Over the last year, there are just more and more IC meetups taking place across the United States and Europe, yet some European epicenters (like Belgium) had still missed on the IC parties. But last November, aviate labs together with Allusion (one of the largest Internet Computer Node Providers) together with support from DFINITY foundation formed a synergy to change that up once and forever and put Belgium on the IC community map. 

A bit of backstory: throwback to the first community IC event in Zurich

In the summer of 2022, our team was excited to make a trip to Zurich, to attend the first ever IC community meetup at DFINITY’s HQ. We were inspired and at the same time in a way pushed to do something for our little developing community back and Belgium, therefore, we got to work with our team immediately already on the way back on our high-speed train back to the Motherland.

First of all a little round of introduction: Who we are and what we even have to do with the Internet Computer

Aviate labs has been involved with the Internet Computer since Genesis. We started off by introducing our Standby Data Center Team that had the purpose of providing technical maintenance and support to Allusion for their Internet Computer Nodes. Aviate labs was the first one in this format of providing Node Management As A Service to both already existing and aspiring Node Providers. But this vision expanded further after being convinced about the impressive scalable opportunities that the Internet Computer has to offer, so we went on and started our very own WEB3 Research and Development lab, trying to find ways of utilizing blockchain in industrial solutions.

Having been in a more remote country, where IC doesn’t have a big community yet, we felt the need to create sort of a more intimate network, where people could share, learn and get inspired by each other!

Next step was figuring out the agenda and inviting people in, so keep reading to learn about the guests of the special evening.

Agenda of the IC summit: Exciting appearances all the way from Zurich headquarters of DFINITY

Paul Meeusen, the VP of Finance at DFINITY and Sven Fischer from the Release Management Team visited Leuven all the way from Zurich to join the discussion with Roald Parmentier from aviate labs and Paul De Canniere from Allusion (an IC node provider) to brief the community in about the most recent updates of Internet Computer’s roadmap and the story of how IC came to life after years on end of research and turned into this enabling technology for industrial blockchain applications.

After the presentations of Paul, Sven & Roald, the evening didn’t fail to surprise the community further. The Q&A session was joined by Jan Camenisch, the CTO of DFINITY who joined the amazing line-up of speakers to answer some of the curious questions of the Belgian IC community.

Time for networking, drinks & pizza!

The evening was wrapped up with pizzas, drinks and even more networking! The meetup attendees got the chance to chat to Paul and Sven from DFINITY, as well as talk about some of their ambitions and projects in the Internet Computer Ecosystem .

IC meetup attendees had the chance to mingle and discuss the recent web3 ambitions and trends, while enjoying some delicious pizza and drinks. The laid-back atmosphere and tasty refreshments really created the perfect setting for attendees to connect with one another and exchange projects and dreams they were pursuing. We were truly happy about how the networking portion of IC Meetup went! It definitely was the perfect time for participants to build relationships and foster a sense of community within the tiny web3 scene in Belgium.

IC meetup Belgium in 2023? Sign me up!

After a full evening of delightful & cozy networking, the crowd didn’t have enough of the evening, so we decided to continue the tradition of having IC meetups and turning sharing thrilling developments into a celebration!

Fast forwarding into the future, we will be hosting the 2nd edition of the IC meetup in the middle of this year, so make sure to stay updated Community Meetup, therefore, make sure to stay updated. We’ve heard the gossip that the next one is going to be halfway in 2023 ;)

Bonus: in case you missed the IC meetup, it is not too late to rewatch it!

Having the IC meetup Belgium streamed by one of the most professional live-streaming teams in Leuven, Broadkastr did not let us down with the high-quality recordings from the keynotes of Paul and Sven!

Special thanks to Arthur from Broadkastr for their dedication and high level of responsibility to deliver people high-quality content beyond any borders!

Rewatch some of the fragments from the Internet Computer Meetup in Belgium below: