Abstract
Meerkat returns for Devcon 2026, this time displaying live questions natively inside the Devcon app (PWA). The single guiding principle is to enable high-quality dialog for everyone — speakers and the whole audience, not a self-selected few.
The barriers differed by event: at Devcon SEA the constraint was authentication friction, while at Devconnect last year it was awareness — the Q&A lived on an external site and many attendees never found it, or never knew it existed. We address both by surfacing live questions directly in the app attendees already use, via a shared library already integrated into the Devcon PWA repository, while keeping authentication as light as possible. Asking and voting continue to happen in Meerkat. On that foundation we propose an optional quality layer (reputation-based highlighting/moderation and automatic flagging) and a tie-in with Devcon’s native onboarding games.
Rationale
The goal is high-quality dialog. In-person, offline Q&A at scale has well-known failure modes: content is unpredictable (often mediocre, sometimes malicious), passing microphones wastes stage time, and the format excludes shy attendees who won’t stand up to ask.
Meerkat at Devcon 7 SEA showed that a fully integrated online Q&A produces more relevant questions and a better attendee experience. The clearest signal was the main-stage moment where Hart Lambur opened Q&A with Vitalik Buterin, Jesse Pollak, Steven Goldfeder, and Ben Jones using questions Meerkat had curated for him.
Two friction points limited reach, and both add steps between an attendee and asking a question:
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Authentication (Devcon SEA). Zupass-based auth introduced friction and failure modes for a non-trivial share of attendees trying to ask and vote.
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Awareness (Devconnect 2025). With Devconnect’s decentralized organization, many independent organizers weren’t aware of Meerkat ahead of time — so sometimes there was no QR code, or no Q&A time built into the session at all. Unawareness ran on multiple levels: organizers first, then attendees. Discovery, not willingness, was the bottleneck.
Meerkat has been field-tested across a range of events — including several non-crypto events — so it is a mature, proven tool rather than an experiment. Moderation and theming have been substantially improved in that time.
Implementation
Tighter integration (in progress)
The thrust for 2026 is maximum reach with fewer moving parts. Putting the Q&A in front of the whole room — inside the app they already use — is the most direct path to getting everyone to take part, rather than a self-selected few:
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A shared Meerkat library is already integrated into the Devcon app repository. It displays live questions natively in the app, so every attendee discovers the Q&A where they already are. (Asking and voting continue to happen in Meerkat.)
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Continued simplification of authentication for asking and voting in Meerkat, building on the SEA learnings.
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Refreshed theming for Devcon 2026 (the current design does not yet cover the native flow).
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End-to-end testing of the full in-app display flow.
Because the audience already lives in the Devcon app, surfacing live questions there makes the Q&A visible to everyone and broadens the range of voices in every session. This only pays off if sessions reserve time for Q&A and the stage cuts over to the questions at the end — that handoff remains mission-critical.
Proposed quality layer (pending alignment)
These directions are not yet built and are proposed for discussion. They extend the guiding principle — high-quality dialog — beyond the busiest sessions:
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Reputation-based highlighting / moderation to surface the strongest questions at scale, where simple voting is insufficient at peak volume.
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Automatic flagging of spam / low-quality content, reducing moderator and AV load (an operations win).
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Tie-in with Devcon’s native onboarding games. The onboarding games are a Devcon-native feature that hasn’t been connected to Meerkat before; we propose linking them to drive Q&A activation.
Timeline (Devcon 8 — Mumbai, 3–6 November 2026)
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July–August 2026: native in-app display flow built and tested against the Devcon app; pretalx integration.
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2026-09-15: Devcon 8 theming ready for review.
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2026-10-05: feature-complete; organizer onboarding + organizers know about Meerkat well ahead of time.
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2026-10-20: moderator/AV briefing content; full dry run.
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2026-11-03 – 11-06: on-site support at JIO World Center, Mumbai.
Operational Requirements & Ownership
Deliverables (Meerkat)
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Native in-app display of live questions for all approved Devcon 2026 sessions (asking and voting in Meerkat).
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Theming to Devcon 2026.
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Moderator & AV briefing.
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On-call during event hours; daily summary to organizers.
Dependencies (Organizers)
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pretalx API access + final schedule.
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Q&A time built into session content/agenda, with time reserved for the stage to cut over to questions at the end.
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Listing in official communications + room QR signage.
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On-site desk near the organizer hub.
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Review check-ins during the build.
Resources / Support
- Travel & accommodation support, consistent with the prior Devconnect ARG engagement.