 Hello everyone welcome to Prague and welcome to DevCon 4. And for those of you who haven't met me My name is I am Miyaguchi. I am Executive Director of the European Foundation. I have been to pass DevCon in Shanghai and also in Cancun last year, but this one feels special as this is the first time as an organizer and I'm excited to see a lot of familiar faces and also excited to meet new people we tried our best to welcome new members of the community to this DevCon this year and You may have attended various event throughout the year in the world and you if you have heard my talks you probably know I have spent this year sharing my thoughts on the values and philosophy of the Ethereum and the foundation and to kick off The day one of DevCon 4 I like to share a summary of these thoughts for some background I been in the crypto industry Officially since 2013 and my original interest in blockchain was its potential To empower the empowered powerless underserved and also restore the balance the society has lost and through my experience I also learned the biggest obstacle of the blockchain success is not necessarily in the implementation, but overcoming the existing systems and people's mindset For so many people blockchain wasn't an idea to be feared Mainly because it was poorly understood. So I ended up spending a lot of time putting those gaps, but also on education and then Ethereum was won and I felt that this Ethereum represented hope But I liked about Ethereum originary was how it employs the spirit of Kaizen so you you probably have heard about this word and This is often used for assembly line or supply chain, but it's simply the word simply means a Continuous change for better Improvements, and I think that's exactly how Ethering was created by Vitalik return and also how it has evolved and you will see here about those improvements in the next Vitalik's talk about e2.0, but also from many speakers at the stevecon Every time when I learn about new project in crypto I think about two things one is technology and the other is philosophy Technology can change the world But I believe It's philosophy that moves people to try to improve and also Philosophy is what guide us for the right direction and with that philosophy the tool cannot change the world And lately I have had chances to speak with Visionaries and heroes of the early days of the internet and increasingly I feel that the internet was created for the freedom of people's activities voice and rights However, we have also seen how the internet has contributed toward more centralized systems in Especially in the past few years This is why we need to be cautious as an industry blockchain could create Intentionally or unintentionally more decentralized systems under the name of decentralization So as I said, Ethereum offers hope with its huge technical Potential but I also believe even more so for its well-intentioned Philosophies and its people who continuously try to improve this and we are lucky to have This growing community but We also have a new challenge to maintain our philosophies and the culture and this is exactly Why I envision this DevCon to be a strong opportunity for us To think not just about what and how we are building but about why This is an opportunity for us to remind Ourselves why we are working on the theme and share our philosophies and visions with people around us and There's also a lot we can learn from the heroes of the internet many of whom share our philosophy and mission and it is also very important now for us to learn from our Our kind let's create outside of crypto as well For that in addition to tech and research talks and discussions This year we have great list of inspiring speakers We have Stewart Brand from the Long Down Foundation Brewster Cal from the Internet Archive Glen Wall of the book radical market Casper coaches from the Estonian government and also call a doctor Cypher author and activist and I also like to mention the city of plug is perfect for this year's DevCon Many times in history this city has lost its identity and Its voice and also was controlled by central's power centralized powers It was up through for many years and the Nazis during the World War two and most importantly during the Cold War The public actually believe that this city could be the model of communism ideologies and lost its freedom again With the spirit of a kaizen I like to believe we can always learn from the history and we can do So by being in this beautiful city, but also we can learn from people in the city and How they have achieved their freedom back again? Let me talk about the foundation for a little bit. I joined the foundation already this year and It's been a thrilling experience When I joined there was natural Request and pressure to make the foundation more into corporate or start-up way And then I thought about what a thing was all about and also spoke with a lot of people in the community And also of course spoke with with how it cool is the big influence on this And then Somehow it put me into this Like very then state of mind and I thought about my roots and Why I decided to support the theme and then I realized these are all rated What felt most right to me was this principle of subtraction in this today's society we are a program to value addition and Then the society has trained us to believe that the more is better the bigger is better but this addition has dark sides More people comes at the cost of more resources more money comes at the cost of Exploring human and more power comes at the cost of human inequality When we add thoughtlessly We create embarrassing the world. This is why we have to increasingly Think about this philosophy of subtraction pursuing decentralization and Also when we are building this ecosystem and also making decisions to build an organization And this philosophy is not really new to me In Japan we have this expression called Hikizano big a kuk, which literally means beauty in subtraction and it's deeply rooted in Zen Buddhism It's similar to minimalism, but not quite the same Subtraction allows ideas Taste or strengths to exist in their purest form The idea is used in food martial arts design Everywhere, and you can also find this idea in the Western culture too, and I believe this community would understand this and one of the reasons why this open source project has attracted this many of people and and One of the reasons why I wanted to support ethane So going back to how to build the foundation Building it in a corporate or startup structure. They don't feel right These can be Quite different one is in more hierarchy structure and the other can be flat But both aim to grow bigger at more At the same foundation we actually Aim to grow small That doesn't mean we are not hiring but hiring should be where only the foundation can do and we try to minimize our power wherever we can As much as possible because what we want to grow is the entire ecosystem Not just the ethane foundation so as the community grows and then as the industry go Not sure we we can be tiny part of it And we see the entire ethane system like a constellation in this concentration their developers researchers Enterprises and then different stars create different shapes and then it's the shapes can be different depending on What we are improving? Scaling the security you ask privacy or like who is affected and User the apps government enterprises or nonprofits Each group and individual is connected by their work Solution and impact in the foundation is the one who tries to coordinate these collaboration and collaborations and communications between those stars and empower them where we can By either directly funding them or connecting with other stars. I Would also like to mention there are many hidden stars you probably most of the time you hear big public names, but The more I learned about this community I believe like there are many hidden stars who are critical to maintain this decentralized structure and then most of the time they don't want to be public but You know like these isn't stars are inevitable without them We can't connect these dots and speaking of empowering One of our main activities is giving grants and This year we have provided About 20 million US dollar amount of grants to more than 70 individuals and organizations and We invited them to that one and probably you saw some of them at grantee showcase If you like it like we invited them so that you can talk to them and then you can ask their experience And we would like to continuing continue doing this hopefully more more quicker and Also, how we give one is in the decentralized way. This is something like a people a lot not many people know We work with actually community members to identify What are the missing pieces in the development and research work and then we actually work with community members to? decide on who Should work on these missing pieces and also we work with community members to fund together or sometimes let them fund directory So there are many funding mechanism Existing in the ecosystem and we do not care where the money is from as long as we are making creating Positive impact And it looks a little chaotic now, but in order for us to maximize or impact This is at this at this moment This is Where we are and then we were trying to organize and coordinate better, but that that's what we chose to do Okay, lastly, I like to Give special thank you to the city of plug Other than offering this beautiful city in place the city is providing The free transportation to DevCon attendee during DevCon time, so thank you Anyway, it's okay and also I have to mention that I'm There are many volunteers from the city Community members. I I don't know if they can be here, but The community members here have been really supportive and helping throughout the entire time Since we decided on the city And that I like to give big thanks to those people. Thank you very much Joseph Joseph is the leader of the community members and he is going to come on the stage in a minute but So To close this I like to encourage you to explore this beautiful city of plug As much as possible, but also fully explore DevCon and then get to know each other and then share your values and philosophies With others and enjoy the event. Thank you very much