TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / August 11, 2017 / Over 30 universities and regions around the world are hosting Bitcoin Airdrop events during August and September to distribute bitcoin to grow their local digital currency communities. The Bitcoin Airdrop is an annual event to begin each school that began 3 years ago by the MIT Bitcoin Club raised bitcoin to distribute 100$ to every incoming freshman student. The event was replicated the following year at McGill with generous donations from the Canadian bitcoin community. Last year, the Blockchain Education Network hosted the event in 15 cities around North America including Toronto, Montreal, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, Tampa, Gainesville, Waterloo, Kingston, etc.
2017 marks the first year the Bitcoin Airdrop reached a city in each continent. In the United States, students at the University of Berkeley, MIT, University of Florida, University of Michigan, University of Delaware, Rutgers University, among others have confirmed interest in distributing bitcoin on their campuses. In Canada, students at McGill University, University of Toronto, University of Western Ontario, University of Ottawa, Concordia University and the University of British Columbia, among others. In Asia, Fudan University in Shanghai, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management in Kerala, the Startup Mission in Trivandrum. In Europe, airdrops are happening at Aalto University in Finland, by BEN Italy and BEN Netherlands. In Australia, the University of Queensland has gotten involved, Durban in South Africa, and Columbia in South America.
The event starts on Friday, August 11th, with an airdrop help by Jorge Perez, the director of BEN Columbia, who is hosting a meetup with 70 local enthusiasts, as was mentioned in an article on Nasdaq about the event. The next two events are on August 19th in St Petersburg, Russia and in Trivandrum, India. Rodion Mikhalev, the director of BEN Russia, partnered with the ICO Hypethon, a hackathon with hundreds of attendants and where dozens of digital currencies are expected to be launched, to distribute bitcoin in St Petersburg, Russia. In Trivandrum, Deepu Nath, the founder and CEO of FAYA PORT 80, the biggest tech community in Kerala, will be organising an Airdrop event in association with the KERALA STARTUP MISSION. They venue is the IEDC summit, where more than 2500 students across Kerala who are passionate about entrepreneurship and the technologies of the future converge, which will help get maximum reach for Bitcoin among the student community of Kerala. Alberto Jauregui, the director of growth at BEN, plans to do a BitCrawl in alongside his airdrop St Petersburg, Florida and set up the surrounding merchants to accept the bitcoin he is distributing.
"The Bitcoin Airdrop is a great event to boost the profile of the Blockchain Education Network within the Western community. Within the span of the past year, the interest level from the student population to learn more about blockchain has exploded. My team and I look forward to giving participants their first taste of managing their very own crypto with the goal of converting some into lifelong adopters. We view this as only the beginning of a growing presence at the university and the surrounding community," said David Mirynech who is the president of the blockchain club at the University of Western Ontario and the director of research at the Blockchain Education Network.
Each year, the distribution of bitcoin during the airdrop has improved and more and more students are holding onto the bitcoin. The first bitcoin airdrop at MIT and McGill were not hugely successful, with only about 50% of students actually keeping the bitcoin. Last year, the Blockchain Education Network distributed the bitcoin only to students who also downloaded a wallet, making sure each person understood how it worked.
''It's really exciting to see the growth of the Bitcoin Airdrop event over the past couple years. Our vision when replicating the MIT airdrop at McGill was that it was an event that could be done across the world and we wanted to help make that happen. The best way to learn about bitcoin is to download a wallet and to try it out and we want students around the world to get experience using it,'' said Michael Gord, CEO and Founder of MLG Blockchain and the founder of the blockchain club at McGill University who hosted the airdrop in 2015 and now supports the Blockchain Education Network with the global event.
The Bitcoin Airdrop is powered by generous donations from the community. This year, bitJob, a blockchain powered marketplace for students to find jobs, is the title sponsor of the event. ''It is a true honor to be sponsoring the 2017 Blockchain Education Network's Global Bitcoin Airdrop across university campuses. BitJob shares a similar mandate with BEN to empower students and give them the necessary tools to compete in today's marketplace. This year's event is shaping up to be the largest ever as the popularity of Bitcoin and blockchain technology continues to rise globally,'' said Dror Medalion, co-founder and CEO of bitJob, in a statement to Bitcoin Magazine.
Lucid Exchange, a blockchain based trading platform for investors to trade future securities using smart contracts and digital currency, is a newly added sponsor of the event. Other supporting sponsors include blockchain consulting and development firm MLG Blockchain, distributed identity startup DIID and blockchain media firms Blockchain TV and BTC Media.
About the Blockchain Education Network (BEN)
BEN is made up of students and alumni across the world who are creating bitcoin and blockchain clubs on their academic campuses. By exploring this socioeconomic experiment within the safety of their peers, students build new expectations and innovations. In aggregate, the combined effort of all these clubs creates a rich web of interconnected blockchain hubs across the world. Impact global evolution through local your initiatives.
About bitJob
Aimed at revolutionizing the way students make a living and gain occupational experience while still studying, bitJob will give students the opportunity to receive immediate payment for their abilities from professional employers and to sharpen their skills while enriching their dynamic résumé, anytime & anywhere!
Contact:
Michael Gord
647-377-3489
[email protected]
SOURCE: MLG Blockchain Consulting Ltd