Project:Bitcoin/Bitcoin Weekend 2011

About

A meetup for Bitcoin contributors, enthusiasts, and everyone curious about Bitcoin. We will discuss the code, the infrastructure, the community, the mechanisms of currency systems, the political implications, and many other things. A great chance to bring new people together.

The event will happen over a weekend:

• On Saturday, 24 Sept 2011 from 2pm we will have talks and discussions
• On Sunday, 25 Sept 2011 we will have workshops

Check out Getting There for info on how to find the London Hackspace.

Features

• Bitcoin cake
• Bitcoin live song performance
• Documentary showing
• Domain experts from a broad range of fields: IT infrastructure, open source software, law, economics, ...
• Talks, discussions, workshops

Day 0 schedule

(This is a draft and will change a lot.)

• 14:00 Keynote by Amir Taaki (10 mins)
• 14:15 Bitcoin song (10 mins)
• 14:20 "How bitcoin works" video by John Baker (10 mins)
• 14:35 Information bazaar by Jamileh Taaki (10 mins)
• 14:50 Break (15 mins)
• 15:05 Technical talk by Amir Taaki (15 mins)
• 15:20 Mining talk by Vladimir Marchenko (15 mins)
  • Getting started with bitcoin mining
  • Common mining rig designs
  • Common software
  • Using bitcoin mining pools (do's and dont's)
  • Bitcoin mining axioms.
• 15:40 Geek discussion (30 mins)
• 16:10 Break (15 mins)
• 16:25 Legal talk by Jason Chia (15 mins)
• 16:45 Economics talk by Gary Mulder (15 mins)
  • What is money?
  • Bitcoin inflation vs. government fiat inflation.
  • Investing in bitcoins.
  • Future of bitcoins.
• 17:00 Economics open discussion (30 mins)
  • John Barrdear, LSE economics graduate student with degree in computer systems engineering.
  • Andrew Sissons of the Work Foundation
  • Tom Lorber
• 17:30 Roundtable with speakers and audience (30 mins)
• 18:00 End (5 mins)

Day 1 schedule

• 14:00 Security talk by Vladimir Marchenko (30 mins)
  • Security is not a state, it is a process.
  • How to do quick and simple risk assessment
  • How to safeguard your bitcoin wallet
  • How to safely operate bitcoin mining machines.
• 14:30 Practical bitcoin workshop by TBC (1 hour)
• 15:30 Break (30 mins)
• 16:00 Developer workshop - use bitcoin on a simple PHP website by Amir Taaki (2 hours)

Speakers and Doman Experts

Vladimir Marchenko

Vladimir Marchenko, is a seasoned IT professional who started decades ago and since than run a FIDO node in Russia in early 90's; worked for Russian Ministry of Defence, worked for companies such as Coca-Cola, Pipex, Ebuyer, founded and run a number of private companies in UK. He is known as an author of websites filedonkey and figator (p2p). Vladimir is currently running a private supercomputer, which is one of the largest private bitcoin mining operations in UK and probably in the World.

• Founder and owner of bitcoin.org.uk
• Bitcoin Mining Operations Management Service under ( https: en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Marchenko_Ltd Marchenko Ltd )
• Developed the figator.org search engine.

Amir Taaki

Another lover of all things free. Known by nickname genjix.

• libbitcoin - first full-node alternative implementation of the bitcoin protocol.
• Co-founder of Bitcoin Consultancy
• Owner and operator of Britcoin (largest UK exchange) and the new exchange (soon to replace Britcoin) for USD, EUR and GBP, Intersango.
• Freecoin bitcoin fork.
• Other stuff like vibanko wallet service, bitcoin poker client, Spesmilo thin-GUI, pastecoin and others...
• Been around free software fulltime for 10 years. Was into 3D before.

Interviews:

• BBC World News (Spanish)
• Guardian
• The Independent
• Russia Today: Keiser Report
• This Week In Startups

Jason Chia

Jason Chia is a member of the Bitcoin Consultancy and a barrister in the UK specialising in corporate law.

Gary Mulder

Gary first encountered the Internet in 1992 and has bounced around the world and the IT industry for nearly 20 years. Realising that there was more money to be made in investing than being a wage slave, he decided to learn as much as he could about economics. In Gary's opinion, Bitcoins are both a pure artifact of the Internet and a very interesting financial experiment with many potential novel applications.

Economists

• 'John Barrdear is an economics graduate student at the London School of Economics. He has a first degree in Computer Systems Engineering, which is this context is a very useful combination.
• Andrew Sissons of the Work Foundation.
• Tom Lorber.

Contributions

(This is a draft and will change a lot.)

Proposed

Suggestions for talks and other contributions, along with people who could run it:

• ...

Confirmed

These contributions have been confirmed, and the contributor can make the schedule:

• ...

Email Draft

Subject: Call for Contributions: Bitcoin Weekend at the London Hackspace, 25/25 Sept 2011

Hello,

(introduce yourself)

We're preparing a series of Bitcoin-related talks, discussions and workshops at the London Hackspace on the weekend of the 24th/25th of September. We're quite excited about it; there have been very few Bitcoin contributor meetings so far, even outside the UK. We'll try to record the talks and will make the videos public.

Want to participate? Or know anybody else we should ask?

Some of the confirmed attendees:

• Amir Taaki ("genjix") is an open source software developer, co-founder of the Bitcoin Consultancy, the author of libbitcoin and developer on bitcoin, has helped build a few Bitcoin exchanges and is running one himself (Britcoin, the UK's largest exchange.)
• Jason Chia is a member of the Bitcoin Consultancy and a barrister in the UK specialising in corporate law.
• Vladimir Marchenko was previously known as the author of the FileDonkey and Figator P2P search engines. He is currently running a private supercomputer which is one of the largest private bitcoin mining operations in the UK, and possibly the world.
• Gary Mulder has worked in IT for 20 years with a long-term interest in economics and has taken a recent interest in Bitcoin.

We're particularly interested in:

• software developers familiar with the Bitcoin codebase
• cryptographers who can comment on Bitcoin crypto mechanisms
• admins/developers with experience running Bitcoin infrastructure
• economists and lawyers/barristers with a good understanding of Bitcoin, and optimally some practical experience
• Bitcoin merchants and exchange providers

... but generally we're just curious to hear your suggestions. We're not necessarily looking for someone prolific; we're looking for someone who can understand, explain and critique these systems. Put them in a wider context.

The London Hackspace is run as a non-profit, and we don't have a budget to pay people for talks. But we draw a passionate crowd of specialists and hackers of all kinds of interesting backgrounds.

You can check us out here: http://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/ http://flickr.com/groups/londonhackspace/pool/

Hoping to hear from you!

Invitations

Groups to Invite

The following groups are either directly involved with Bitcoin, or have members that might be interested:

• LHS list & twitter account
• UK Hackspaces list
• bitcointalk
• bitcoin.org.uk
• The UK Pirate Party
• Open Knowledge Foundation
• Dorkbot London
• London 2600?
• goto10 etc
• any local merchants accepting Bitcoin, cf. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade
• ...

Email Draft

TODO