Steve Monroe, the host of coworking academy, welcomed everyone to the CUAsia (Coworking Unconference Asia) 2017 with an introduction to its origin. He co-owns and operates a coworking space in Bali, called Hubud; they launched the first CUAsia in 2014, and its purpose was to act as a meetup place for other Indonesian coworking spaces.

The number of attendees at CUAsia continued to increase exponentially over the following years, and it began to attract members outside of Bali, such as Europe and the States. In 2017, CUAsia Carnival was held in Chiang Mai, Thailand; it was a huge success,  vindicated by  the tickets being ‘sold out.’

The purpose of the conference was to take advantage of two opportunities that could arise from such an environment – first being, providing fantastic examples of different coworking spaces, owners and operators around the region who were there for the conference. Second, it offered a platform to support and propagate the idea that coworking industry functions differently compared to the highly competitive environment of a traditional industry. Coworking spaces do have competition in some markets, but it is more like a community/sharing ecosystem as depicted by the guest speakers who were willing to share their time and experience with everyone there, for next to nothing.