Field Notes from Chicagoland’s Inaugural Web3 Innovation Summit
Earlier in April, I had the great privilege of representing ETHChicago at the Midwest’s very first Web3 Innovation Summit organized by 1871, Chicago’s premier venue for innovation and tech entrepreneurship, and the U.S. Blockchain Coalition together with a number of partners from across the Web3 ecosystem.
The Summit was a culmination of the Web3 Innovation Lab that set out to nurture Web3-first startups with business models centered around blockchain and decentralized technology, thematically divided into four carefully selected focus areas - infrastructure, all things identity, enabling government, and use cases for normies - the areas that do not typically produce juicy headlines but that are deeply rooted in the real world needs.
While in the lab, the growth-stage and late-stage start-ups received ample resources to move their business forward - mentorship, access to the 1871 space, co-branded amplification, programming, and access to investors and industry experts. Nine start-ups were shortlisted to proceed to the pitch showcase on the Summit Day (April 17th, 2024) - a day jam-packed with keynotes, networking opportunities, expert panels, and start-up expos.
The day started with some networking over breakfast, followed by the opening remarks by 1871’s CEO Betsy Ziegler, who welcomed the audience to the new frontier of Web3. The keynote speech was given by Charles Hoskinson of Input Output Global who emphasized the philosophical underpinnings of the new era of the Internet and encouraged all founders to focus on governance from day one, instead of letting it be an afterthought.
Still early in the morning, Arry Yu, the stellar Co-founder and Executive Director of the U.S. Blockchain Coalition, welcomed to the stage, the likewise stellar - Lauren Thorbjornsen of the Stellar Development Foundation (no pun intended). Lauren delivered a very insightful presentation about the impact of decentralized technology on everyday financial lives, both in advanced economies and emerging markets. Stellar’s pilot in providing on-chain assistance to Ukraine during the early days of the war was definitely noteworthy.
Next, we moved to another format - a fireside chat with prof. Sarit Markovich of Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, and Nathan Love of T-Mobile Wholesale - the panel that I got lucky enough to moderate. We discussed the real-world uses cases of the blockchain technology and explored the idea of failure as a learning tool. We agreed that when it comes to commercial applications, the “business school fundamentals” of value creation and value capture needed to hold in the emerging tech space as well. Of course, the key also remains - start with a pain point that needs solving for. However, the idea of decentralization was where we seemed to disagree with the keynote speaker. Prof. Markovich emphasized that decentralization did not need to be a 1-or-0 situation. Instead, she saw it as a continuum where each project could and should decide how much decentralization it wanted to have. “If Ethereum were not decentralized, it would be a much more innovative company because Vitalik could just make a decision and move the organization toward that decision a lot faster,” she said.
After the panel, we stayed close to the topic of Web3 in the real world. Arry Yu joined in a conversation with Nelson Rosario of Nelson Tech Law and Katherine Kirkpatrick of CBOE Digital to discuss barriers - whether institutional, regulatory, or generational - to adoption of Web3 tools. The brief exchange on the age average in the Web3 space was both amusing as well as a very down-to-earth insight into the generational dynamic in this emerging space.
After a nutritious lunch from the carefully assembled bento boxes, the afternoon was all about getting to know the cohort of founders. Out of seventeen that started the program, the following nine were selected by a panel of judges on the preceding day to pitch during the Summit Day Showcase:
Driving player acquisition and retention via a community-owned game publishing platform powered by blockchain.
Pioneering the future of legacy and estate planning, with a focus on digital assets, by leveraging blockchain, cryptography, and smart contracts.
Leveraging blockchain to create a cross-chain, heterogeneous, algorithmic credit reporting, scoring, and lending protocol for centralized and decentralized applications.
Providing brands with tools to authenticate products and experiences as well as creating digital twins using tokenization.
Developing highly scalable and easy-to-deploy blockchain-based computer applications and digital tools designed to ensure greater transparency, traceability, and accountability in global supply chains.
A B2B software company, which licenses software and provides services to drive customer success.
An enterprise-grade authenticity, intellectual property rights and legal management solution for Web3 digital assets.
A dynamic “data as a service” platform for the solar industry to locate, buy, sell, store, and monetize solar data.
Championing a new era of raising capital in the private markets leveraging blockchain and tokenization of securities, investor networking tools and services.
The afternoon also gave space to an immersive ‘Startup Expo’ where one could walk booth-by-booth to meet all the seventeen+ founders from the cohort and learn about their ideas and the impact they are all already making in the world.
A day such as this one would not be complete without a high-caliber closing keynote speaker - Jeff Gaus of the Provenance Chain Network - who presented a strategic macroeconomic roadmap looking at the emerging technologies and their role in solving problems with a big human impact.
As the curtains drew on the Midwest’s inaugural Web3 Innovation Lab, one thing remains abundantly clear: Web3 is not just the new frontier of the Internet, it also is a frontier of innovation and a testament to the power of collaboration, creativity, and relentless determination in the face of so much unknown.
I am very thankful for the opportunity to represent the ETHChicago community at this event, leaving me even more energized around our mission of elevating Web3 innovation and entrepreneurship in the Midwest through even more education and even more events!
Thank you to 1871 and the U.S. Blockchain Coalition for this fantastic partnership!
If you would like to learn more about ETHChicago or simply talk Web3, don’t hesitate to reach out at katia@block-333.com or follow me at Medium / Substack.