BEN Goes to Miami 2019, BEN Playbook is Live, and more!

Happy Tuesday,

We have lots of exciting news to share with you! One, our BEN Playbook is now live and ready for you to use in your class or blockchain club. Two, BEN brought students from all over to the North American Bitcoin Conference, including two high schoolers! Three, Akarsh Agarwal from BEN India spoke at BlockHash Live 2018. More on our updates below!

The year is going by quick, make sure you are signed up to join the Slack and take advantage of the upcoming events and opportunities. Tickets are going by fast!

Updates

BEN PLAYBOOK LIVE NOW

We are excited to share with you that the BEN Playbook is now live! There you will find guides for everything from teaching blockchain to throwing blockchain-related events to traveling to blockchain conferences. Everything you could ever want to become a leader in this space is now in your reach! See the Playbook

BEN GOES TO MIAMI 2019

BEN has had a longstanding relationship with TNABC. For the 5th year in a row, BEN students from all over the world came together in Miami. BEN got free student tickets, making it more feasible for students to come out and experience the magic of this high energy blockchain conference. Read more

BEN'S AKARSH AGARWAL SPEAKS AT BLOCKHASH LIVE 2018

Akarsh from the BEN India team gave a talk at BlockHash Live 2018 on “How blockchain education is different? How BEN Initiatives have helped?” Other speakers spoke about how blockchain is shaping the industry, from AI, big data to banks and government initiatives. Akarsh shared the stage with Mrs. Jennifer Greyson- CEO of Neureal, Mr. Sudin Baraokar- CEO of Bankchain initiative, Mr. Rajarshi Mitra- Researcher at BlockGeeks, and others. Read more

Coming Up

ETHDenver
ETHDenver is hackathon of education, networking, mentorship, and employment opportunities with an estimated 3,000 in attendance. There are three tracks; BUILD, OPEN, and IMPACT. BUIDLATHON participants can hack on open repos for which sponsor companies will offer bounties after successful completion. OPEN track participants are encouraged to work on any project of their choice. IMPACT track participants can submit projects which qualify under the UN Sustainability categories.
🌐 Where: Denver, Colorado
📆️ When: February 15-17th
💻 Website: www.ethdenver.com
🎟️ Tickets: FREE
📌 Tips: Plan your travel for Feb 11 - Feb 17 to stay for #BUIDL Week Colorado.

LedgerFest - Student Blockchain Summit
Blockchain at Columbia presents LedgerFest: Columbia University’s first blockchain and cryptocurrency conference, sponsored by IBM! This will be a student-driven conference; however, all are welcome to attend.
🌐 Where: Columbia University, New York
📆️ When: Feb 15
💻 Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ledgerfest-student-blockchain-summit-tickets-53368271938
🎟️ Tickets: FREE for Students

2019 HBS Blockchain & Crypto Conference
The HBS Blockchain and Crypto Club are bringing thought leaders, founders, investors, and other prominent figures in blockchain and crypto to discuss the current state of the industry. Through the lens of mainstream adoption, we will explore topics such as trends for VC investing in blockchain, building out the financial infrastructure stack, analysis of the current dApp and web3 ecosystem, tech crypto vs money crypto debate, and more.
🌐 Where: Harvard University, Massachusetts
📆️ When: February 23
💻 Website: https://blockchain-hbsclub.com/blockchain-conference/
🎟️ Tickets: $40

2019 MIT Bitcoin Expo
At the 2019 Bitcoin Expo, we will consider the challenges that face us today and how we can augment the development of this still-maturing ecosystem. We invite you to join us to have a conversation with stakeholders and developers with boots on the ground. We will talk about scalability, user adoption, UX challenges, regulatory concerns, token economics, vulnerabilities, and some of the most promising solutions currently under development.
🌐 Where: MIT, Boston MA
📆️ When: Mar 9 - Mar 10
💻 Website: http://mitbitcoinexpo.org/
🎟️ Tickets: FREE

Student Spotlights

Aditya Dhir (SRM University AP - Amaravati) got his latest post Blockchain Technology For Beginners published in Hackernoon.

Trey Brunson (University of Delaware) has started posting monthly reports about his crypto portfolio management.

Caroline Glavind (Western University) writes about a use case for blockchain in supply chain management: Blockchain Beyond Bitcoin: Eliminating Counterfeit Goods.

Arpit Agarwal (BEN India) wrote an article summarizing his ETHSingapore project, ZkDai — Private DAI transactions on Ethereum using Zk-SNARKs.