Anyone following the @goodwithtravels journey recently here on Steemit will see that I’ve recently become a huge fan of Malaysia
Last night was a perfect example of exactly why this is: I was fortunate enough to have the chance to meet some of our fellow Steemians here in Kota Kinabalu, affectionately known as KK, and the capital of Malaysia’s Sabah state in the northern part of the island of Borneo.
We use the term community a lot here on Steemit
... but none exemplifies it more than the Malaysian Steemit community.
They’re a diverse, passionate, encouraging and supportive group of individuals across many different ages and lifestyles.
All were incredibly supportive and friendly towards an unknown Englishman who only happened to be in town for one night.
Not only this, but they have Chapter leaders and their own Blockchain conference: the Borneo Blockchain summit, which is being planned again for this year.
No stone left unturned
Being invited to join this group for an evening was fantastic: we covered discussions on everything from @SteemMonsters (a fantastically engaging way of bringing the ‘outside world’ into the Steem blockchain), plans for the community here, bringing people into blockchain, hopes for the future and of course Steemfest. More on my thoughts on Steemfest shortly.
It was also a pleasure to introduce everyone to the @Travelfeed concept. For those that aren’t aware, TravelFeed is a travel curation community that is manually curated daily to support, celebrate and share the best travel-related content here on Steemit. They actively encourage both travel and collaboration and help high-quality travel-related content reach the wider community. Best of all, it’s indiscriminate on the size of the account or who wrote it. The only real requirements are that:
- individuals use the TravelFeed hashtag (I believe there’s also a Dapp, travelfeed.io, but as I’m travelling I’ve not been able to use it
- the content must be original
- that articles must include at least 250 words.
Please do support TravelFeed, use the hashtag and engage with its userbase.
Bringing Steemfest to Asia?
By a combination of chance and good timing, I was able to attend Steemfest 3 in Krakow, Poland.
I had the most incredible time, meeting the likes of @Guchtere (get well soon buddy!), @mrprofessor, @for91days, @daveonarrival, @steemcafe and a whole lot more, each and every one of whom inspired me. Not only this, but I learnt a huge amount and here I am 4 months later still talking about the experience.
You can read some of my earlier posts in November and December last year to read up on my experiences there.
In any case, in order to make the Steemit community, and indeed Steemfest itself, less centralised, it makes sense that Steemfest needs to move outside of Europe sooner or later.
Last night was a huge example of organic, genuine and passionate use of the Steem blockchain and I am sure @RoelandP would have dozens of eager helpers in setting up Steemfest 4 here, should Malaysia be considered as a host country.
Malaysia itself is stunning, easily accessible as a transport hub, the people are kind in an unparalleled manner, and I’ve felt safe the entire time I’ve been here. Oh, and it’s pretty cheap too which I’m sure would help keep Steemfests costs down.
I’d urge the Malaysian Steemit community to reach out to Roeland and show him all the fantastic things they are doing, and I’d encourage Roeland to seriously consider Malaysia as a host country for #Steemfest4.
In conclusion
Thank you so much to @DanielDoughty, @viverridae, @verasj, @beverlyjoe, @danemade, @bboyady, @gabu01 for such a wonderful evening with you all - apologies if I’ve missed anyone, please make sure to tag them!
Looking forward to meeting the Kuala Lumpur contingent later on in the week, so stay tuned.
Peace,
Franck / @goodwithtravels