Devcon 8 India: What Comes Next | Ornella | ETHMumbai 2026

All right, I see there's energy. It's almost the last talk of the day, so yeah, super excited to be here uh with all of you to talk about yeah, Devcon, what comes next. Uh brief intro, my name is Ornella. I'm part of the Devcon team. I focus uh a lot of things regarding people, so volunteers, community hubs, and yeah, um yeah, happy to be here.

All right, so let's start with a question. Who has not been to Devcon yet? Oh, that's quite a few hands. See how I It's important to be here. So, super super happy uh that it's happening here in Mumbai in India.

So, to understand more about Devcon, and this is for all of you that haven't been there yet, um and also for the ones that have, maybe like take a talk a walk down memory lane and understand a little bit about Devcon's history. So, it all started with a meetup, Devcon zero in Berlin 2014. Imagine that this was even before Ethereum was launched. So, definitely an important uh an important moment. Ethereum wasn't live yet.

Step, Devcon one in London 2015. Then it went all the way over to Shanghai 2016 for Devcon two. Next slide, please. Devcon three, it was the first time it was in America. So, Devcon three, Cancun 2017, then back to Europe to Prague in 2018, and back to Asia in Osaka 2019.

So, it kept growing, growing, growing, but obviously the pandemic, unfortunately, people like you had to take a break. 2020 and 2021 were the years that the community wasn't able to meet, unfortunately, but the thing that happened was that we came back stronger. So, 2022 brought two conferences. The first was a Devconnect format, which is different from Devcon, which is a co-working space, and the events are all more like organized by the community decentralized way and throughout the city. But the same year in November we had Devcon Bogota.

So, yeah, a great year for sure. Then next up Istanbul 2023. Again, the Devconnect format co-working plus decentralized events. And then back to Asia in Bangkok, Thailand 2024. And finally with Devcon Sorry, Devconnect Argentina Buenos Aires 2025 last year.

It was the first ever Ethereum Worlds Fair and this occasion the event was a mix of Devcon and Devconnect because it had the co-working plus the events plus many activities inside. And now of course it's time for India and Devcon 8 happening here in Mumbai. Woo! All right. So, the community has spoken.

What does the community think about Devcon during this past year? So, these are a few quotes that caught my attention and I've got them all from the different YouTube videos from the wrap-up recap videos for each event. So, what does it say here? It says Devcon shows the strength of the Ethereum ecosystem and highlights the concept of the infinite garden. The conversations that we have when we get together generates new ideas and helps Ethereum keep innovating.

Here we can meet with people from all over the world with different interests and different ways to contribute to the protocol. And most importantly, it's a moment to remind ourselves the fundamentals that power this industry, self-sovereignty, privacy, security, open source, and making Ethereum censorship resistant. Now, hearing what the community has to say, I would like to invite you all for a second to reflect and think about what does Devcon mean for you? What does it mean for this event to be able to be here in your city, in your country, and very close by? Are we all thinking?

Okay. Before we get too philosophical, let's go on to the next slide. So, if you haven't been able to answer that question, one of the grace the best ways to understand what does it mean to you is to get involved. So, here I'm going to share a couple of ways that you can be part of Devcon here in Mumbai. So, first, we have the DIPs.

DIPs are Devcon improvement proposals. They're live now. You can go to the Devcon forum and propose things that can be added, subtracted, or modified or changed from from Devcon from the upcoming edition. So, here we have a few examples. On the left, we see like table top games, board games.

If you're a fan of that, you can do a proposal of having a space within the event to do some like fun games. Then we had uh for Devcon C, be part of the soundtrack of Devcon. It was like a decentralized playlist, something really fun. So, if you're building something around that, more on the creative side, a Devcon improvement proposal is a great way to test it out. Then there was also the DAO confession booth.

It started out at Devcon C, and then it was so cool and people really had a lot of fun with it that it also became part of the community hub last year in Argentina. Lastly, we had Agora, which is a platform with CK technology to be able to vote on different aspects of the event, how it happened, and more. Next, please. All right. So, this is a photo of the forum, forum.

devcon.org, and some DIP ideas. It can be anything regarding like ticketing, social, environmental, sustainability, virtual experience, purchases and ID community involvement, art, beauty, free form, or even the meta itself. How DIPs work, how is the, you know, the the system itself. So, feel free to get creative, play around, and do some proposals.

Next up, Road to Devcon. I know many of you are super curious about Road to Devcon. Candela has been leading a lot of communities at like pre-Devcon style, but now March 26th officially is going to be launched. So, if you are doing Ethereum gatherings, if you're helping move Ethereum forward within your local communities, this is a great way to get involved. So, if you are a community, this is the open invitation for you.

Apply, get selected, and make it happen. If you do get selected, you will be able to apply to have up to $500 in support for implementation of the event, the gathering, or any activity that you're you're having. Also, non-financial support through Devcon communications, and also discounted tickets for your community. So, I heard there's a no meetup at Pune, and maybe other cities want to get activated, Kerala. The invitation is to bring all the Indian community from all parts of the country to Devcon.

And here we have some amazing photos from the meetups that we had so far. So, great to see. All right. Next up, volunteers. I am personally biased on this one.

An invitation to volunteer is a great part to be part of the core, like core part of the event. So, applications will open on June 1st, and today, tomorrow, and these following days I'm doing like some pre-interviews. So, if you want to volunteer, if you maybe even want to be a volunteer lead, please just say hi, we connect, and we have like a pre-meeting for when the application process opens. I already uh know like, you know, you were here at Eth Mumbai, so you're part of the community. Devconnect Argentina received 800 applications, and these were the 200 people selected.

So, this is a great photo from last year, the team from all over the world with great representation, and also we had a few members of the uh Indian community that traveled all the way to volunteer. An amazing experience. Next up, community hubs. Community hubs are spaces within the venue that are organized by communities that have a certain topic in common. So, all the programming that happens within the community hub is all done by the different projects, communities, or people interested in that topic.

So, for example, uh here are a few photos of like the art hub, women in web3. There was a hub especially in Spanish, so maybe there, you know, create a hub that's only in Hindi language or may maybe the top three languages in India could be a great way to invite people that are, you know, like the newcomers. And here we have like uh the names of the community hubs that would happened last year. So, you have everything from region, node operators, governance, open source, uh LatAm, right, future cities and hubs, real world assets, on-chain fintech, privacy, and more. So, it's really open.

There's going to be a wish list announced in May, but in June you can apply uh with whatever topic you you care about. And lastly, speakers. Who can speak at Devcon? Everyone. Everyone can apply to speak.

Now, what does that uh mean? What you should you talk about? Topics and themes crucial in the Ethereum ecosystem, challenges, developments, also, most importantly, core Ethereum values. So, if you want to apply to speaker, stay tuned. In July, it's probably going to open.

This is most probable. Uh we're still hiring for the programming lead role. So, uh that person is going to be able to coordinate all the process around this. Uh there's a review process by volunteers that are uh people that are members of the community that have more expertise in different tracks. So, Devcon is going to have different tracks.

Uh and based on that, you will apply on a certain track. And there will uh be a review process, and you will get selected. You The team will let you know you're selected for for the event. So, yeah. That's basically it.

Ethereum is coming home. And how to get involved only depends up to you. So, thank you so much.

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