ONO Conference: Epic! July 26, 2018

The ONO Conference took place on July 26, 2018 in Beijing, China and was by many metrics an epic event [Stella here writing]. I had debated back in forth in my mind about what perspective to take for this article, and I decided to tell a personalized experience of this event.

The amount of preparation that went into the ONO Conference was immense. Also, all foreigners received an in-ear live translation electronic gadget that actually was pretty impressive. ONO hired a translator to provide live English translations during the entire presentation.

I shot some footage before the presentation began, and in this clip you can see Maggie (Marketing Director) and Ke do a cool handshake.

The first thing that struck me was the lighting design and choice of colors on the stage. Deep blues and purples were contrasted with bright yellows, and the variety was immense. Ke came over to me 10 minutes before the show was to begin to check and see if I was ready. When it was time, I was handed the microphone and began my lines in a circus-style voice, “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to ONOOOOOOOOOOO.” I rolled the “O” sound in ONO to make it sound really theatrical. I have no idea if people liked it or not.

The first short video was shown and it explained the ONO DAC (decentralized autonomous community).

Then Ke Xu, CEO and founder of ONO entered the stage and explained the main features of the ONO dapp, and spoke a lot about its development. She also mentioned the meaning of the word, Nome and also spoke about how users are the first priority in ONO. These words stuck out the most in her speech: co-governance, collaboration, freedom and equality.

I was so nervous about my impending speech, that I think I missed a lot of her presentation. One of the coolest parts of animation was when the blue ONO logo graphic turned into particles then into a brain, and was spinning around in a cross-fade style on the giant screen behind her. At this point, the CTO of ONO came to the stage and talked about the technical structure of the ONO dApp environment.

Next up was Bashir, Global Marketing Director who spent a fair amount of time speaking about various topics, switching between Chinese and English. Registered accounts on ONO now have reached over 3 million.

The artist who created the live art in the lobby area was up next to the stage. Her artwork that was a collaborative piece was projected behind her as she spoke.

Somewhere in the middle of the event, everyone heard loud noises coming from the ceiling, where huge balloons hung. In a flash, the giant balloons popped, almost all at the same time, and many little balloons came flying out of them. As the small balloons reached the floor, everyone stomped on them, hoping to reveal something inside. Pieces of paper with QR codes containing various amounts were let loose about this time, and people scrambled to collect as many as possible.

Next up was a rapper named Bamboo who performed interesting raps, which were mostly in Chinese. The animation behind him on the big screen was pretty cool and well choreographed with his performance.

Then Ke called up the ONO DAC to the stage, which included me. Halfway through my presentation, the video I made for the Super Partners was displayed on the big screen behind……Julia, Sam, Katie, and all the SPs said “Cheers to ONO!”

By far, though, the most epic part of the presentation came at the very end with Ke’s speech. She had so much passion and many of us thought she was going to bust out a rap, she really had that kind of raw energy which was infectious.

In fact, the main thing about this event was the raw passion and energy. People could feel the buzz, and after the event ended, everyone immediately asked, “Where’s the after party?” It was only 4 pm, and the evening was just getting started.

As far as blockchain events go, this one was by far the best.