Bitkub Labs Co., Ltd., also known as Bitkub Academy, the central hub for all things related to digital assets and blockchain technology, collaborated with Cardano blockchain founding entity EMURGO Cardano to organize the BizPitch: Business Pitching Competition under the special theme “Building Businesses One Idea at a Time.”
In the first-ever BizPitch: Business Pitching Competition event, a total of 30 finalists were selected to participate and take part in the event’s workshop sessions and competition. Throughout the four days, participants all took part in exclusive seminars and lectures, hosted under revolutionary topics, such as “Web 3.0 Marketing Strategies” presented by Mr. Nathaniel Acton, Vice President of Marketing at EMURGO, which focused on providing knowledge about adapting marketing strategies for the upcoming Web 3.0 era. This was followed by a special “How to Prepare a Good Pitch” seminary, hosted by Mr. Chusin Mateechaipong, Director of Academy at Bitkub Labs Co., Ltd. which emphasized providing insights towards preparing a well-structured business model, setting OKRs, and how to present ideas in a suitable tone and manner.
After taking part in the vigorous lectures and seminars, all with conclusive tests, the contestants were divided into 5 teams, 6 members each, to brainstorm ideas and develop models that are based on the Cardano blockchain. Bitkub Academy’s experts provided assistance and guidance throughout the event, along with a panel of honorable judges responsible for selecting the top three teams with the most constructive ideas.
The first-place award-winning group was Block Cracker, with a business model of “Preventing Counterfeiting and Copyright-Infringing within the Brand Name Industry,” which was focused on employing the Cardano blockchain to enhance transparency and verify authenticity for high-end products, which are often found to have knock-off versions in the general public. The team utilized NFT (Non-fungible Tokens) technology to enable validation for the buyer’s ownership, as well as verify the authenticity of products, allowing them to confirm that the product is genuinely copyrighted by the brand.
The first runner-up award-winning group was Ticker, who proposed a significant business model with the idea of “Utilizing the Cardano Blockchain in the Ticket Sales Business,” to prevent ticket scalping. The team’s emphasis on integrating the Cardano blockchain into their model was to verify a ticket holder’s rights and identity, while also implementing the design of an application structure to enable legal ticket purchasing to be more accessible and secure.
Lastly, the second runner-up award-winning group was Solved. The team presented a model focused on “Integrating the Cardano Blockchain into the Tourism Industry.” The team addressed the issue of modern tourism-based online applications having a high degree of centralization, resulting in users having to bear additional costs for room reservations, along with slow services. This resulted in the model of bringing in the Cardano blockchain to establish a secure and transparent platform that enables direct communication between customers and hotel operators, while lowering costs on the users’ end.”
Mr. Sugrit Phutaviriya, Chief Executive Officer of Bitkub Labs Co., Ltd., said, “Bitkub Academy and EMURGO share the same vision, which is to disperse knowledge about blockchain technology, digital assets, and the changes in society caused by digital technology to those who are interested, in the most accessible manner possible. This grants opportunities for society to adapt to the new changes in the Digital Disruption era. Therefore, we decided to organize the first-ever BizPitch: Business Pitching Competition, which is an opportunity for the young audience to engage with experts in the industry, as well as provide a foundation for their ideas to succeed and support their future careers..
Bitkub Academy will continue to organize such engaging and educational activities, as well as develop various technological advancements for the benefit of people. Recently, the revamped Bitkub Academy website has been enhanced with a new feature called “Learn to Earn”, introducing a fun aspect to learning, as well as enabling rewards and prizes. We encourage everyone to take part in innovations and activities that Bitkub Academy will organize in the future and look forward to creating more.”
“Due to the emergence of many new and rapidly-developing technologies, people are genuinely lacking in understanding, creating risk for them. It’s important for EMURGO and those leading the transition to Web3 to provide the platform and opportunities for people to learn about these emerging technologies, particularly the Cardano blockchain and Web3, so that they can harness it to empower themselves and build products and services that deliver unique value,” said EMURGO COO Nikhil Joshi.
Cardano is an open-source and decentralized blockchain driven by a research-first approach and built using peer-review methods. It has been designed since inception to be environmentally friendly and provides a platform to host decentralized applications that can provide accessible economic services to all. As one of the founding entities of Cardano, EMURGO is constantly creating and developing new products and solutions for the Cardano Web3 ecosystem. One of EMURGO’s latest products, Cardano Spot, is a knowledge hub and social network for Cardano enthusiasts to learn, share, and create Cardano-related content. For the first-ever BizPitch event, viewers worldwide were able to tune into a livestream on Cardano Spot to watch the competition.
Through the partnership between EMURGO and Bitkub Academy, there will continue to be more community events and educational initiatives to foster the growth of the Cardano community in Thailand and greater awareness of the benefits of Web3.
