This is how to connect the Blockchain community of Eindhoven

Dear blockchain community of Eindhoven,

We live in exciting times. Blockchain, Bitcoin and related buzzwords are no longer reserved for a handful of nerds or experimental libertarians. No; the vision of Satoshi Nakamote to have a ‘decentralized peer-to-peer payment network’ is far beyond just an idea. Supply chain, banking and value exchange in general is being tested upto its fundamentals.

Eindhoven is known for its high tech companies like ASML and NXP, the region of Brainport is considered the ‘smartest region in the world’ with the High Tech Campus and TU/e building on a hightech future. So it’s no surprise this city in the south of the Netherlands is curious about the vision of Bitcoin and how Blockchain as a technology can claim its place in society.

We want to connect with other blockchain enthusiasts and facilitate us meeting up and exchanges experiences and ideas on howto bring it further.

What was this evening about?

What do we see happening in Blockchain internationally?

• What about Satoshi’s vision of a decentralized peer-to-peer payment network?
• Include the non-banked in digital payments (and more freedom)
• Fight the unrealistic undemocratic trade conditions for poorer areas
• Web monetization is a thing; pay for attention and value for data
• Enable people to: control data, get rid of the banks and claim transparency
• “The Hyperledgers of this world will work”
• “Fintech is moving to crypto”
• “Many companies are afraid for honesty and transparency”
• “I don’t care about coins, I care for permissioned blockchains”

What can we do with/for Blockchain closer to home, in Eindhoven and Brainport?

• Search for systems that work on a smaller scale
• Thers is more knowledge about blockchain now than there was a few years ago
• Every company want to ‘join’ a thing, but non want to be the first to start it
• Each company has their own lab and POCs but collaboration is low
• A proof of concept is NOT is working use-case
• Build a POC from the bottom up and take initiative, do no wait for government and big companies because they benefit from stalling or blocking the movement.
• Provide and join trainings. One of attendees facilitates a 6-day training for blockchain consultants. Mostly joined by unemployed engineers because they have time to invest in learning new techniques.

What are important elements in order to stay connected and build a community?

• You need content to keep a small social-media group active
• How to stay connected? Discord, slack, whatsapp?
• This group should come together more often and exchange experiences
• Tell each other more about what we do
• Create a topic shortlist
• Vote on topics by the community
• Ideal meetup format: 1 speaker (20 minutes) and have a discussion in small groups
• Consider splitting events into a ‘small expert discussion’ and ‘large community’ part.
• There is a large gap between us and the larger community of Eindhoven
• As a group we could create a product ourselves and keep using it. Not a lab POC.
• Bundle the info
• Hackathon specialized on sth eg fintech so you get banks to sponsor it
• Create an expert group of people who can be ambassadors of this domain
• Send out a material like books etc
• Blockchain is not panacea, it is not only about blockchain but more like digital applications because when blockchain is gone then you have all the other tech.
• Many people work on various blockchain initiatives but they work in isolation

How to reach out to the broader community and how to get them more involved?

• Developments inside out:
  1. Social media: Facebook group, Twitter announcements, linkedin updates
  2. KYC reach out specifically and targeted to the different groups
  3. Make committed audience by paying for their ticket before the event.
  4. Make everyone an ambassador of the community, so that they will be posting about it and creating
  5. Leverage the numbers of the community and connect with initiatives such as Digital Wednesdays and EHV café
• Developments Outside in the group:
  1. Define the community better. Who are we? What do we do?
  2. What is the groups purpose? Shares knowledge /enable networking /educate
  3. Who is our audience? Simple or advanced meetups.
• A smaller core-group
  • More social meetups, 1 per month? Then you create a warm atmosphere and people get to know each other. Maybe a social meetup for the smaller group
  • Organize sth every x day of the month and every month somebody would like to contribute sth to the group , time , knowledge.
  • Everybody in the core group can have a target audience and bring in their friends and network.