Proposal “conf-dash-201708“ (Completed)Back

Title:Dash Conference 2017 (London)
Owner:babygiraffe
One-time payment: 1701 DASH (96142 USD)
Completed payments: 1 totaling in 1701 DASH (0 month remaining)
Payment start/end: 2017-07-20 / 2017-08-19 (added on 2017-07-28)
Votes: 681 Yes / 7 No / 3 Abstain

Proposal description

This is a cross-post from the Dash Forum

This proposal will fund the first ever Dash-dedicated conference in London on September 24th.

At a time when "ICO" is the buzzword of the day, Dash has experienced incredible growth and broken out of a ever-growing pack. The Dash community stands in contrast to the current market environment as a grassroots movement aiming to reinvent money to be empowering for people all across the globe. It is time to bring our community together to share ideas, inspire each other, educate each other, create new connections, and celebrate the vision we are pursuing. We propose to hold the first Dash Conference on September 24th at The Oval Space, London.

Who will organize this event?

Keynote has been organizing blockchain events since 2012 - including the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami, and the World Blockchain Forum. They have organized events in 7 countries for over 8,500 attendees, all focused on blockchain. The Keynote team has a network of connections with potential sponsors and speakers to help make Dash's event a success. Keynote will provide five full-time staff members through the date of the event.

We are also proposing working with Keynote because they can help draw newcomers to Dash from the blockchain interested crowd attending another Keynote event on September 25th-26th at the same venue. I will explain more as well as the benefits of this below.

What will the event be?

The Dash Conference will be a one-day event. The venue rental is at The Oval Space in London. There will be a main hall for speeches, panel discussions, and demos for broad audience topics, and smaller breakout rooms for specialized content (e.g., technical discussions, working sessions, product demonstrations). We will offer the opportunity for business partners or other interested parties to host booths in an exhibitor area outside the main hall. The event will also be fully catered including breakfast, coffee breaks, and lunch.

We will also capture and own the content from our event. Audio visual services will be on site providing projectors, microphones, media walls, videographer, photographer, and LCD screens.

Keynote will also provide full event branding, including a web ad campaign, a mailchimp campaign, and printing of banners, lanyards, cards, and brochures.

Finally, there will be a separate conference networking event, to be held at Oval Space in London on the evening of the 24th, and will include attendees from both the Dash Conference and World Blockchain Forum. By straddling the two events, we hope to encourage further opportunities for co-mingling Dash attendees with others in the blockchain industry. We encourage the Dash community to use this opportunity to introduce Dash to a new audience... even those that missed the Dash event.

In addition to the Dash conference itself, Dash will be named the Premiere sponsor of the World Blockchain Forum, and will be granted two speaking slots at this two-day event on Sept. 25th-26th, as well as a set of complementary tickets to attend that event (no less than 4 tickets).

To encourage potential attendees to attend both events, Keynote and Dash plan to collaborate to offer discounts for purchasing tickets to both in a package. This will help infuse more Dash attendees in the World Blockchain Forum, and will encourage attendees currently outside the Dash community to attend our event.

What services does this proposal fund?

Keynote services include:
- Staff costs for the development and execution of the conference, including staff on the day of the event for organization, manning of the reception desk, etc.
- Venue rental for the main hall, exhibitor hall, and breakout rooms.
- Marketing, design, and printing costs for all conference-related materials
- Catering
- Audio / visual equipment and staff
- World Blockchain Forum sponsorship
- Conference networking event, including venue rental and organization
Total: 227,000 GBP (~$295,000 USD)

Other costs:
- Dash Core Team transportation and accommodation expenses for approximately 12 team members
~$30,000 USD
- Dash Conference swag / giveaways for attendees
~$5,000 USD
Total: $35,000 USD

However, note that much of these funds will be recuperated through ticket and sponsorship sales. The exact amount will depend on discounts offered for dual-purchased tickets and strategically gifted booths or tickets to select business partners we want to encourage attending. Any conference revenue will be applied toward the next Dash Conference, or will be used for other conference-related expenses.

Where can I find more information? What is the schedule / agenda?

More information on the World Blockchain Forum can be found here: https://london.keynote.ae/

As we only recently concluded a final agreement with Keynote, the exact agenda, speakers, topics, etc are not yet determined for the Dash Conference event. We will be working with Keynote starting next week to begin the planning process and will release information and details as we progress and confirm speakers. We will be reaching out to potential speakers over the coming weeks. We will also accept proposed topics / speeches / demos from Dash partners, well-known community members, etc as we plan the event. We will provide a central point of contact within the team for fielding these requests / suggestions.

