“We’re going back to the original dream back in 1989. The original dream was a shared space. A place where we could be scribbling together.” – Tim Berners-Lee

A new internet will not be built in a day, and it will not be built by any one person. From its inception, the internet was imagined as a community. A hyperfast, hyperconnected, globally accessible community with a universe’s worth of tools and information at its fingertips — but a community nonetheless.

As important it is to build and foster this community digitally, we at Blockstack think it is equally important to do so the old-fashioned way: in real life, face-to-face, with handshakes, smiles, conversations, and even the awkward pauses and unavoidable misunderstandings contained therein.

To those of you who want to have a place in the new internet, and even those who are just curious or even skeptical: we invite you to the 2017 Blockstack Summit, the 2nd annual one-day event where the decentralized community can gather to imagine, learn, and create around the topic of decentralized apps, and much, much more.

Highlighting our gathering will be an impressive and still growing roster of speakers: AngelList founder and prodigious tech investor Naval Ravikant; Andreessen-Horowitz Board Partner and 21 CEO Balaji Srinivasan; blockchain, cryptocurrency, and smart contracts pioneer Nick Szabo. We also expect a few surprises and special guests to be added to this already impressive list.

Blockstack is spearheading the movement to build the new, decentralized internet — a movement of hackers, designers, and entrepreneurs from around the world deeply committed to the future of the Internet as a place of innovation, freedom, and economic inclusion. Blockstack pushes power to the edges with decentralized applications and allows users to be in control of their data, identities, and software.

However ambitious our view of the future of the new internet, we’re willing to bet our attendees will blow our minds with their ideas, aspirations, and creations. Bring those ideas, problems, and questions about decentralized application development and help us all learn and benefit from the rapidly growing volume of wisdom in our burgeoning community.

Attendees will learn about the decentralized internet ecosystem enabled by Blockstack; be shown how to begin building fully decentralized applications using Blockstack, and meet some of the most talented and influential developers working with decentralized applications and blockchain technology today. You’ll also probably get some cool swag out of the experience.

Most importantly, to borrow the phrase: you’re joining a group of people who can do incredible things. Your imagination is what will drive what’s next. We look forward to seeing you and meeting you and creating with you.

Join us July 27th in Mountain View, CA.