India Steem Meetup #5—An AWESOME Meetup In Tezpur, Assam and 30+ Attended!

Tezpur was simply fantastic! I was there to do a meetup, to bring people together and discuss ideas and brainstorm ways to bring new members on board. Steemians here were simply amazing. They were excited, enthusiastic and interested in learning more about the platform.

A big shout out to @maya7 and her son @rahul.stan for helping me organize this meetup and bringing Steemians together from their community. It is a community very different to most others. Usually in meetups I meet and engage with strangers but there most of them knew each other. They were friends and family and there was a great bond between all of them.

Youngsters such as Rahul have gone out to bring tons of people to the platform who are willing to invest their time and money into Steemit. That's quite awesome! Maya has been one of the most active user from their area and many of these users have established themselves as a worthy member of our platform.

I'm glad that @varunpinto, @shenoy and @sjennon joined me on this leg and we were overwhelmed with the love and affection shown towards us. The event was going to be slightly different than most others as I was presenting on Steemit, blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies in addition to the meet and greet as well as the interviews we were doing.

Suffice to say, we met our goals as it was a successful meetup with questions about the platform running late into the evening. There's so much potential for Steemit across the world and especially in India. I hope we get to realize all of it in the years to come!

^{With one and only @rahul.stan}

^{With @maya7 who helped put this show together! You are awesome!}

We were honoured at the start of the event as per the local Assamese traditions and it was nothing short of awesome. The meetup was about them but suddenly it felt like we were in the limelight. @maya7 also had a gift for my mother and luckily I managed to bring it back home safely given all our adventures post-meetup. Can it get more awesome? Yes it can!

My crew and I were invited over to Maya's relative's house for dinner and we had an awesome time there. I'm from a coastal city and seafood is everywhere here and yet I ate one of the best fish curries of my life at their house. We are very grateful for your hospitality @maya7 and family!

^{Took these young Steemians out for short drive in the SUV so that they could catch their bus home!}

My team and I had so many positives to discuss during our late night event debrief. I can't wait to see Steemit launch the next slew of features such as communities and SMTs so that we can develop such far flung areas into a solid communities that grows into something that benefits the whole eco-system.

There's so much potential for growth on Steemit from far flung areas of India and other emerging markets. Internet has made the world a smaller place and Steemit is doing a great job of connected talented individuals with one another. It felt great to have a successful meetup where all aspects of Steemit and Steem blockchain were discussed and everyone familiarised themselves with the core concept.

We returned home on the 16th but some of have been under the weather and this post got pushed forward. The pictures from the meetup will is up next and the video will be out after the Malaysia meetup video. Stay tuned to my posts for the same.

Some of the things we discussed in the meetup are:

1. Basics of Steemit, Steem blockchain and various apps on top of it.
2. Why prices fluctuate and how BTC relates to the change in price.
3. What blockchain technology means and why we are early adoptors to this technology.
4. How Steemit is helping shape social media slowly but steadily.
5. Various ways of utilizing the platform.
6. How to build a following, increase engagement with posts amongs other things.
7. Some issues related to the platform were also discussed.
8. How to trade Steem for BTC and BTC for INR was done.
9. I also informed users on managing their tax burden in this meetup.
10. Benefits of hodling Steem as SP and active curation on the platform.

Overall it was a great event and I hope to meet some of the users here again on a trip towards Tawang and other nearby places in the future. I also had one of the best fish curries of my life at dinner with Maya and her family. People here may be new to cryptocurrencies but their enthusiasm to learn and grow is huge. I’m sure the next meetup here will see bigger numbers in the months to come. I hope some of them will make it to Steemfests in the future.

I want to thank all of you who made it to the meetup in Tezpur. It felt great to talk about the platform and cryptocurrencies in general with everyone present at the event. The location was ideal and it served some delicious Butter Chicken as well!

@rahul.stan, @maya7, @rvwolf, @preity15, @saksham, @nima11, @physics-o-mania, @iamsgr, @iammanish, @rockonbhai, @lakhi, @ankitakaushik, @lachitsarmah, @bickydahal, @mnishh, @biswahazarika, @hrisheekrayb, @princepr, @amazingfects, @sjennon, @shenoy, @varunpinto, Binod Pokhrel, Dr. Phanidhar Sarmah, Kiran Sharma, Hemanta Sarmah, Punam Upadhyay, Meena Sarta and Pushpak Adhikari.

I apologise if I’ve forgotten any usernames here. Let me know if I’ve missed anyone in the comments below and I will add them to my post.

I'm also running my witness, backup and seed nodes now to support our blockchain and they are running great. You can view my witness proposal here and vote for me here: https://steemit.com/~witnesses

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If you like my work kindly resteem it to your friends. You may also continue reading my recent posts which might interest you:

1. Steem.Chat Contest #19 + Contest #18 Winners Announcement!
   
2. Why You Should Vote For @firepower As Witness—Witness Campaign Post From India!
3. International Steem Meetup #1—Team Malaysia CNY Gathering 2018

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