If you have any other questions, please direct them to @Ryan Taylor in the Dash Forum post to ensure I see your request.

Requested funding is as follows for the August 4th budget cycle:
  • 1,696.48 Dash for sponsorship and expenses for Dash Conference and Premiere sponsorship of World Blockchain Forum ($330,000 USD @ $194.52
    per Dash)
  • 5.00 Dash proposal reimbursement
Total: 1,701.48 Dash

Note: Should any funding remain, we will apply it toward future conference and travel expenses.

Show full description ...

Discussion: Should we fund this proposal?

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0 points,7 years ago
Anyone care to Sponsor me?

Ask and you shall receive. (Hopefully) lol.
Reply
0 points,7 years ago
This is awesome for Dash Community! Please keep us update on this event website! Will take part soon!
Reply
0 points,7 years ago
Another idea, and hopefully it's obvious, BTC has been talking about how impossible it is to scale on-chain, which of course, is Dash's intention. A talk on why it is possible would be great.

Also, if anyone is familiar with Evan's ideas on how governance will be used to govern society/local communities/local governments, that is something I wish we could get more of because frankly I have a lot of questions on that :)

Of course, we should have someone speak about Dash Labs and possible future tech that they'll be creating (possible, run wild, be inspirational)
Reply
1 point,7 years ago
And if I may suggest, it would be fantastic if we could get at least one inspirational speaker... someone who can whip up a crowd. To finish things off, or else MC the event, that'd be so cool.
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1 point,7 years ago
0 no's way to go !
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2 points,7 years ago
Wow! Expensive, but Yes Yes :)
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1 point,7 years ago
Very expensive proposal, based on my experience on running CS conferences it can be done at half the price and sponsorship accounts for about 50% of the income, the remaining coming from registration fees. So why requesting so much money? Would be nice to see the actual budget details: expected number of attendees, registration cost, food cost per head, room/AV equipment rental cost per day and so on.
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1 point,7 years ago
May I make topic suggestions I personally would like to see presented?

1. Why Private Send will not draw the ire of governments, or if it does, why it's legal. I ask this in light of the bitcoin mixing company, Bitmixer, having just, out of the blue, stopped their services. Why MNs would not be responsible for criminal money laundering.
2. How income from MNs , mining, and trading differ, and how, in general, taxes are established.
3. A speaker on what Dash and it's network of MN and users are likely to face in the future, and how to fight back against government over reaching, which is probably going to start happening.

Anyway, those would be tough questions, and great talks if you could find someone to do them, and do them well. Thanks for reading.
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0 points,7 years ago
One of the speakers, Eva Kaili, is a socialist member of the EU parliament, of course with ties to tax collection and cybersecurity, but also "boosting economic growth through Innovation." I'm sure there will be other agencies there listening in. Instead of taking an adversarial stance, I would tailor the presentation to address the governments fears and assume they're your audience.

Perhaps we could point out how businesses that adopt DASH, and downstream services like Festy and ATMs would comply with EU law and also boost growth. I think bitcart has a POS system they're working on. Perhaps a demo of that would be possible.

In my opinion, beating the autocrats to the punch on issues like tax compliance and reinforcing the need for privacy would make a strong statement and put them on their heels - possibly delaying or negating any crackdown or over-regulation on DASH.
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0 points,7 years ago
OK, I'm an anti-authoritarian by nature, so I figured someone like Ryan would clean that up for me :P
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0 points,7 years ago
I really like those topics. We know #1 and #2 very well from the work Marco Santori performed for us on those topics. #3 I think would be very interesting because I don't think we know the future there. But would be great to discuss possible scenarios and solutions.
Reply
1 point,7 years ago
I'd attend an evening "Roundtable" Panel of Dash Core members and distinguished community members discussing their thoughts on the future of money, governance, government, and value...
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1 point,7 years ago
Considering Marco is a speaker at WBF, we can ask him to join the day earlier to discuss #1 & #2 either as a standalone or fireside chat.
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1 point,7 years ago
That'd be awesome!
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0 points,7 years ago
Thanks for these suggestions! If you've got any other ideas or suggestions, my team and I will try our best to include them in the agenda!
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0 points,7 years ago
Thank you Moe for organizing these events and taking the time to help answer questions here. Awesome!
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0 points,7 years ago
Thank you! Let me know if you have any suggestions!
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1 point,7 years ago
I'am the first one to vote yes on this great move forward and going to London that is one of the biggest city of finance in the world.
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