October is an intense month here in Chiang Mai – and there is a ton of popup cities forming for the lead up the Devcon (devcon.org) in Bangkok in mid November.
What is a popup city?
A village formed of like minded people who spend a fixed amount of time (in this case about 1 month) to have events / gatherings / team building / networking / meals. There is a full calendar of events each day – not huge formal events – but casual self organized – a ton on health and well being.
What is Edge City?
It is a brand / organization that has been organizing popup cities in various parts of the world. You can find out at edgecity.live
What is Edge City Lanna?
This is the Chiang Mai, Thailand version of Edge City – which is 1 month from mid October to mid November at edgecity.live/lanna
So I came on Tuesday October 15, 2024 around 9am and purchased a day pass. Most seem to have gotten a full month and live on site – but since I live in Chiang Mai + anyone following this vlog would see – I am on the road a ton now – one day pass was at least a chance to experience this.
Served a boxed breakfast, casual chats with open minded people from around the world – LA , New York, Guangzhou China, Netherlands, Australia – all in just a casual group breakfast chat.
People are self organizing and promoting their workout sessions, their mindfulness session, their drawing class.
Walking over to the coworking space, it’s a bit quiet as people are getting their daily work done.
But you can see the eyes popping out looking to say hi and welcome you. Get caught up to speed on using the mobile app, RSVP for lunch, and making connections on Telegram.
In the outer edge of the building Justin is inviting us to a drawing session at a nearby cafe and I decide to get outside of my zone and join.
Ordering coffees and taking a few tables together Justin guides us on using the 1 hour to free draw and then share at the end. We take photos of our work, share in the Edge City telegram group, grab a selfie too and wrap up.
Heading to more networking, a lunch together. Meeting more ecommerce people who are doing web3 – randomly bumping into founders of companies like ZKp2p and discuss some cross promotions.
I had to skip out for the afternoon as I was also organizing the Chiang Mai ecommerce meetup – which was a really nice turnout and getting good momentum for Cross Border Summit.
Back to the Edge City for a 5pm call, random encounters with creative people from all over.
Join a 6pm decision making session by Timber.
Then we had a meetup I organized called “Decom Night” – a first theme event to bring together web3 enthusiasts with “web2 / traditional ecommerce” and start the community building of this bridging of web2 and web3 – for the hamza.market decom marketplace startup we just launched public beta on this past Monday.
A very relaxed environment, people from all kinds of backgrounds and skillsets. Was a good chance also for our Hamza.market cofounder and CTO John to see and hear – users from all sides and questions being asked.
What an intense day of networking and all kinds to topics from drawing to ecommerce to decision making to decom – this is what life is about – keeping an open mind, learning new things, and connecting with other creators and builders.
I’ll be getting another day pass next week!
Find out more here at https://edgecity.live/lanna
Also check out our podcast w/ John Ho – founder of Alt Chiang Mai – talking about this and more
https://www.globalfromasia.com/popup-cities/