Project:Bitcoin/Bitcoin Weekend 2011/Planning

From London Hackspace Wiki

Crew

  • find video person
  • find someone who can trade Bitcoins ("we should limit it to below 10 GBP or 2 BTC exchanges".) Potentially: lewis bowker who runs http://londonbitcoinexchange.com/
  • find merchants (e.g. layer1gfx' Club Mate trade)
  • find 2-5 people to help run the event: crowd control, Q&A aides, projector, misc org
  • would be nice to find people who can organise dinner for all contributors (15-20 people)

Invitation

(copy intro from event page)

We're quite excited about this event; 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.

The event itself is free to attend, however you need to register so we know how many people to expect. Make sure to register early; we will make an attempt at managing a waiting list should that become necessary. Attendance will be in the low-dozens rather than hundreds, but (as you may know know) we draw a passionate crowd of specialists and hackers of all kinds of interesting backgrounds.

Details & registration: (link)

(brief outline of schedule) (LHS link)

Event Page

A weekend of talks, discussions and workshops for Bitcoin contributors, domain experts from a wide range of fields, enthusiasts, and everyone curious about Bitcoin. This is a great chance for everyone to meet new people and learn new things.

We will discuss the code, the infrastructure, the community, the legal and political implications; we will look into the mechanisms of currency systems, security concerns of running Bitcoin infrastructure, and run workshops that show you how to participate.

As the Bitcoin community grew it has become harder to separate hype from fact, charlatans from the smart ones. We will attempt to bring clarity, and to critique the Bitcoin system and community with a sober attitude. Yet we want to bear in mind that any social experiment worth having requires a minimum of anarchy, playfulness, and suspension of disbelief.

The event will happen over a weekend:

  • On Saturday, 24 Sept 2011 from 14:00-18:00 we will have talks and discussions.
  • On Sunday, 25 Sept 2011 from 14:00-18:00 we will have a few more talks, but mostly workshops.

The event itself is free to attend, however you need to register so we know how many people to expect. Make sure to register early; we will make an attempt at managing a waiting list should that become necessary. Attendance will be in the low dozens rather than hundreds, but (as you may know know) the London Hackspace draws a passionate crowd of specialists and hackers of all kinds of interesting backgrounds.

About Bitcoin

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer digital currency created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto. Peer-to-peer means that no central authority issues new money or manages transactions—these tasks are carried out collectively by the network. It is also the name of the open source software designed in order to use this currency. The software is a community-driven open source project, released under the MIT license.

Learn more about it here:

Schedule

The schedule still changes frequently, we're getting a lot of offers for contributions, so for now we're merely listing a rough outline. We will also have:

  • Bitcoin cake
  • A Bitcoin live song performance
  • A documentary video
  • Talks, discussions, workshops

Day 0: Saturday

Talks and discussions, 14:00-18:00.

  • Keynote by Amir Taaki
  • "How bitcoin works" video by John Baker
  • Information bazaar by Jamileh Taaki
  • Technical talk by Amir Taaki
  • Mining talk by Vladimir Marchenko
  • Legal talk by Jason Chia
  • Economics talk by Gary Mulder
  • Roundtable and discussions throughout the day

Day 1: Sunday

Talks and workshops, 14:00-18:00.

  • Security talk by Vladimir Marchenko
  • Practical bitcoin workshop by TBC
  • Developer workshop - use bitcoin on a simple PHP website by Amir Taaki

Domain Experts

TODO: need to get these signed off first

We're getting contributions to this event by an incredible group of domain experts, and the list keeps growing. Here are a few of them:

  • Amir Taaki ("genjix") is an open source software developer, co-founder of the Bitcoin Consultancy, the author of libbitcoin, has helped build a few Bitcoin exchanges and is running one himself (Britcoin, the UK's largest exchange.)
  • Andrew Sissons is ...
  • Catherine Flick is a researcher in technology ethics at Middlesex University. She started investigating the potential social and ethical impact of Bitcoin, and is currently evaluating a first survey.
  • Gary Mulder has worked in IT for 20 years with a long-term interest in economics and has taken a recent interest in Bitcoin.
  • Jamileh Taaki is...
  • Jason Chia is a member of the Bitcoin Consultancy and a barrister in the UK specialising in corporate law.
  • John Baker is ...
  • John Barrdear is ...
  • Tom Lorber has a BA in economics, worked on the FT's finance newsdesk during the onset of the financial crisis, and is now working as a management consultant.
  • Vladimir Marchenko is running one of the largest private Bitcoin mining operations in the UK and probably the world, the founder of bitcoin.org.uk, and a distributor and service provider for Bitcoin mining rigs.
  • ...

Contact Us

This event is only possible thanks to many helpful collaborators, try to reach them directly if you have questions relating to their contributions. If you have particular questions about the event itself you can reach the org team in the #bitcoinweekend channel on Freenode.

  • Martin Dittus (martind) of the London Hackspace is coordinating the event
  • Amir Taaki (genjix) of the Bitcoin Consultancy is coordinating the programme

About the London Hackspace

The London Hackspace is a non-profit hackerspace in North-East London. It was founded in January 2009 and grew incredibly quickly; we now have more than 300 paying members and supporters, even more people visiting casually, a highly active IRC channel and mailing list, a decent amount of manufacturing kit (3D printers, laser cutter, lathes, milling machine etc), and host frequent workshops and talks that are open to the public.

Invitees

I also have a long list of domain experts, people and orgs I'll personally contact. Martind 21:41, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

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 Forum, r/Bitcoin, #bitcoin, #bitcoin-dev, #bitcoinconsultancy
  • UK Pirate Party
  • Open Knowledge Foundation
  • Dorkbot London
  • London 2600?
  • any local merchants accepting Bitcoin, cf. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade
  • ...
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