Jan 1, 2021

2021: The divisive sequel to 2020

Welcome to 2021 - we still aren’t out of the frying pan yet but here is hoping that the new year brings new opportunities to you.

RISE is moving to Malaysia

If you haven’t heard, RISE is leaving Hong Kong (!) and not only will there be a new host city there will now be TWO conferences in Asia: Kuala Lumpur will be the new host city for RISE, and Tokyo, Japan will be the host city for a new edition of Web Summit.

Lisbon and Toronto will continue on as well so that is FOUR conferences powered by Web Summit starting in March 2022.

We got some media coverage at Techcrunch and while it’s cool to be quoted in CNN they took a very different approach to the news.

More updates on this as it happens but this is what 2021 and 2022 will look like for the conferences:

April 21-23, 2021: Collision from Home

November 1-4, 2021 Web Summit Lisbon - hybrid event: 50/50 in-person and online.

March 2022: RISE in Kuala Lumpur

June 2022: Collision in Toronto

September 2022: Web Summit Tokyo

November 2022: Web Summit Lisbon

Wrapping up 2020

In 2019 I traveled to 15 different cities, in 2020 I did 3. But, while 2020 was tough I was able to do all these things:

Started YouTubing.
Podcasting 3 seperate shows.
Became a director at Founder Institute Western Canada.
Joined the board of the Vancouver Comic Arts Festival.
Interviewed Reid Hoffman, and got Jim Lee to speak at Web Summit.
Learned how to use Final Cut Pro and the Affinity suite.
Wrote a monthly column at Techcouver.
Learned about video streaming and online conference platforms.
Visited Banff and the Okanagan for the first time. #roadtrip
Still met tons of cool people in-person in Vancouver and online around the world. Maybe more than in 2019.

And things that distracted me:

Video games.
G.I. Joe action figures again.
Anime.
TikTok.
Walking with audiobooks.

And planning lots for 2021 - so while I thought I did not much I actually did more than usual. It gives me pause to returning to the Digital Nomad lifestyle when we can travel again.

...and here's 5 recent pix from my Camera Roll:

I was lucky enough to get a Playstation 5 and rekindle my gaming fever.

I celebrated a birthday here in Vancouver and have a feeling I will again in 2021.

My digital entertainment interest spawned this podcast, interviewing game people, YouTubers, podcasters , TikTokers and what's coming next. Click the pic to check it out!

Night shot of Olympic Village - that is not a Covid Ball monument its the Science Museum and their ad campaign is "The world needs more nerds."

And yeah, don't worry, not homesick for the food at all, in fact eating better than I have in Hong Kong!

Happy New Year, hope 2021 isn't as bad a sequel as WW84!

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