Thank You to Protocol Labs for Sponsoring Offline Camp
Those who have attended Offline Camp know what an incredible experience it can be. What might not be obvious is that behind the meaningful conversations, the new friends, the learning, the campfires, and the s’mores is the support of sponsors who make Offline Camp possible. We’re very happy to have Protocol Labs as a sponsor of Offline Camp Oregon 2019—we really couldn’t have made this event happen without their support.
Protocol Labs believes the internet has become humanity’s most important technology. They build protocols, systems, and tools to improve how it works. Today, they are focused on how we store, locate, and move information. This work includes bringing fundamental research out of the lab and deploying it quickly to communities who can use this technology. They have incubated a number of open source projects which they support and nurture including IPFS, libp2p, and IPLD.
IPFS, one of the open source projects that Protocol Labs incubated, is a decentralized web protocol which enables the creation of completely decentralized and distributed applications, using content addressing and digital signatures. IPFS helps enable end-user applications that are built for Offline First (or sometimes called “Local First”) use cases—exactly the types of applications that many Offline Camp participants are discussing or building.
Protocol Labs has joined the discussion this weekend at Offline Camp because there is still much to be done around decentralized web and Offline First / Local First applications in terms of collaboration, research, and sharing knowledge and best practices. They hope that their discussion this weekend will help make tools like IPFS, libp2p, and IPLD better through listening and supporting the needs of those building applications with these technologies. They are especially interested in bringing cross-functional communities together like we have here at Offline Camp. In fact, several Protocol Lab employees are Offline Camp alumni. The relationships built at Offline Camp can help chart a path forward that more holistically encompasses the needs of all involved.
Are you interested in learning more about the work that Protocol Labs is doing and how you can get involved? The best place for you to start is by participating in the IPFS Local Offline Collaboration (Locol) Special Interest Group. This group is focused on user research, collaborations, and features to make the knowledge and tools on the internet accessible and useful on partitioned, low-bandwidth, or intermittent networks. They meet monthly on the third Wednesday of the month. Each meeting includes 1–2 presentations by community members highlighting projects or use cases relevant to local collaboration or offline scenarios. Several Offline Camp alumni have given presentations, and the meetings are recorded and published on YouTube.
Please join us in thanking Protocol Labs for their support!
