Summary
The Polkadot Summit took place in the two days prior to Decoded 2022. It was aimed to foster innovation, collaboration, and growth within the Polkadot Ecosystem by providing an engaging platform for attendees to discuss pressing topics, share insights, and explore new partnerships.
Building on the discussions that took place in Cambridge and Lisbon in 2022, the Polkadot Summit is tailored for the key-decision makers and builders, for both technical and non-technical participants. The Summit is targeted at CTOs, CEOs & Leads of parachain and infrastructure projects, selected core contributors to the Polkadot Ecosystem and Parity team members.
Goals
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Identify the major struggles the Polkadot Ecosystem is facing and formulate plans for improvement.
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Reach actionable next steps to solve these challenges.
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Strengthen the community feeling and the collective action.
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Retrospect on the results that the previous Summits brought and feedback on the actions taken.
Process
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Ecosystem feedback (Polkadot General)
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Feedback on the Forum
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Finalise the attendee list
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Engage with vendors
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Establish Summit content
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Finalise Logistics
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Execute
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Reflect
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Repeat
Agenda
The agenda for the Summit was formed in a decentralized manner. Teams were encouraged to give feedback on technical sessions in which they would like to participate - this formed the basis for a two day schedule which morphed into a schedule rich with a variety of topics that covered a broad spectrum. Interestingly, feedback from the Community (garnered through the Adoption and Technical Roundtable Ecosystem calls) requested that subject discussion be widened from technical only, to incorporate non-technical disciplines.
Workshops
The workshop leaders played a pivotal role in facilitating a space for insightful discussions, knowledge exchange, and collaboration that will contribute to shaping the future of the Polkadot Ecosystem.
To maximize impact, introductory presentations clearly outlined the context and framework for the discussion. These were considered as an opportunity to present key insights, issues, or challenges pertinent to the workshop’s theme, as well as the goals and objectives to be achieved by the end of the session.
The bulk of the sessions were dedicated to open and collaborative discussions. Workshop leads were encouraged to facilitate an environment where all attendees felt comfortable to share their thoughts, experiences, and ideas.
Discussion and Actions
A huge shout out to the Parity team members that worked tirelessly across the two-day workshop, acting as moderators, notetakers and thought leaders. As part of the follow-up to the discussions, notetakers and workshop participants were encouraged to post thoughts on the Polkadot Forum, with the view of continuing the conversation Keep an eye out for retrospective notes and be sure to have your say! Keep the conversation going on the following threads below:
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Technical Fellowship Workshop - Torsten from Pendulum
Retrospective
In the week’s following the Summit, Birdo hosted a series of Parity internal and Ecosystem feedback sessions. See below a non-exhaustive list of the learnings for future Summits:
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Improve voting mechanisms for Ecosystem voting on agenda items
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Confirmation of location and dates at an earlier point to allow teams to plan
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Organizing near an existing event works well
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If possible, no clashes with BD/Marketing, due to the overlap in content
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Venue layout worked well - allowed free-flow of foot traffic between sessions
Next Steps
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Formulate ‘Summit Playbook’ - the long term goal is to decentralize Summit meet-ups. As the Ecosystem scales, it may not be sustainable to house all disciplines and key players under one roof. The Playbook will aim to provide a framework for Ecosystem agents to self-organize and execute workshops on specific subjects (E.g Fellowship, BD, Marketing, FRAME etc.)
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Ensure all Notes & Feedback forms are published to the Forum to ensure transparency to the Community.
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Begin collaboration with the Ecosystem towards organizing the next Summit (Q1 2024)
A huge thank you to everyone that attended, lead workshops and moderated sessions. Let’s keep the momentum going for the next Polkadot Summit!
