I got the chance to become a volunteer at the convention thanks to the connections I made working on a blockchain-related consultancy project in January, organized through GLOCAL. As a volunteer at the convention, I helped with registration for the VIP networking party, managed the Builder’s Stage panels, and took notes and photos of the panels to provide content for official EBC social media posts. With so much work to do, I did not have much time to listen carefully to the talks, but I did manage to attend some of the panels despite the tight schedule.

One of the most inspiring talks was “Misconceptions About NFTs & Digital Assets,” in which the panelists discussed people’s common concerns about NFTs in the bear market. According to the speakers, NFTs should be viewed as art, rather than as a simple way to make fortune. NFT artists are artists — talented and passionate artists that want to share their artwork with the world — and the only difference is that they use NFT as a format to express their ideas.

Another interesting panel was “Tokenization of Everything,” in which panelists with different professional backgrounds had contrasting opinions about whether everything can be tokenized. One speaker emphasized that since everything can be given value, everything can thus be tokenized. Another speaker countered that this is an oversimplified perspective. Many times, the speaker elaborated, people say that they have tokenized something and tokens have even been released, but this does not mean that tokenization has actually occurred, as data surrounding the tokens has not been taken into account. At the end of the panel, the panelists did not come to a consensus — but I think this is the essence of such panels. People agreed on some issues while debating others, and the discussions remained interesting and functioned perfectly as sparks of inspiration for attendees.

I met so many interesting people with innovative ideas at the convention, and I learned as much from other volunteers as I learned from the speakers themselves. Some people have started their own companies, some are working on preliminary ideas, and some are blockchain instructors at different universities and institutions. Participating in this kind of business convention was humbling, but at the same time, it also showed me possibilities for future career prospects and opportunities!