Hello friends!
In a very sad development today, the first U. S. India Blockchain Summit that was about to begin tomorrow as pat of the Vibrant Gujarat - 2019 has been cancelled.
A couple of weeks back I've informed you in this post that I was planning to attend this conference. This two day conference was scheduled on 18th & 19th of January in Gandhinagar.
But all of a sudden, I received an email from the organisers today evening around 6 pm informing me about the cancellation of this event:
The eleventh hour cancellation of this important event being organized under a huge banner was very shocking to me.
Fortunately, I had decided to not o attend his event yesterday itself. All these days, I was very confused to attend this event or not. Then I called the President of this organization and communicated him my apprehensions.
I was wondering that there was no open networking session. A Networking session was scheduled on the evening of Day-1 but it was invite only and meant esp. for VIPs and speakers. Most of the first half of the Day-2 was being utilized for political speakers like Prime Minister, Dy. Chief Minister, and some other State ministers. Other half was being used for various Panel Discussions. There were hardly any individual presentations. Of course, there was one session but it was by some sponsor. There was no detail about speakers or topics for other individual presentations.
I emailed the Organizers to give the details about all sessions but they couldn't. So I called their President and got a weird reply that the person who manages their website is on a 2 day leave and therefore he assured me that website will be updated after two days. Unfortunately, it never happened.
I found it very unprofessional. I don't know why do people attend such events, if it wasn't for networking! All presentations can be watched on a video too. Why should I travel all the way to its venue unless there was an opportunity to interact with the speakers and other participants! But there wasn't any networking session planned.
Still, I was waiting for the subjects of individual sessions to take my final call to attend it or not.
Finally, I informed my parents yesterday that I ain't going to this event. When my father asked me the reason for it, I told him that I doubt the way they are organizing this event will spoil my experience. It doesn't seem to me to be a well organized and properly structured event. On this feedback, my father was astonished. He reacted, "how can you say that? In an event where Prime Minister is coming, how could it be badly organized?". To this, I just replied him that PM is going there for Vibrant Gujarat event and not specifically for this event. But i wasn't too sure what else to say!
I'm glad that I didn't book my ticket and accommodation in advance. But cancellation of the event was very unexpected to me and a bit shocking.
But all these is not relevant now when the event stands cancelled. Since the event was cancelled at the last moment, it is likely that many participants may not have received the message so far. Even the organizers' official Twitter handle is still not updated with this crucial information. So I thought to dedicate my today's blog post on this message.
I don't know the reasons behind it but I'm sure they will re-schedule it on a later date and perhaps will do it in a much better way. I hope to attend that one!
$rewarding 100% 14min