Innovation Forum and Demo Day 2024
Registration Opens for Blockchain Innovation Forum,
Xcelerator Demo Day
& Funding the Commons SF Bay Area Events
Register (space is limited) to join us in-person in Berkeley or virtually on April 12, 2024 to explore the latest trends & exciting startups, and discuss what’s next!
For the industry, academia and founders, the Blockchain Innovation Forum, hosted by the Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator & Blockchain at Berkeley, with support from Berkeley RDI, and planned in connection with the Funding the Commons SF Bay Area event (details below) on April 13–14th, invites thought leaders, venture capital, educators & innovators to share insights with our large Berkeley and broader community.
The programming days will include leaders from Berkeley faculty, VC firms including Electric Capital, Theory Ventures, & Franklin Templeton, plus Protocol Labs, Aptos, NEAR AI, Optimism RPGF, Gitcoin, Linux Foundation and more to be announced!
The Forum also highlights our annual Xcelerator Demo Day for the 2024 7th cohort. Our Xcelerator has worked with 110 global teams since 2019 that have raised $650+M in follow-on funding!
Agenda:
- Guest Speaker Panels — Insight from thought leaders, venture capital, and innovators
- Demo Day — Pitches from the 2024 global, 7th cohort of startups of Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator
- Expo — Meet with the Xcelerator teams and supporting projects to learn about dev and career opportunities!
Date: April 12, 2024
Venue: David Brower Center, downtown Berkeley, immediately adjacent to the Berkeley campus. Map.
Registration: Sign up to attend in-person or virtually here; the event is free and open to the public, but space is limited.
IF YOU REQUIRE ACCESSIBILITY ACCOMMODATIONS FOR ATTENDING, please submit your request by 4/1/2024 at rdi_events@berkeley.edu with your planned dates of attendance. Thank you.
Are you a builder, researcher, academic, student, funder, philanthropist or public official deeply immersed in (or curious about!) the future of public goods funding?
Join us for the 8th Funding the Commons conference April 13–14th, 2024 at the David Brower Center in Berkeley, California
For this 2-day event, our focus is on two areas of rapid innovation underpinning fundamental infrastructure for navigating the digital-physical commons: AI and the Open Web.
Themes explored will include:
- Pioneering experiments in new funding mechanisms for public goods
- Platforming successful model methodologies leveraging open source technologies and artificial intelligence with scaling potential
- Understanding the role of AI and open source in funding, building and supporting public goods — and as public goods themselves
- Frameworks for incubation and methods of support for high-potential innovation
- Explorations of feedback loops to optimize impact evaluation
What to Expect:
We will iterate on our signature format, bringing together builders, funders, and researchers to spotlight the latest research and innovations in open source technology and AI as applied to digital public goods and funding infrastructure.
Expect a mix of inspirational talks, workshops, networking corners, as well as intimate conversations with thought-leaders.
Speaker Highlights Include:
- Brian Behlendorf (Linux Foundation)
- Alex Skidanov (NEAR AI)
- Dr. Dawn Song (Berkeley RDI)
- Kevin Owocki (Gitcoin)
- Al Smith (Tor Project)
- Juan Benet (Protocol Labs)
- Eugene Leventhal (Metagov)
- LaNaMu (Optimism DAO affiliate researcher)
- Navroop Sahdev (Digital Economist)
- Evan Miyazono (Atlas Computing)
- Cameron Dennis (NEAR Foundation)
- Era Qian (Edge Network)
- Chinar Movsisyan (Manot)
We will be announcing more speakers soon — follow us on Twitter @FundingCommons and sign up for our newsletter for regular updates on conference programming.
Registration: Sign up here for Funding the Commons x Earth Commons! Use code BERKELEYFTC25 for $25 OFF for a limited # of Xcelerator subscribers — first come, first served.
Partners & Sponsors: The Funding the Commons experience design team is thrilled to be joined by partners Berkeley Center for Responsible Decentralized Intelligence, Blockchain at Berkeley, Open Source Observer, Gray Area, Edge Network, Artizen Fund, and infinitely grateful for our sponsors Protocol Labs, NEAR, Octant, Drips Network, Brave, Optimism, and Astrofitters in curating an interdisciplinary program of discourse, participatory engagement and experimentation.
About Funding the Commons: Funding the Commons was incubated by Protocol Labs (Network Goods) as an independent project and a bridge between builders and researchers to establish new mechanisms for public goods funding leveraging open source technologies.
2024 Cohort News
Giza Launches End-to-End Product to Build ML Solutions for Web3
Giza, in our 2024 cohort (hear more from them on Demo Day on April 12th — see news at top), recently launched their product suite to enable building production-ready machine learning solutions for Web3 which received a very positive reaction from enthusiasts. Giza Datasets aims to be the entry point for any ML engineer to develop meaningful predictions for blockchain by providing curated, labeled datasets to train models. Giza’s Actions SDK provides a native developer experience to those looking to develop production-ready ZKML solutions for web3, directly in Python, abstracting all complexity of zero-knowledge. Giza’s mission to integrate trust-minimized ML into decentralized applications and agents carries on at full speed, stay tuned for further updates such as Gizathons and further product launches!
To find out more click here.
Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator Newsletter
March 27, 2024
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