NEAR Builders Cafe: Roast My Repo
NEAR Builders Cafe: Roast My Repo takes place Sep 26, 2026 in Mumbai, India. Think of the late-night bonding at a YC Hacker House or a top-tier AI research retreat. We are bringing together 15-20serious builders in Mumbai for an afternoon of high-trust networking and collaborative building. No pitch decks. No VC speed-dating. No awkward small talk. We are engineering an environment where you actually get to know the person next to you by looking at their code, debating architecture, and helping each other get unstuck. If you are building AI agents, Web3 infrastructure, or consumer apps on Confidential AI/ Economy, this is your room. How We Network (The Anti-Fluff Format): The Blocker Board: When you arrive, you'll write your name, what you're building, and your #1 current bottleneck on a physical board. You will spend the afternoon connecting with the 2-3 people in the room who can help you solve it. The "Roast My Repo" Circle: We break into groups of 3. You open your laptops and literally show your peers your current architecture, UI, or agent logic. Real networking happens when you let people see your messy work-in-progress. Give & Get Roundtable: Everyone gets 2 minutes. No elevator pitches. You share: What I'm building, what I'm stuck on, and how this room can help me today. Dinner/Drinks Post-Session: The real magic happens when the laptops close. We will head to a nearby spot for food/drinks to decompress and solidify the connections made over code. Who is this for? Builders who want to find technical collaborators, not just "connections." Engineers, designers, and product hackers actively shipping on NEAR or AI. People who prefer deep, 1-on-1 technical debates over loud, crowded rooms.
About the event
NEAR Builders Cafe: Roast My Repo is part of a growing calendar of focused AI + Web3 gatherings where the people actually building protocols, writing contracts, and shipping products meet in person. The format is designed around real exchange, not broadcast.
Sessions cover practical ground in AI + Web3: how protocols are architected, where security assumptions break down, how governance actually gets implemented, and what the current generation of tooling makes possible that was not feasible a year ago.
The conversation tends to be specific rather than general. This is not an introduction to blockchain. It is a working gathering for people already in it.
What gets covered
Smart contract development and tooling: Foundry, Hardhat, Anchor, and the frameworks being used in production across AI + Web3, with sessions on testing patterns, deployment workflows, and common failure modes.
Protocol design and architecture: How to reason about state, composability, liquidity, and incentive design when building on a shared global ledger.
Security and auditing: Practical approaches to reviewing code, running fuzzing campaigns, setting up bug bounty programs, and learning from recent exploits.
Governance, DAOs, and treasury: How decentralized organizations make decisions at scale, manage protocol upgrades, and allocate community resources without capturing them.
Talks, demos, and the hallway
Teams form at the start and have the full event to build and ship something real. Sponsors post bounties and judges evaluate working prototypes, not decks. The best submissions often attract direct grant offers or follow-on investment.
Side events and evening gatherings run around the main schedule in Mumbai, India. Check the satellite event calendar alongside the official agenda.
Getting there and registering
The event is in Mumbai, India. Register through the official event website. Passes sell out, so do not wait.
Book accommodation early if you are traveling. Conference week hotel prices in most cities spike significantly once the main block of rooms fills.