I'm not a fan to pay for travel and hotel costs with treasury. If a conference is not attractive enough, maybe we should consider cancelling it or taking place of it with an online event.

I don't think professionals should be compensated for their plane tickets and accommodation for a conference. Event ticket is already free, which, from my experience, is also not very common in the space. Attendance to conferences is an investment for any professional, and if the network is not able to generate enough income for its professionals that they end up seeking treasury support for their travels, then we should think about a better solution to that problem. Nay.

as mentioned in the AAG, we do think this needs to be a unbias, on its selection processes. more clarity would be great. I feel if we are sponsoring people to go to the event, they need to be Bringing some Value to the ecosystem, either by being speakers or being part of the hackathon, they can be creative but this is not a come and party! kind of event, but a community building event. Past sponsored people should not be allowed to be part of the selected cohort to the event.

While the initiative's goals are positive, clearer guarantees of impartial selection and proven contributions are necessary. We abstain for now.

I'm probably a bit biased against this from my own experience in my own career in an industry with a lot of events and conferences as well. Usually, in academia, these types of sponsorships are reserved for junior members (<5 years into their career), which means postgraduates students or early stage researchers. In industry, any professional who attends them either pays through their own pockets or their business/employer pays for them. I fail to understand why we're paying for a bunch of, by their own admission, industry professionals with "years of experience" to fly to Buenos Aires to attend?

I think this is important as a community development initiative, especially when Polkadot is in a time of reform and adjustments, e.g. a new strategy is taking place and we need to coalesce around it. I do agree with the arguments around really determining need, as well as that professionals should pay their own way, however at the current time I think the level of business, opportunity and investment in third parties are not really enough to support it.