This week I was able to take a well deserved vacation with my wife and attend the Dash Conference in London. On Sunday I went to the conference and she went shopping at Harrods \u2013 we were both happy but I got the better deal. I had a number of questions before and during the event that I think many others share.<\/p>\n
Why was the conference in London?<\/p>\n
According to Ryan Taylor, they wanted to have this first conference handled by a top notch organizer with experience in the field \u2013 Moe Levin and Keynote Events and to tie the Dash Conference to another conference (the World Blockchain Forum WBF) to allow cross pollination with other blockchain enthusiasts.<\/p>\n
This worked on both counts. The conference was very well organized and the pricing made it easy for WBF attendees to add the additional day for Dash. I spoke with a number of people that attended the Dash conference just to learn more about it that came to London for the WBF.<\/p>\n
Were there really over 500 people interested enough in Dash to come to London and pay to go to a conference?<\/p>\n
Yes \u2013 it was amazing that there were people literally from all over the world there. I talked with people from more countries than I can remember including Bulgaria, Ukraine, Mexico, Hong Kong, Lithuania, Australia, Kenya, Russia, Singapore and plenty from the UK and US. It was pretty much a full room for the whole day.<\/p>\n
But Amanda and Evan were not there!<\/p>\n
The Dash community has grown and matured more than enough that it is not about any one person. I personally would have loved to meet both Amanda and Evan. But there were several big name YouTubers and Ryan as CEO of the Dash Core team is very capable of representing Dash.<\/p>\n
What is the community like in person?<\/p>\n
As a writer for DFN I have interacted with a number of Dash folks but I still consider myself pretty new to Dash -March of this year. Everyone I met was very friendly. The pre-conference happy hour at a real English Pub was well attended and a good time. Thanks to \u201cWalter\u201d who organized it \u2013 unlike his slack avatar \u2013 he is a very friendly person that went out of his way to get people together.<\/p>\n
I talked with core team members, masternode owners, miners, small local investors, large and small treasury proposal owners and to a person they were at the conference to enjoy\/network with the community and hear what is going on. I could give a long list of \u201cnotables\u201d and how open and nice they were. I can\u2019t think of one person that I could give the \u201cbutthead\u201d award to.<\/p>\n
I will give honorable mention to the best non-Dash related story I heard. Tungfa \/ Philipp who is\/was a travelling photographer spent some time in Afghanistan (yes in the war zone) documenting the local culture including their love of dog fighting (really wrestling \u2013 the dogs don\u2019t generally get hurt) and he has the pictures to prove it. www.philippengelhorn.com<\/p>\n
What was talked about at the conference?<\/p>\n
There is coverage of the whole conference which was streamed live available on YouTube<\/p>\n