A year that has exceeded our expectations by far

2019 was a fantastic year for IOTAshops.

We have grown enormously, have realized many great things and have exceeded our self-set goals by far.

To give you a small overview, we have written a short summary of our work and the highlights in 2019.

Meetups / Events

Developer Meetup Berlin April

One of the first highlights was the IOTA Developer Meetup in Berlin in April.

Our hard-working community members presented their projects to the interested audience – Delion.io, Tanglescout and even an IOTA vending machine were presented.

The Meetup was very well received and the next event was quickly planned.

XDK2MAM Workshop

Together with Daniel de Michele from XDK2MAM we hosted the XDK2MAM workshop in July, where interested developers could learn how to use a Bosch XDK to send data to the Tangle via MAM.

IOTA Munich Meetup

The next event was already scheduled for October: The Munich Meetup on 12.10.19 organized by Nicholas Karg.

An event we were especially looking forward to, because the motto of the Meetup was “hands on” – experience and touch projects live.

Of course, IOTAshops were not to be missed there.

Our stand at the Meetup informed the audience about our range of offers and we also organized a little raffle.

It was a great Meetup and it was a great experience to meet a large part of the community in person.

Diffusion 2019 Berlin by Outlier Ventures

The following week, Diffusion 2019 took place in Berlin.

A hackathon organized by Outlier Ventures, where IOTAshops were active as supporter and responsible for the IOTA community work.

Developers from different countries programmed small projects based on different DLT protocols on two days – of course also with IOTA.

Members of the IOTA Foundation were available as mentors and finally chose the winner.

“Spiel”-Fair in Essen with Paracosm / CaerSidi

From 26.10.-27.10. IOTAshops reported live from the “Spiel” fair in Essen, where CaerSidi presented its products and services based on the IOTA technology.

Via social media the community could experience the products live and ask their questions to the CaerSidi team. <here you can find the article about the game 2019>

IOTA Berlin Meetup: Defining Moments 2019

There was not much time to take a deep breath, because shortly after the game fair in Essen, we entered the hot phase of preparation for the “IOTA Defining Moments 2019 Meetup” on 11.12.19.

A collaboration between the IOTA Foundation and IOTAshops, where we wanted to present the IOTA highlights of 2019 and a preview of 2020.

From an originally small Meetup we turned into a huge event in a very short time.

A lineup with almost all the great names of the IOTA Foundation ensured that the demand increased enormously.

We quickly had to increase the initially planned 100 seats to 150.

Presentations by IOTA co-founders Dominik Schiener and Serguei Popov, Antonio Nardella, Julie Maupin and many more provided interesting insights into the achievements in 2019.

We also had some surprises in store for the audience.

Besides goodie bags, which were handed out to the audience, we had an announcement in almost every presentation.

Charlie Varley and Andrew Brough announced the new Spark Wallet in their presentation, Antonio Nardella announced IoT2MAM and then brought the community member “Muxxer” on stage, who, to the surprise of all guests, presented “Hornet” as already usable in Mainnet.

But not only announcements caused surprises – a small raffle at the end of the presentations provided a perfect finale.

Presents from our generous community members were given to the guests.

Among other things, there were copies of the IOTA magazine from einfachIOTA, an Easy-Seed-Saver, T-shirts from CaerSidi and an IOTA prize ticker (developed by community member “Oxinon”) to be won.

One thing is promised – also in 2020 we will organize another Christmas Meetup!

Further highlights:

Apart from the events there was also a lot of action going on.

The financial blog, written by IOTAshops founder Felix, was voted one of the top 13 best German-language financial blogs by Comdirect & Börse Stuttgart.

During the award ceremony in Hamburg, there was of course a lot of educational work about IOTA among the bloggers and financial experts done by him.

In Q4 2019, the entire website of IOTAshops was translated into German – a mammoth task, but one that ultimately offers great added value for the German-speaking public.

As ambassador for CaerSidi / Paracosm we were involved in numerous alpha and beta tests for future games and services.

We also helped to build up the community around the IOTA based ecosystem.

IOTAshops is also represented in the first issue of the IOTA magazine of einfachIOTA. It is a great honour to write an article about the Ecosystem Development Fund and to be part of one of the most fascinating community projects. Projects like the IOTA magazine show what great things can happen when the community pulls together.

IOTA Ecosystem Regional Community Leader

These events and our previous involvement in the community led to IOTAshops founder Felix Reichard being selected as IOTA Ecosystem Community Leader: Berlin.

This is a special honor that shows the appreciation of the IOTA Foundation and the community.

Youtube and Meetup group

Shortly before the end of the year, the YouTube channel of IOTAshops also went live.

In the future there will be videos of events on this channel and it is planned to share live streams of workshops and meetups.

We also redesigned the Meetup Group for IOTA Meetups.

Up to now only events from Berlin were published on this channel. In the future all IOTA Meetups, Workshops etc. will be shared there.

The vision is that in the future, all organizers will post their events on this channel and benefit from the wide reach.

In addition, this will save the rather high fees that are normally charged for operating a group (currently around 100€ per year).

This is also a further step to improve the user-friendliness for guests / interested parties. Instead of having to register in dozens of different groups, you will find all relevant informations in one place.

Outlook for 2020

We already have many ideas for the year 2020 that need to be implemented.

The main focus remains on supporting and promoting the community as much as possible.

We’ll be hosting more Meetups and will be focusing more on workshops.

Especially workshops are an ideal way to introduce new developers to IOTA technology and increase awareness of IOTA.

In 2020, collaboration with partners and sponsors will also play an increased role to generate even more reach.

Support IOTAshops in our project and the realization of our vision

All the work done by IOTAshops costs a lot of time and money.

Since the community work is done on a non-profit basis, we are of course happy about any support from outside.

For this reason we now have an account on Patreon.

On this platform everybody who likes our work can support us.

Unlike a “donation address”, which is simply posted on the website and always has an impersonal character, the “donor” also gets a reward for his support.

For example, you can actively participate in the community work of IOTAshops (votings etc.) and you get exclusive discounts or advantages (livestreams, reserved seats at events etc.)

Become a Patron!

On this way I want to thank the community member “Bender” again. As the first supporter of Patreon, he contributes a lot to make our vision come true – thank you for your support!

(Of course there are other ways to support us besides Patreon: <click here to see how you can support us (point 3)> )

Conclusion

2019 was an outstanding year.

Our expectations towards ourselves were exceeded by far.

We are very proud to be part of such a great and dedicated community and look forward to doing our best for the community in 2020.

Many thanks to everyone who shares and supports our work through various channels.

We would also like to thank everyone who regularly helps us to improve our service and offerings.

We also want to thank the IOTA Foundation for the great cooperation.

We are very much looking forward to what the coming year has in store for us!

Your Felix Reichard – Founder of IOTAshops