Change is in the air, and this time the winds are blowing from East to West.

The goal of creating an open web is at the heart of the NEAR Foundation. An open web is the web without the influence of corporations or gatekeepers, where everyone has an equal chance to create, participate, and be fairly rewarded for their data, ideas, and effort. This idea isn’t just something important for the Foundation, it is something that is also close to my own heart. As I begin my time in Asia to speak at Korea Blockchain Week, NEAR APAC in Vietnam, and Token2049 in Singapore, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on why this is, and why an open web is so important for this region.

For a long time, a handful of tech companies, all of which were founded in Western countries, have dominated the web. The absence of diverse voices and ways of thinking have led to a paradigm that has been a conceptual limit to innovation, and one that has left many people feeling unseen, unheard, and unable to fully participate. An open web offers a way to change all of that.

When we begin to remove the Western Web2 paradigm, we begin to see amazing things emerge. In Korea we have recently signed partnerships with MarbleX, and Vortex gaming. We are also witnessing the surge of Cosmose AI, a partnership launched only a few weeks ago. Each of these companies are creating unique products, but they share a common desire to find innovative and creative ways to build more engaging user experiences that foster deeper connections between developers and users, while giving everyone a way to be fairly rewarded for the time and effort. Each of these projects embrace the spirit of an open web.

This excitement around a better way forward can be seen and felt across the region. A perfect example of this is NEAR APAC. Next week we will be hosting our first ever NEAR APAC conference in Vietnam. While we knew there was a strong interest in Web3 and desire to create a more open web, we didn’t expect that we would sell over 15,000 tickets. We are humbled by this number. It shows the desire and enthusiasm people have to be part of a new paradigm where diverse voices from around the world have an equal opportunity to build what’s next.

Change is in the air, and this time the winds are blowing from East to West.