From lf-lists at mattcorallo.com Mon Aug 21 01:49:48 2023 From: lf-lists at mattcorallo.com (Matt Corallo) Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2023 18:49:48 -0700 Subject: [Lightning-dev] LN Summit 2024 Organization In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Sadly, the african continent doesn't only come with additional travel time and visa effort. It also generally carries additional medical risk/vaccination schedules depending on your employer/insurer/country of origin. I don't think I'll be attending any developer meetings on the continent, though if I'm attending a large conference and meeting lots of folks using Bitcoin and developing on top of it who I can't meet elsewhere, I'd weigh the costs differently. Matt On 8/20/23 6:40?PM, Antoine Riard wrote: > Hi Matt, > > I fully understand the concern about the additional requirements for travel, which isn't well-served > by direct international flights and be conservative with people's time. > Though there are few observations, I still think doing a summit?on the africa continent will take > less accumulated travel time than past destinations like Tokyo (CoreDev 2018) or Adelaide (LN Summit > 2018). > > On the additional requirements here the ones for French / US / UK passport holders: > - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_French_citizens > > - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_United_States_citizens > > - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_British_citizens > > > Visa-free countries for the intersection of the three you have Morocco, Senegal, Cameroon and South > Africa, already visited few from this list. > Note, a country with a strong Bitcoin local community like Algeria is excluded from the intersecting > list. > > Indeed the main motivation to schedule well-ahead is to give a buffer time to manage the complexity > of additional operational requirements. > > On the latest concern, about the Zurich 2020 organization none of the members of the organizing > committee were living in this city iirc. However few of the members were Swiss themselves, which > indeed is quite nice for the organisation. Already in touch with local Bitcoiners with a track > record for few countries. > > If you're a Lightning developer and you wish to take part in next year's summit organization feel > free to reach out if you want to contribute to the organization. > I'll start a summit organization Signal group and throw Matt inside as he's quite?experienced about > open-source events and has opinions on a lot of things. > > Best, > Antoine > > Le?lun. 21 ao?t 2023 ??01:16, Matt Corallo > a ?crit?: > > While more lightning developers attending conference(s) in a more diverse set of countries, > including on the african continent, sounds like a great idea, the usual LN summit is an invite-only > developer meeting. Hosting it in a country with additional requirements for travel and which isn't > as well-served by direct international flights doesn't carry any benefit and only has additional > costs on peoples' time. > > I'm also admittedly a little dubious of any summit or conference organized by someone who does not > live in the city in which it is being hosted. > > Matt > > On 8/18/23 4:02?PM, Antoine Riard wrote: > > Hi lightning devs, > > > > Follow up on next year LN Summit organization: > > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/2023-June/003994.html > > > > > > > > After browsing the travel advisories, social situations of a good number of geographical > areas in > > Africa, and chatting with the Built with Bitcoin folks on the state of the local Bitcoin > community > > country by country, I would like to propose Ghana as a place of location for next year's June > 2024 > > LN Summit. > > > > As announced in my previous mail, I was thinking to survey privately the usual Lightning Summit > > attendees on the choice of location to collect a first wave?of feedback. After really digging > into > > the travel advisories country by country, it turns out if we're looking for European / US-like > > standards of travel for a group of people of 30/40 attendees, we start to be more operationally > > constrained. > > > > Ghana has already hosted last year's Afro Bitcoin Conference and they're doing an edition > again in > > December of this year [0]. I've never been to Ghana so I'm currently planning to attend this > year's > > 2023 conference to get myself familiar with the ground and that way ensure smooth preparation > for > > next year's June LN Summit. From my Zurich 2020 experience, it's good to organize Bitcoin > technical > > events in a country where you're familiar a bit. > > > > As a backup plan, I think we could consider countries like Morocco or Algeria, which given > current > > composition of the organization committee is straightforward