Lightning Talks session ETHCC 2019,
Thursday March 7th, 18h20-19h20, Room Jean-Baptiste Say

(Web format - Google Docs format - use http://j.mp/ETHCC-lightning to share)

What is a Lightning Talk?        2

List of talks (subject to changes!)        2

Waiting list        3

[Post-session]: slides and video link list        3

Want to be a speaker (f/m)?        3

Ceremony on the day itself        5

Incentives dissected:        5

Advantages for the speaker        5

Advantages for the attendee        5

Advantages for the conference organizer        5

Examples        6

About this document        6

What is a Lightning Talk?

Lightning talks (wikipedia entry) are a tradition at tech/open source conferences.  The name has nothing to do with the lightning protocol ;-).

A Lightning Talks session is a lightning-fast succession of short (max 5 minutes) talks by different speakers crammed in a normal time slot.  The format restricts the speakers to the bare essentials, and as an attendee you enjoy a varied buffet of topics and speakers in a short timespan.

List of talks (subject to changes!)

1. Cheng Wang & Alois Cochard (Alephium): BlockFlow: a novel sharding algorithm with single-step cross-shard transactions (Whitepaper, discussion)
2. Dmitry Palchun: Dapplets - Rethinking Dapp Architecture for better adoption and security  
3. Thibaut Sahaghian (Multis): running a company on crypto (whitepaper)
4. Olaf Tomalka (CryptoPunkers): Resolver-Engine: Unifying Solidity Compilation through Framework tooling
5. David Llop, A censorship-resistant wiki for the access to knowledge movement (repo, demo)
6. Gonzalo Sainz-Trapaga, POAP: a Proof Of Attendance Protocol
7. Tim Daubenschütz, 0xdeface.me - A standard to settle Ethereum smart contracts fairly in case of vulnerabilities
8. Tas Dienes, Dominant Assurance Contracts: A solution to the free rider problem in crowdfunding public goods
9. Marius Van Der Wijden: Resolving Non-Attributable Faults in Data Exchanges
10. Max Demyan, (Tech) introduction to the Geo Protocol 

Waiting list

1. Eric Burgel (B2Expand), Blockchain Bean Asset
2. Elias Haase, B9Lab: Help us train 1000 developers in 2019
3. …

[Post-session]: slides and video link list

Lightning talks slides are at:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pvhygbm3280kg3y/20190307_LightningTalks_ETHCC_full.pdf?dl=0

Video link list:

1. Cheng Wang: BlockFlow: a novel sharding algorithm with single-step cross-shard transactions
2. Dmitry Palchun: Dapplets - Rethinking Dapp Architecture for better adoption and security
3. Thibaut Sahaghian (Multis): running a company on crypto
4. Olaf Tomalka (CryptoPunkers): Resolver-Engine: Unifying Solidity Compilation through Framework tooling
5. David Llop, A censorship-resistant wiki for the access to knowledge movement
6. Gonzalo Sainz-Trapaga, POAP: a Proof Of Attendance Protocol
7. Tim Daubenschütz, 0xdeface.me - A standard to settle Ethereum smart contracts fairly in case of vulnerabilities
8. Tas Dienes, Dominant Assurance Contracts: A solution to the free rider problem in crowdfunding public goods
9. Marius Van Der Wijden: Resolving Non-Attributable Faults in Data Exchanges
10. Max Demyan, (Tech) introduction to the Geo Protocol
11. Eric Burgel (B2Expand), Blockchain Bean Asset
12. Elias Haase, B9Lab: Help us train 1000 developers in 2019

Want to be a speaker (f/m)?

1. Check out last year’s session and video to get an idea :-)
2. Email lightningtalks.ethcc.io@vanhecke.info with:
   

1. Name
2. Link to your personal profile or organization (optional)
3. Descriptive title of your talk
4. Motivation/background for your talk
   (will not be published, helps us to select the talks that fit the format)
5. Link to more information/contact info/project page
   (this is essential, as the talk is so short and can never convey the full ideas, so the main purpose is to get people interested to find out more at the linked page)
   

3. Content guidelines for selection:
   
   Preferable:
   focused, concrete topics, possibly with a call to for collaborators, testers...
   (so a software libary or open source project, explanation of a particular  technique or concept, a dApp you’ve been working on are ideal topics)
   Keep in mind: you are a builder talking to builders  #buidl
   
   Discouraged:
   big, abstract topics or talks that are meant for the broader world
   (“impact of blockchain on society”, “mission of my organization XYZ”)
   
   Absolutely off-topic:
   ICOs, trading, market talk
   
4. Talks are accepted on First come, First served basis. We might build a waiting list too.  
   
5. You are only sure of your spot if you submit your slides  before Thursday March 7th, 14h 
   
6. For the format to work, it is necessary to have slides compiled in advance in one presentation on the organizer’s machine so we don’t lose time on switching presentations/machines. So:
   

1. max 10 slides
2. PDF in landscape format
3. no embedded video or audio
   

7. Practise your timing ;-)
   Please indicate if you need less  than 5 minutes, in that case we might cram in even more people!

Ceremony on the day itself

Strict adherence to the timing is not only a necessity, it is also a game:

• Slides are ordered according to the list in this document
• Come sit in front of the room: if one speaker finishes, the next one needs to be in line
• Time is displayed clearly and there will be some sort of countdown
  (ideas for an original countdown device? Shoot us an email!)  
• Audience participation: if the speaker finishes in time, (s)he is rewarded with a big applause, if time runs out, the audience starts a countdown and waves the speaker goodbye with an even bigger applause

Whatever happens, we all remain gracious :-).  Your hosts will be hosted by EthParis organizer and Consensys Blockchain architect  Sajida Zouarhi and Pascal Van Hecke.

Incentives dissected:

Advantages for the speaker

• Low-barrier: you only need to prepare for 5 minutes
• Opportunity to present fledgling projects/half baked ideas
• It provides an entry for first-time speakers
• Given there will be a video recording of the talks, it’s a way to show there is a real person behind an (up to that time) unknown and purely online project
• It’s fun to participate

Advantages for the attendee

• Variety of topics in short time, hard to fall asleep
• Opportunity risk of ending up in a talk that is irrelevant is limited to 5 minutes/talk: some you’ll like, some you won’t
• It’s fun to participate

Advantages for the conference organizer

• Can be an alternative for speakers who did not manage to have a full slot (although it requires adaptation: you cannot compress a full talk in 5 minutes, the speaker needs to pick out one or two elements to concentrate on)
• Low risk way to give the stage to new, unknown or inexperienced speakers
• It looks cool in the program

Examples

You will find plenty of lightning talk examples online, this session was particularly inspired by annual German Chaos Computer Club Congress format (wiki, videos).  
The format has already been tried at ETHCC last year: video

About this document

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Please freely copy and adapt for your own conference, no attribution needed.