Dispatch #2 - 15th June 2022
Building India's biggest student community & blockchain park in Goa, Goan web3 startup raises funds, book launch alert, a whole lot of web3 meetups and more ...
Hey friends,
We are back with our second dispatch!
Amidst a backdrop of crashing crypto markets, we are still optimistic and confident about the web3 space as a whole. We’ve got news about a blockchain park that’s coming to Goa, as well as continued progress by Goan entrepreneur Jason Fernandes.
About a week and a half ago, we held our second web3 meetup and this one was an absolute blast. We had a full house (thanks Cafe Rasa!) and folks still waiting outside the doors to get in. Some brilliant sessions and good after-hour sessions. We are definitely going to organise more of these.
We’ve found new friends and added new volunteers to the team. The community keeps growing. We are looking out for volunteer candidates for our community manager role and WordPress developer role. Volunteers at SG enjoy benefits including free tickets to conferences, fast-track routes on apprenticeships and full-time roles etc. Get in touch if you’re interested.
Warm regards from the SG team
Featured founders/startup
🛖Bluelearn - building the future of student communities
Bluelearn co-founders & BITS Goa graduates Harish & Shreyans recently got featured in the Forbes 30 under 30 Asia 2022 list. Along with founding members Kenan (engineering) & Vinit (design) they’ve built one of India’s leading online student communities having more than 60,000 members. They’ve been working from their office in Dona Paula for the past year.
Here’s an excerpt from the interview with Shreyans. You can read the full article on our blog.
“Building something from 0 to 1 is difficult, the odds are stacked against you, but I think the top 3 values that every entrepreneur needs to have are: Persistence, Resilience and hard work. Over the last 3 and half years we have learned so much, from how to cold call, to hiring someone 10+ years older than us. Every day we face a new problem that we have to extinguish and that’s what keeps us all motivated and excited for the future”
Goan tech/projects in the spotlight
🏙️ Blockchain Park launched in Goa
We have some good news for you web3 folks! - Major crypto exchange WazirX launches a Crypto park in our very own state. In collab with the Goa Institute of Management, WazirX will aid entrepreneurs to identify the value drivers of these innovative technologies. It will also ensure the creation of a policy framework for accelerating the growth of the start-ups and the Blockchain ecosystem.
Made with ♥️ in Goa or by Goans
💰Jason Fernandes’ crypto launchpad raises $2mn in 5 days
Candolim based serial entrepreneur & investor Jason Fernandes’ venture AdLunam raised $2mn in just 5 days, bringing the company’s evaluation to $22mn. The AdLunam platform which is based on “Proof of Attention” allows investors & users to earn tokens based on activities such as creating content, commenting, voting & referring. AdLunam’s own public sale will take place in the coming months on exchanges like Gate.io & Bitforex.
📕 New book launch by a community member!
‘The Incessant Debt Cycle’, a book by Johann Silva & illustrated by Gyles Ferrao is now available on Amazon and Flipkart.
The book lays the foundation for being able to make the right decisions in the stock market and would be the right category for a beginner to start studying.
📱Voter Q: Local voting app for Goa built by Sridhar Maskeri
Budding GEC undergraduate, Sridhar Maskeri, built an android app “Voter Q” for the Government of Goa. The app displays the number of people currently in the Queue in your particular Ward. Also, it would display the voting percentage.
The app was built using React-Native. Django was used for the back-end and was deployed using AWS.
Responses to articles from the community
🗣️ Google Translate adds Konkani: What are the Limitations?
Following up with an article from our last newsletter, community member Saurabh Kanekar shared with us an article which highlights some challenges that Google Translate faces when it comes to Konkani translation and alternate approaches to overcome the same.
Events & meetups
Upcoming
🌊 Web3 by the Sea - A blockchain, NFT & gaming summit
The Web3 by the Sea Blockchain and NFT summit is a showcase of the industry’s thought leaders, front runners and upcoming talent. On the 15th of July 2022, Blockchain and NFT minds will converge in Cavelossim, Goa to exchange, network and present ideas that are changing the landscape of the industry as we know it. Featuring Industry leaders, Developers Traders, Educational Institutions, Market makers, Gamers, NFT artists, Government and Launchpads. Interact with 18 speakers, and 7 partners as they cover topics in the Metaverse, NFTs, GameFi, Defi, Market Making, Regulation and new locations to host your Web 3 company. We hear there’s going to be an awesome after-party as well 🥳
🏝Web3Conf India is happening in Goa!
A nationwide web3 event happening on the 12th-13th & 14th of August. The event will include prominent speakers from across the globe. The event kicks off with a cruise party in a true Goan way & also includes ‘Community Spaces’ which are villas & coworking spaces run by DAOs, groups, projects & companies. Other events include a web3 Hackathon & Education summit - where discussions on best practices around hosting events, managing communities & educating folks will take place
Just got done
GM folks! We just got done with our very first event in a while - the Chainlink web3 meetup by the Chainlink Goa community & StartupGoa. It was really fun to interact with everyone. We covered several topics during the meetup:
Intro to Web3 by Mizan Mohammed, Crypto & Stock Trader & Analyst
Intro to Blockchain and Smart contracts by Yashwant Choudhary, DeFi and NFT Analyst
Chainlink Decentralized Oracle Networks by Elio Lopes, Co-founder/CEO - IntoTheVerse Inc & Shrey Keni - Engineer at socket.tech
The state of UX in web3 by Salil Naik - Lead frontend engineer at socket.tech
Chainlink Community Programs by Mr Bharath Silagani, Community Manager, India - Chainlink Labs
We’ll keep you posted on our upcoming events!
Suggested reading
🧱Thinking about building software like Legos
Composability is to software as compounding interest is to finance. Ideas can build on each other like legos. Just like software, ideas are composable.
📚Learn the basics of Web 3.0 in this brilliant Twitter thread
A thread to introduce you to what are the primitives, protocols, languages, & tools needed to build decentralized applications - an attempt to describe the web3 stack
📋Featured Jobs from the StartupGoa job board
The StartupGoa.org community is grateful for the support from our partners
Passbolt
Passbolt is the best password manager for teams and collaboration. Secure, flexible, and automation-ready. Trusted by over 10,000 organizations, including Fortune 500 companies, newspapers, governments and defence forces. Passbolt is partially built in Goa.
Numadic
Numadic is on a mission to undisrupt movement by enabling automated vehicle payment applications and infrastructure. Numadic’s vehicle payments platform supports several major banks in India. Proudly built almost entirely in Goa.
Grandworks
GrandWorks is a full-stack web design and development agency working for clients such as Spotify, OnePlus, OPPO, The Indian Government, UpCloud, Borosil, Hidesign, etc.
Contact mail@startupgoa.org if you’d like to support the community or volunteer.