due to the french-speaking > communities, > > or South Africa, which is itself beautiful and where they're doing Bitcoin events [1], though > this > > latter is very far far away in term of international travel logistic. > > > > Note for Ghana, from a quick look it sounds like a visa will be required for all Schengen, US > and > > Commonwealth passport holders will need a travel visa. ECOWAS passport holders sound to be > exempted. > > > > In terms of financial resources, Zurich 2020 hard logistical organization cost was around > 10$k. My > > pleasure to cover the LN Summit 2024 hard logistical cost out of my pocket. > > > > For clarity, I'm speaking about the LN Summit which is an invitation-only event reserved to the > > Lightning developers and researchers based on technical proof-of-work of which the previous > edition > > happens in Adelaide?2018, Berlin 2019 (one evening event on the sport), Zurich 2021 (covid > edition), > > Oakland 2022 and NYC 2023. > > > > This is _not_ to be confused with the Lightning conference which has been traditionally > organized by > > Fulmo, and of which the latest _official_ edition has been Berlin 2019 iirc. > > > > As it has been suggested by nully0x, it can be interesting to organize a co-event with Qala > Africa, > > I'm already in touch with few folks there due to FOSS things and I'll reach out of band to them, > > though I'll take personal accountability on the LN Summit, _only, not any other satellite > event around. > > > > Overall, I think it's wise for the 1st protocol dev event (CoreDev included [2]) beyond the US / > > Europe / Australia / Japan geographical boundaries to plan well ahead and start small. > > > > Cheers, > > Antoine > > > > [0] https://www.afrobitcoin.org > > > [1] https://adoptingbitcoin.org/capetown-2024/ > > > > [2] https://coredev.tech/pastevents.html > > > > > > Le?ven. 23 juin 2023 ??10:39, Antoine Riard > > >> a ?crit?: > > > >? ? ?Hi lightning devs, > > > >? ? ?Proposing myself to organize next year's LN Summit in Africa, with a rough date somewhere in > >? ? ?June 2024. > > > >? ? ?There are a lot of reasons to hold a summit there. Africa is a beautiful continent, there > is a > >? ? ?rich cultural and historical past, a lot of fragmentation in the financial systems of the 56 > >? ? ?states that can be solved with a compatible payment protocol, an explosive demography > with a lot > >? ? ?of energy to get things done, more and more Lightning developers coming from this > continent and > >? ? ?formidable perspectives to grow "full-stack" local Lightning economies. > > > >? ? ?Usually, we don't announce the organization of CoreDev or LN Summit on open communication > >? ? ?channels, as there is a goal of serenity of the engineering conversation (and as we would > like > >? ? ?to avoid being trolled by BSV fans or tabloid-style of journalism). For this time, given the > >? ? ?operational challenges can be a bit more complex (e.g visas travels, "tropical weather"), > better > >? ? ?to have this announced far ahead [0]. Operations and financial resources should be okay, > though > >? ? ?nice if we have a multi-stakeholder approach, "skin in the game" from a bunch of folks is the > >? ? ?best way to guarantee fairness and transparency of the process. > > > >? ? ?If you have any objection to my personna contribution to the organization of the LN > Summit 2024, > >? ? ?thanks for letting me know during the coming weeks, either in public or on this thread, or > >? ? ?privately by mail. As usual, I'll do my best to set strong transparency and accountability > >? ? ?standards. In matters of open-source, talk is cheap, better to speak by your actions. > > > >? ? ?With any project, the best advice is always to start small, so the first step sounds to be to > >? ? ?survey all the countries with reasonable operational stability that can fit the location > >? ? ?(Algeria, Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, etc). I'll look into it and share the feedback > privately to > >? ? ?the Lightning attendees (based on neutral and technical proof of works heuristics), > somewhere at > >? ? ?the end of the summer. > > > >? ? ?Setted up a dedicated communication endpoint for this: lnsummit2024 at ariard.me > > >? ? ?> > > > >? ? ?If you're a LN dev, don't hesitate to reach out if you wanna to be part of the organization, > >? ? ?this is a good opportunity to transfer knowledge between generations of contributors. > > > >? ? ?Cheers, > >? ? ?Antoine > > > >? ? ?[0] Already co-organized the CoreDev event in Zurich back in 2021 so I do have already the > >? ? ?operational templates. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Lightning-dev mailing list > > Lightning-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org > > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/lightning-dev > >