Yesterday was a public holiday in Spain and I decided to take some time a do my homework for the second week I will be spending in Istanbul, which is when DevConnect will take place.
I have been to several crypto-related conferences and there are always several side events organized by companies attending the conference. Sometimes they are gatherings or evening parties for attendees to socialize, others are full events that leverage the fact that many people are attending the "official" conference.
DevConnect is just that, there is no "official" conference, it is just a bunch of decentralized Ethereum development events happening for one week in one chosen city every year. I initially applied to the EthGlobal hackathon which concentrates on the end of the week, but yesterday I decided to join the Telegram Group and check the events schedule and I was blasted by what is going on.
To get an idea of what is going on, you can check all events that will be taking place in the schedule section of the DevConnect webpage, but there is an "unofficial" spreadsheet which has more than 130 different groups attending and non-official sites are already counting more than 170 events!
I will have to be quite selective to try to join those I am really interested in as it is impossible to attend all the ones I would love to and I am sure there are still some informal ones which will be announced during the days before, but seeing all it is taking place before landing in Istanbul I am happy I decided to join my first Ethereum DevConnect "conference" this year. I hope I can find some time to also relax, enjoy local food and see the sights!