A Mozfest-inspired Blockchain Conversation in Lafayette, Louisiana?

Lafayette, Louisiana is a community known for its rich culture and hospitality. Home of a myriad of Grammy-recognized musicians, prolific visual, literary and performance artists who can often be found engaging in one of the city’s many festivals, to include the Festival International de Louisiane, while enjoying arguably some of the best eats in the world. Lafayette is also becoming a tech-industry epicenter, due to our resources in gigabit connectivity, big data leadership and deep history of computer science research. We have historically been a hub city for the energy sector, have developed a comprehensive healthcare ecosystem and are becoming a magnet for tech startups, while we aggressively leveraging Louisiana’s digital media and entertainment tax credit program.

Off the heels of my Mozfest experience, my visceral response considered developing an event in a similar style, but scaled to ensure solid initial engagement. I visualized a blockchain-specific event that focuses on the evolution, procedures, opportunities and challenges of a healthy (epoch) blockchain ecosystem.

In order for such an endeavor to be successful, resources, partners and participants would need to be secured. Lafayette Utility System’s Fiber to the Home Initiative, the University of Lafayette’s Center for Visual & Decision Informatics, as well as its Center for Business & Information Technology in addition to the Louisiana Immersive Technology Enterprise are local resources that would significantly contribute to ensuring connectivity, expertise and a unique physical space for gathering on blockchain.

Private sector engagement adds further legitimacy to such a movement, so I bounced my musings off of High Performance Computing and Blockchain Development experts where I was met with intrigue. Developing interest within the various blockchain alliances, foundations, compute node initiatives and exchange platforms would ensure a level of curiosity amongst students and professionals within and beyond our uniquely attractive region.

Of course there are a number of blockchain conferences, symposiums and events throughout the world. What differentiates this potential gathering is how it seeks to expose the industry to Mozilla’s passion to influence a healthy internet; by expanding the footprint of the blockchain conversation ( decentralized participation worldwide) to an unsaturated territory (diversity and digital inclusion) and engaging of unique local facilities (leveraging public resources). Project Mission — to exchange knowledge, enhance development and establish new paths forward that contribute to blockchain’s adoption and continuous development across multiple sectors.

What might this gathering look like? What topics might this gathering address? How would these interactions be shared to the benefit of the largest amount of humans? My initial thoughts coalesced around a centralized location in Lafayette, Louisiana, which is quickly becoming a technology corridor.

Within a square mile radius, Layette has developed an area housing:

• The main campus of South Louisiana Community College
• The headquarters of one of the fastest growing delivery startups, Waitr
• Our local newspaper, the Daily Advertiser
• The Lafayette Economic Development Authority
• The Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise
• The University of Louisiana at Lafayette Informatics Research Institute
• The Louisiana headquarters of CGI
• The Cajundome & Convention Center
• The University’s Athletic Complexes as well as
• The Hilton Garden Inn

As an actor/producer, video game/mobile app developer and consultant at the intersections of entertainment, technology and government affairs, I could clearly see the opportunity ahead of us to influence the blockchain conversation in a unique and engaging way.

If we set LITE as the main location for this blockchain epoch (evaluation of policy, opportunities, challenges & health) ecosystem conversation and leveraged most of the infrastructure within the area to engage these five issues, we have the makings of a unique experience. Lafayette is an extremely diverse community and this type of gathering would create an inclusive conversation regarding the future impact of a disruptive technology.

The Acadiana region is known for its music (we are home for a myriad of Grammy nominees and winners in Blues, Cajun & Zydeco music), we have more restaurants per capita than most U.S. cities, and Lafayette is recognized as one of the happiest cities in America.

It is fair to speculate that blockchain is not a household name or a common classroom term. Engaging underrepresented populations into the conversation about a disruptive technological ecosystem presents a unique opportunity to influence a trajectory for lifelong learning. Engaging young people into the blockchain conversation and it’s impending impact opens the door to deeper comprehensions of the world economy and career paths some may have never before considered.

Computer science, data analytics and other information technology-specific career paths have traditionally lacked a progressive representation of females and people of color. The potential ubiquitous impact of blockchain development provides a distinct challenge to create a healthy, inclusive ecosystem for a technology at its infancy, which holds such great promise.

Next steps are to ensure a level of community and industry support with a scalable design that embodies the spirit from which the concept came: Mozfest — Decentralization. An event focussed on disruptive, decentralized development that expands the conversation to underrepresented populations and regions with inherent assets to contribute to the conversation, growth, progress. (1) See it (2) Systemize it (3) Support it (4) Start it (5) Scale it.