ALAX attends Token Fest 2018
Over 1,000 attendees, 75+ speakers, 75+ exhibitors and 45 sponsors
With various speakers from different industries under one roof, Token Fest was the place to be for both our co-founders Matej Michalko and Kalvin Feng. This exclusive event took place on March 15 & 16 at The Palace Of Fine Arts Theatre in San Francisco, California. The location was an excellent choice, not only because San Francisco is a true startup and tech capital of the world, but also because the theatre premises created a magnificent atmosphere.
So what was so special about this event compared to others? Well, Token Fest was truly conceived as a festival, a festival celebrating blockchain meeting business. Every speaker had a 15 minute slot, so everybody was on a an equal footing be it tech superstars or newcomers. Add to this the fact that Ryan Colby, the founder of the event, decided to add a competition devoted to ICO concepts through the Token Pitch Festival and you have an event unlike any other. The ICO concepts were successively evaluated by qualified VCs and Angel Investors who picked the winners. The support of competitive spirit did not end there. The event also included The Token Fest Awards whose aim was to reward the best practices in different categories of the blockchain industry. In addition to the official part of the program, unconventional and relaxed ambience was underlined thanks to the off-site entertainment. A sponsored VIP reception and two parties at some of San Francisco’s high-end clubs took place in order to lighten up the face-to-face collaboration and networking.
The attendees were a diverse bunch including Venture Capitalists, Angel investors, attorneys and CEOs. They were from multiple industries, where blockchain may prove to be an invaluable asset, such as Supply chain, Financial services, Health Care and Energy.
Let’s move on from the boring numbers! The audience had the opportunity to network with many innovators, tech gurus and specialists in their fields. We could go on for pages writing about interesting speakers but we’ll just mention a few, such as Tim Draper (Silicon Valley Legend), Matthew Roszak (co-founder and chairman of Bloq, a leading blockchain technology company), and Kathryn Harrison (Director of Global Offering Management for IBM Blockchain Platform). As far as projects and big names go, Eric Ly, Co-Founder of LinkedIn, and Larry Sanger, Co-Founder of Wikipedia are both huge supporters of blockchain technology admiring its vast potential. If you’re googling Wikipedia and LinkedIn, you’ve probably been living under a rock until now. It’s not just being supporters for the two, they’ve adopted blockchain for their new projects as well. Larry Sanger is now CIO of Everipedia which is built on the EOS blockchain in an effort to decentralize the governance of the online encyclopedia. Eric Ly is currently working on his own project called HubToken which deals with the Human Trust Protocol.
Our co-founder Matej Michalko used his allocated time to talk about ALAX’s solutions in bridging the gap between developers and unbanked people, he spoke about other uses for blockchain and how it could influence the Internet of Things 2.0. His speech elicited a round of applause from the crowd, inciting a discussion that he later addressed while networking on the event.
We fell in love with the concept of Token Fest and we will definitely support the 2nd edition which will happen on September 13th to 14th 2018 at the Seaport Hotel & Convention Center, Boston, Massachusetts. But for now, the next stop — Kuwait Investment Forum 2018! See you there :-).
For more information join our telegram or subscribe to our newsletter. For the most up to date news follow us on social media.
