer community and shed light into the various contents that were researched and developed by the community, that were previously unknown to the public or developed in silos, disconnected from the outside world. We hope to see ethcon Korea 2020, 2021, and ultimately, have a positive impact on the global community.
More than anything, we want to spread ethcon globally! We strongly acknowledge the importance of ethereum developer conferences solely organized by its local communities, gaining firm ground for more constructive ecosystems. Supporting the value of decentralization and the open source initiative, we strongly believe it is an important mission for us to spread the spirit of ethcon to other local communities. The local Ethereans will be the grass-roots of the decentralized Ethereum.
Grow and expand your local communities, and we will be the biggest supporter backing you.
Let’s build this together.
If you are interested in hosting your local ethcon, please send an e-mail to hello@ethcon.global or reach out us on twitter!
