Steem Saturday, Johannesburg (2017) - feedback

Many of you (South Africans, anyways) are probably aware of Steem Saturday that took place this last weekend at the Indaba Hotel, Spa and Conference Centre in Fourways. For those who could make it - it was an absolute pleasure to meet you guys!! For those who could not, I certainly hope you plan to be there next year - it is definitely worth it!!

We kicked the day off at 7:30 (super early) with some freshly brewed coffee and snacks, trying to mingle and figure out who is who... I must admit, it was great finally putting some faces to names ☺️

We then started the conference a little after 8:00 and were blessed with the following presenters:

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ROBERT MARSHALL
@robertm

Continuing from last year, our MC for the day was no other than Robert Marshall, one of the co-founders of SportPodium.

Once again, SportsPodium sponsored the whole event - from arranging the speakers to paying for everything (the venue, food, drinks etc).

Thank you SportSpodium for being so amazing!!

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MITCHELL LOUREIRO
@zurvanic

Our main speaker flew over all the way from Portugal! Mitchell is the VP of Marketing at Steemit Inc. What an honour to meet him in person!

Mitchell spoke on a high level about the current challenges that Steemit is experiencing - the UX, scaleability and adoption. He also enlightened us on how Steemit is approaching and solving these challenges.

We were briefly introduced to Smart Media Tokens (SMT) - but we’ll have to wait a little longer for the ins and outs on how this will work exactly.

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GAVIN VETTEN
@gavvet

Now what would Steem Saturday be without giving Gavin the podium? For those who don’t know - Gavin is our largest whale in South Africa - by far!! 🐳

Gavin gave us some insight on the 4th revolution (which is making banks run scared) and he also coined the term Vinternet (the internet of value). He also let us know his thoughts on the often spoken about Bitcoin bubble.

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LORIEN GAMAROFF
@gamaroff

Lorien must be South Africa’s biggest fundi on Bitcoin! He is the founder and CEO of Bankymoon, a blockchain and crypto consultancy.

He explained (in layman’s terms) the hard fork we recently saw with Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash and also gave his personal opinion on the two separate coins.

This guys really is a visionary - I love how confident he is that his 2 year old son will never own a bank account!! I certainly hope he is correct and that crypto will be the only way forward.

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MATT BROWN
@mattbrown

Many of you might know Matt from the Matt Brown Show. If not, he is a podcaster here in South Africa and often talks about crypto.

Matt made it quite clear how he hates futurists - haha 😂

It was quite interesting to see how many inventions have come about simply by asking a better question.

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NATALIE DU TOIT

For those who like really don’t know - Natalie is a South African swimmer. She has won numerous gold medals at the Paralympics and at the Commonwealth Games.

Natalie has recently joined SportsPodium as an executive team member.

She gave a motivational speech focusing on her childhood, her career and progress as an Olympic swimmer.

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CHRISTIAN SMIT & PIETER BOTHA
@christiansmit

SportsPodium’s Natalie du Toit did an interview with two of her colleagues - Christian and Pieter. Christian is head of marketing and PR whilst Pieter is their CTO.

Their interview explained some details on exactly what SportsPodium is trying to achieve in the market. They also briefly spoke about their current ICO.

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ROHAN ISAACS

Rohan is a Director at Norton Rose Fulbright - a global law firm.

Rohan has a lot of knowledge about law on contracts, smart contracts and crypto. Something I found quite interesting was the importance of having an actual, separate contract in place when implementing smart contracts (on Etherium for example).

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If you'd like, you can watch the speeches from the day here and here.

After all the speeches, we were thoroughly spoilt with a superb meal and drinks at the Chiefs Boma. We had quite a bit of time to chat with all the speakers as well as to network with our fellow Steemians.

It was great to meet with people who have soooo much more experience on Steemit than myself (I really am a newbie still) and even to see folks who aren't even on the platform as yet but came along to learn more (I hope they have all signed by now).

Marcel @marcel1965, Linsey @kiligirl and myself @cheeto.blue

Marcel @marcel1965, Linsey @kiligirl and Cillie @pjcswart

Natalie du Toit, myself @cheeto.blue and Mitchell @zurvanic

Jaco @jacor (the other co-founder of SportsPodium) and myself @cheeto.blue

Non-Steemian (who has hopefully signed up by now) and Natalie du Toit

All of us concentrating real hard and soaking in all the info we can

Again, thanks do much to @robertm, @jacor and all the folks at @sportspodium for arranging this Steem Saturday!! It was an absolute honour to attend the event and I certainly hope to see you guys next year again 😎

I most certainly am not a great writer, so for an absolutely superb write-up of the day, do yourself a favour and check out @kiligirl’s post on Steem Saturday here!!

Team South Africa banner designed by @bearone

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Equipment used:
Canon 6D
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM