Chainlink and Pitango’s First Labs Unveil Summit and Hackathon to Boost Web3 Development In Israel

[PRESS RELEASE – Tel Aviv, Israel, 17th August 2022]

Upcoming Web3 summit and hackathon to enhance Israel’s web3 startup ecosystem by connecting initiatives with mentorship and industry thought leaders.

Ethereum-based decentralized oracle network Chainlink, in partnership with Israeli venture capital firm Pitango’s Web3 venture lab First Labs, has revealed an upcoming web3 summit and hackathon scheduled to kick-off in September 2022.

Chainlink and First Labs are collaborating with Outlier Ventures, Reichman University Venture, MarketAcross and Israeli Web 3.0 startups to empower groups and individuals to solve crypto-centric challenges and accelerate the development of open-source and cross-chain infrastructure.

Through this summit and hackathon, Chainlink and First Labs will serve as the conduit for blockchain initiatives to connect with local mentors and thought leaders from the Israeli startup ecosystem to address blockchain development challenges. The registration process is already underway, and the hackathon’s challenges will be announced on August 25th, two weeks before the event kicks off.

Just months ago, Pitango, a prominent Israeli venture capital firm, launched its Web3-focused venture lab named “First Labs.” First Labs aims to bridge the gap between Web2 and Web3 ecosystems. As part of First Labs’ endeavors, Pitango has also introduced a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) called First DAO, which will allocate investments across a range of Web3 projects.

First DAO is powered by a continuously evolving spectrum of funding mechanisms, combining traditional venture capital with community-driven open governance. Pitango’s Aviv Barzilay leads the first DAO and the DAO council members together with local and global leaders will be mentoring and supporting the teams and individuals exploring the tech challenges.

As an infrastructure provider, Chainlink ensures that on-chain smart contracts can securely and reliably connect to any external API and leverage off-chain computations to power diverse decentralized applications (dApps) and protocols. The Chainlink team is keen on supporting a stack of emerging decentralized projects covering Data DAOs, decentralized cloud services, and CCIP financial primitives, among others.

Both Chainlink and Pitango First understand that the Israeli startup ecosystem has made huge strides in Web3 development, proving its ability to build strong compute layers, developer and cybersecurity tools, and other valuable tools. However, despite the local ecosystem’s potential, there remains a shortage of internal engines that support innovation and key global players like Chainlink. As part of this collaboration, the Israeli Web3 community will be directly connected to Chainlink and its global market presence to accelerate the growth and development of Israeli Web3 startups.

“We see a lot of exciting opportunities for the Israeli tech community to contribute to Web3. To help drive innovation, we’re collaborating with First Labs on the first-ever Web3 hackathon in Tel Aviv, with attendees able to gain exclusive access to top-tier mentors and thought leaders. We’re looking forward to seeing what the Israeli startup ecosystem develops with the support of Chainlink, the industry-leading oracle solution.” — David Post, Managing Director, Corporate Development and Strategy, Chainlink Labs

Ayal Itzkoviz, Managing Partner at Pitango First added that: “We believe that in the coming years Web3 will break the boundaries of the crypto community and become a dominant modality for data sharing and novel applications used by native Web3 users and legacy “web2” users and organizations. We’re honored to partner with Chainlink Labs, the global leader in connecting real-world data into the blockchain networks, and together to assist the thriving Web3 Israeli ecosystem realize its full potential”.

About Chainlink

Chainlink is a go-to connectivity solution for the blockchain industry, empowering on-chain decentralized applications and protocols to access real-world data seamlessly, securely, and reliably. Through its diverse range of oracles, Chainlink translates and conveys data from the real world to smart contracts operating on the blockchain and vice-versa. Powered by its decentralized network of ever-growing nodes, Chainlink secures billions of dollars across DeFi, blockchain gaming, insurance, and other major industries, while also serving as a universal gateway that connects the fragmented blockchain ecosystem to external APIs and data.

About First Labs

Launched by Israel’s leading venture capital firm Pitango First, First Labs is a Web3-focused venture fund that aims to bridge the gap between Web2 and Web3. First Labs also has its community-driven and open governance DAO, First DAO, which is an investment DAO designed to identify and empower potential web3 startups. As the first traditional venture capital firm to launch an investment DAO, First Labs operates upon three core fundamentals: the community, its projects, and connectivity between the traditional finance and crypto ecosystems.