All that happened at the Cardano Virtual Summit

The Cardano Virtual Summit dedicated to Shelley has come to an end. In total, more than 10,000 people attended the online event, participating in 70 panels and discussions on July 2nd-3rd, 2020.

The Summit was attended by some great speakers, such as Vinton Cerf, one of the “founding fathers of the Internet”, mathematician Stephen Wolfram, Coinbase representatives and of course the CEO of IOHK Charles Hoskinson and the Chief Scientist of IOHK Aggelos Kiayias. 

All of the sessions of the event’s speakers were made available online for registered participants to watch on-demand. 

For those who have not previously registered it is possible to do so now, in order to view these videos. 

On the YouTube channel of IOHK, there are already available three videos publicly accessible without registration:

• Charles Hoskinson’s Opening Keynote, 
• Charles Hoskinson’s Closing Keynote,
• The intervention of product manager Nebojsa Vojvodic who illustrated the key elements of Goguen, the next chapter in the evolution of the Cardano project, now that Shelley has been launched. 

During his Closing Keynote, Hoskinson revealed that, with only 60 days notice and only 45 days to organize the online Summit, only a few thousand people were expected, but instead nearly 10,000 attended. 

The summit celebrated both the end of the first era, the one in which decisions were being made about what to do, and the beginning of the new Shelley era, the one in which Cardano’s mainnet became fully operational. 

But it also served to let the world know what the Cardano project is, and who are the people working on it. 

After all, it is also the blockchain project that seems to be developing the most. 

Another thing that has emerged is how large the Cardano community is, made up of many professionals from different backgrounds, such as engineers, scientists, politicians and even former heads of state. In fact, the project actually stems from pure science and reaches the code that people can use to create commonly used products.

The inspiration comes from John Gartner’s book, The Idea Factory, about Bell Labs, and aims to create a place where many talented people can thrive and express themselves as they wish. 

Of course during the Summit there was also a lot of talk about the further development of the project, the on-chain governance, and the significant progress made over the years. 

The aim was to make it clear to everyone that a five-year phase is coming to an end and that a new phase is about to begin which should be just as long. 

In fact, with the end of the Byron era, the project has entered the Shelley era, followed in the future by the Goguen era, the Basho era, and finally the Voltaire era.