Disclaimer: These are my subjective opinions and of course they might differ from others who attended the same events
TLDR: If you only want to read the fun part go to the Overheard at CoinFest Asia section at the bottom.
I attended two events last month. Both events were held in Bali and both were supported/organised by the Mandala Chain/Polkadot.
- Polkadot Championship Hackathon, an initiative from Six and Gabo (Polkadot Ambassadors), and CCTF
- CoinFest Asia 2024, where Polkadot was one of the main sponsors.
Here is a fancy promo video for both events in case you want to feel a bit jelly about missing out 
Polkadot Championship
The Hackathon was mainly composed of Balinese students and a few other participants. Main sponsors were the Mandala Chain (supported by the Polkadot treasury), G6 Networks, Openguild and UNIQUE Networks. There will be an official report from the organisers about the event.
Great things:
- Spreading the word about blockchain among students and Indonesians in general
- Some projects were really good and focused on solving local problems with the local culture in mind:
- On chain voting system as an alternative to Indonesia’s corrupt government voting system (will continue building on Mandala)
- Educational game on investments and paying taxes (will continue building on Mandala)
- VR gallery for supporting art sales
- More exposure to Polkadot through the Mandala chain. Mandala chain wants to start its own Academy where it will teach all things blockchain.
Not-so-great things:
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The lack of diversity among participants this year was likely due to the limited knowledge of Substrate and Rust skills in the region, with most attendees being university students.
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There were very few CoinFest conference attendees among the participants (even though there was another Hackathon during the Conference so there must have been more people interested in participating in this type of event). Participation was likely low because the prizes were not particularly appealing to some, as they were modest compared to Western world standards.
Mandala Chain is an ambitious project from Bali. It is the Blockchain where Government & Enterprise applications integrate seamlessly with Public & Retail applications. Mandala is aiming to be the main Indonesian blockchain and its goal is to onboard 100 million users into Web3 through various projects.
Kusamarian (Thaaanks Jay!) has already done some interviews with them 
CoinFest Asia 2024
What was I doing there?
Helping out at a Polkadot/Mandala chain booth.
Was it worth it?
Yes, definitely worth it as the event had a really high turnover and was a great opportunity for exposure. However it would have been nice if Polkadot’s presence had been promoted more in the marketing campaigns leading up to the event.
Great things
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Loads of people were interested and came over to the booth to learn about Mandala Chain and Polkadot. We were basically chatting to people non stop all day. From basic questions “what is it?” and “what is new in Polkadot?” to “How does Coretime work?”
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Quite a few people came over to ask specific questions about Polkadot as they were building on top of it.
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There were a few small developer teams who came over to express how much they like Polkadot and how excited they were about it.
Not-so-great things
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Not for the faint hearted as it was extremely hot all day
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Not a lot of people seemed to know what Polkadot is, but if they knew what it is they did know a lot about it.
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There was no Polkadot promo imagery on any of the promo billboards before the event, etc. So I don’t think anyone was even aware we were sponsoring this event.
Overheard at Coinfest Asia 2024
“I guess the biggest struggle of ours is to keep up with the breaking changes. However I must say it is improving and has been improving a lot this year. Parity seems to be more organised and the change logs are more detailed and helpful.”
– Ecosystem chain developer
“I still think Polkadot is one of the best ecosystems for developers. You can influence what is happening and can talk directly to the people who are developing the chain.”
– Ecosystem chain developer
“I always thought Parity is a recruitment agency recruiting for the Polkadot company.”
– Blockchain enthusiast
Is Mandala chain an L1 or L2?
– Random human, trying to make sense of it all.
“Hi!” - a man is handing me a flyer with a trading bot information. " We are a totally amazing trading bot. Bla bla bla. Bla bla bla. We run on Solana." - I look at the flyer confused - “You run on Solana? But why are you standing under the Polkadot logo?” - The guy turns around to glance at the Polkadot Logo behind him, laughs, exchanges a few words in a foreign language with his colleague, turns back to me - “We have colonized Polkadot. We are the colonizers.”
– trading Bot on Solana, Bali Blockchain Summit
“What do I need to do to get a T-Shirt?”
– About 100 students throughout the day