Roadshow Debrief: Seoul & Hong Kong

Two weeks ago, we continued with our roadshow where we headed to Seoul, South Korea followed by Hong Kong in an effort to spread our outreach, network and grow our communities within these regions. This trip was amongst our longest, but we also believe it to be our most impactful.

We met with many top players in the blockchain space, networked with many new contacts and made an overall positive impact at each event that we had attended. Our representatives included

• Emanuelle Collet — Marketing (Myself)
• Luc Jodet — Business Architecture
• Julien Romanetto — Product Development

This article will give a debrief of our itinerary and highlight some of the important points and takeaways from our trip.

THE RUNDOWN

Sunday, July 15th

We made our arrival to South Korea where we were going to be staying in Gangnam-Gu, Seoul. Since this was our first day, we did not have anything planned as the Korean Blockchain Week was scheduled to begin the following day.

We knew our free time would be limited during this trip, so we used this time to settle in and get a slight feel for the city. Luckily, we arrived in time to watch the World Cup finals, and since we are a French company, we were very delighted to find out that we made it right on time!

After the game was over and the French team had claimed their victory, there was a feeling of positivity all around the team and we knew this was a good sign for what is to come. Let’s just say it was a great way to start off the trip!

Monday, July 16th

This marked the beginning of Blockchain Week Korea, the largest blockchain conference in all of Asia. This was the first of what the organizers hope to become an annual occurrence. The goal of the conference was to explore blockchain, the future of technology in the digital computing world, and its biggest potential to influence the world.

We were invited to an exclusive event by one of our advisors Francisco Jo, the founding partner at BlockWater Capital and Co-founder of Coinhills. In this event, Luc pitched Arianee to the D.council and received some great interest from everyone in attendance.

In the evening, we attended the Blockcrafter party, which was much more laid back and we had a great night out and did some further networking. However, we needed to be well rested for our endeavors the next morning.

Tuesday, July 17th

This day marked the beginning of the Beyond Blocks Summit at The Shilla Hotel & Resort Seoul, which is an organization that aims to connect blockchain enthusiasts. They “bring together world-class thought-leaders and experts from across the blockchain ecosystem — and our mission is to establish our events as the most sought-out meeting spot for high-value content and rich networking opportunities.”

Indeed, this networking opportunity was very rich and the individuals that we had the privilege of meeting were very knowledgeable.

Luc was invited to a VIP dinner at the Restaurant Banyan Tree, which was organized by DNA Fund and Kenetic. This was a very productive dinner where Luc was able to further expand on Arianee and answer some potential investors’ questions.

• DNA fund is the world’s premiere crypto venture fund. They back blockchain entrepreneurs in their early stages and help them launch token ecosystems via ICOs and airdrops.
• Kenetic is a blockchain firm committed to expanding the development and adoption of blockchain platforms through investments, advisory services, community and technology. We have a world-class team and network of partners and advisers across our platform of services.

While Luc was at his dinner, Julien and I attended the iCapital event, which is “a financial technology platform that simplifies access to alternative investments, such as private equity and hedge funds, for high-net-worth investors and their advisors.”

Julien and I then topped off the night at the Seoul Blockchain VIP Night at the Belle Vue Lounge. This was a great night of fun, networking and great conversation amongst industry leaders and investors.

Wednesday, July 18th

This marked the second day of the Beyond Blocks Summit where we had just as delightful of an experience as the previous day. We discussed some of the trending topics in blockchain and engaged with like-minded individuals.

That evening we took it easy and prepared for our travels to Hong Kong the following day. I had authentic Korean barbeque for the first time, where I tried many new things including a live octopus tentacle!

Thursday, July 19th

We woke up early to head over to the metropolis of Hong Kong. In the evening we had an informal event with the FrenchFounders that included members of the French community in Hong Kong.

This event was held at Spinifex Group’s office and we would like to thank them for providing us with the space as well as FrenchFounders for organizing everything! Julien presented his motivational entrepreneurial journey with the attendees and followed up with a great explanation of Arianee. It was truly a very enjoyable time!

Friday, July 20th

The Blockchain Association was hosting a meetup at the HIVE Hong Kong, where Luc gave a wonderful presentation of Arianee. We were actually very surprised about how knowledgeable our audience was about ERC-721 tokens. We spent a great deal of time discussing their utility of representing unique non-fungible Arianee certificates that each represent a physical product.

We should also note that our fellow French colleague and entrepreneur Anji Ismael was also present at the meetup to present his remarkable project, Varanida — a decentralized advertising and content solution, where Julien currently serves as an advisor to this project as well.

Saturday, July 21st & Sunday, July 22nd

Julien and I left on Saturday but Luc stuck around Hong Kong for some more meetings that he had scheduled. Luc took advantage of a day off on Sunday and explored Hong Kong, visiting the beautiful Mountain Victoria.

Monday, July 23rd

Luc had a meeting with Kenetic Capital to further discuss some of the details regarding Arianee. Because Kenetic invests in great projects in order to build up their portfolio, they also offer services such as advising, community management and technological support and blockchain development to assist with those projects in which they truly see a future in. They were very interested in Arianee’s concept and touched upon the potential of further involvement in the future.

Tuesday, July 24th

Luc had scheduled a work session and lunch with our advisor William Entriken, the lead author of the ERC 721 protocol, the Ethereum standard for non-fungible tokens. William was scheduled to speak about ERC-721 the following day at the NIFTY conference, but he took today to meet with Luc and actually introduced him to the team from 0xcert, where he is also serving as an advisor. We had discussions with them regarding non-fungible tokens’ long-term scalability since their project is specifically deals with their ownership and authenticity. Luc had preliminary discussions with them for potential collaboration opportunities in the future.

In the evening, Luc boarded his flight and headed back home. Overall, this trip was an enormous success. The overall population in these regions has such a high awareness in regards to blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies that we actually learned almost as much as we taught. We truly believe societies belonging to this region will be amongst the first to accept wide-scale adoption, and we want to be right there when it happens.