Aurora @ NEARCON 2022, a 3-day success!
Months of preparation have led to one of the most successful events for Aurora and its ecosystem. After months of preparation and extended work alongside every team within NEAR, we’re excited to tell you all about what went down at NEARCON 2022 — the biggest NEAR ecosystem event — so far!
Day 0: Preparing the venue
Everything had begun for the Aurora team well before the first attendee grabbed their NEARCON badge. We set up our signature Aurora Space to welcome NEARCON guests. The 80m² pavilion was carefully designed to host casual meetings, lightning talks, office hours or just to be a space for co-working and sharing ideas.
What would later become the main meeting point of every Aurora enthusiast was also our number one distribution spot for Aurora goodies: t-shirts, socks, caps, buffs and stickers were later distributed to our visitors, who were pretty enthusiastic about the idea of having their very own Aurora merch!
Day 1: The Discovery
Discovering the venue was a real thrill for all NEAR enthusiasts. Compared to the previous edition, everything got bigger and better. Booths were well presented, a record of attendees walked in the venue, and some amazing Kenyan, Balkan, Asian and Ukrainian food was served to fulfill everyone’s appetite.
Here is what Anton Paisov, Aurora’s integration lead, had to say about the venue:
“I loved NEARCon Alfa, but it’s just mind blowing how much bigger the NEARCon Beta was. I know that people from the ecosystem were impressed by how big the NEAR ecosystem is, but those who were only briefly aware of NEAR were profoundly impressed. The atmosphere at the conference was amazing, even the waterfalls from the roof were within the garage hacker vibes.”
Day 1 saw many important speeches and panels, including what has become a milestone for Aurora Labs: Alex Shevchenko’s speech named Aurora: New Horizons.
With 9 major updates announced within 20 minutes for both Aurora+ and the chain itself, the tone was set: “we get shit done”. You can listen to the full speech here.
Aurora labs other team members also participated in various speeches in Panel, such as a Panel about bridge security for Kirill Abramov, Aurora Labs’ Bridge lead, a panel about “Why We’re Building on NEAR” for Arto Bendiken, Aurora Labs’ CTO, and a panel about NEAR’s Got Talent for Anton Paisov, Aurora Labs’ Integrations Lead.
Day 2: Aurora Day
Day 2 was the peak of highlights for Aurora and its ecosystem. What was called “Aurora Ecosystem day” allowed both Aurora Labs and its ecosystem partners to shine brighter than ever. With the office hours held by participating ecosystem projects — Atomic Green, Aurigami, Axelar, Baked, EYWA, OutDID, Radom, and Trisolaris — at the signature Aurora Space the latter transformed into a great meeting of minds.
Don’t you dare thinking that our CEO, Alex Shevchenko, was the only one bringing an important speech for Aurora labs at NEARCON.
With highly anticipated keynotes about “Solidity for NEAR’ and ‘Applications of Cross Contracts Communication in Aurora“, Arto Bendiken, Aurora Labs’ CTO, and Marcelo Fornet, Aurora Labs’ tech lead, brought the tech-enthusiasts into a new world of possibilities on Aurora.
You can listen to their speech in the video below, at 2:38 for Arto and 2:58 for Marcelo’s.
Two other talks involved Aurora labs’ CEO on this day, in a panel about “Building the Foundations of a Crypto-Native World” and a speech about the Importance of Bounties to the Security of a Chain.
Day 2 ended in a festive mood, as Aurora Labs was hosting a “get together” party-event with Aurigami, Axelar and 0xSquid, in which participants could listen to a panel about “Cross Chain Future” hosted by Hugo Volz Oliveira, our friend from Institute of New Economy.
Guests also enjoyed cool drinks and delicious snacks paired with upbeat tunes, in what also became a chat and networking event.
The NEARCON hackathon took place on the biggest spot of the venue, with many participants ready to build the future of NEAR. Kirill Abramov and Alex Shevchenko were involved in it as judges and participated in choosing the 17 lucky (or talented, you choose!) winners. You can find a full recap of the event on the Pagoda’s website.
Day 3: last but not least
NEARCON ended as it started, with a very enthusiastic crowd and a bunch of interesting discussions.
Attendees had the chance to participate in two AMAs with Aurora Labs’ team, one about product development and the other about the Rainbow Bridge, and had the possibility to attend a live demonstration about “Applications of Cross Contract Calls on Aurora” from Michael Birch, Senior engineer at the Protocol team.
Day 3 was also the occasion to have a chat about Aurora Grants, and to catch both Aurora Labs CEO and CTO during office hours. Needless to say that they were highly solicited!
Conclusion
NEARCON 2022 has been a huge success for Aurora, NEAR, and all the ecosystem around it. With a record number of attendees, coolest parties, and huge announcements on both sides, the event went beyond a physical venue with a well-followed livestream and major announcements massively reshared among all the blockchain industry.
Aurora Labs would like to thank everyone who came along its Space over the 3 days for all the interesting conversations that happened, and the business possibilities we created all together.
A special thanks to Egor Denisok and Irene Fucile and all our other members involved, for all the hard work put into the event and its side events, such a success wouldn’t have been possible without those highly dedicated people.
Aurora Labs is looking forward to catching up with you somewhere else around the globe this year, and if you wish to stay in touch with the events we will intend, be sure to follow us on Twitter!
-The Aurora Labs team
About Aurora
Powered by its high-performance EVM, and fully trustless Rainbow Bridge, Aurora combines an Ethereum compatible experience with the modern blockchain performance of NEAR Protocol. Aurora provides an an optimal environment for the creation of scalable, carbon-neutral, future-safe, and low-cost Web3 services, as well as the perfect tools to bring to life your Web3 initiatives. Try Aurora Cloud, our all-in-one cloud solution for enterprises, and get your Web3 journey started!
Website | Aurora Cloud | GitHub | Twitter | Telegram | Discord | YouTube | Instagram Regional Communities and Media| Governance Forum | Community Dashboard | Community Swags store | Aurora Expert Bot
