From the 13th to the 16th, I was in Vietnam for university workshops and a local Solana core developer meetup. One of the things that stood out to me most was seeing several universities building entirely new campuses. In Korea, with the population decline, we’re much more used to hearing about universities closing or merging, and it’s rare to see new campuses being built. Seeing that kind of growth firsthand was honestly quite striking. In Korea and Japan, when we run university workshops, we usually work with schools that already have strong blockchain communities or students who are already familiar with Web3. In Vietnam, we wanted to take a slightly different approach. Rather than only speaking to students who already knew blockchain, the goal was to introduce Solana to as many students as possible and give them a first point of contact with the ecosystem. We also held a local developer meetup together with Superteam Vietnam and some longtime Solana OGs in the community. What made it even more special was that several of them reached out first and suggested organizing something together, so the whole meetup came together very naturally. The meetup itself was meant to be a casual space to talk with local builders, with only around 30 minutes originally set aside for an AMA. But the questions were incredibly thoughtful. Some were genuinely difficult to answer, while others were unexpected and fun. It’s hard to go into the details of every question here, but the quality of the discussion was very high. And the conversation just kept going. What was supposed to be a 30 min AMA eventually turned into nearly two full hours of discussion with longtime Solana OGs. At that point, it felt much less like a traditional AMA and much more like an open and productive discussion around Solana, the ecosystem, and where things are going. That was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip. What also stayed with me was the level of conviction and passion Vietnamese builders have for the Solana ecosystem. These weren’t just people learning the technology. Many of them had been following, building, and contributing to Solana for a long time. Talking with them made it easy to understand why Vietnam continues to produce such a strong builder community. This trip also somehow became the trip where I received the most gifts ever 😭 Everyone was incredibly thoughtful. I received everything from mooncakes and fruit to bouquets of flowers. I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever come back from a work trip with this many gifts. I was very touched by how warmly everyone welcomed us. Conviction, one of the larger blockchain conferences in Vietnam, was also happening that same week, so there were side events happening all over the city. The overall energy of the ecosystem throughout the week was incredible. It was a great opportunity to experience the Vietnamese ecosystem much more closely. Huge thanks to @tuanpmhd (our devrel) @corelia_edu @gem_decrypto @kay_x64 @fomodavid @0xk2_ @LynnWWins @dieubui2522 for making this happen!