Algorand awards $10,000 to the winner of Creating Impact! Pitch Competition for Innovation in Blockchain

Announces strategic partnerships with T-Hub, India's leading innovation ecosystem, and TiE Bangalore, a global organization devoted to supporting entrepreneurs through networking, mentoring, and funding, to further bolster the Web3 ecosystem in India

NEW DELHI, Dec. 4, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Algorand Foundation, through its India-focused initiative AlgoBharat, awarded US$10,000 to the winner of its Creating Impact! Pitch Competition, for transformative blockchain-based solutions, on Friday (1st Dec), which culminated at the Algorand Impact Summit in New Delhi. The winner is LW3 from Assam. The LW3 P3 (Phygital Product Passport) is a traceability solution that uses a combination of IoT technologies and Algorand's blockchain protocol to provide digital & secure provenance to end consumers. To build on its investment in India's Web3 ecosystem, Algorand also announced partnerships with T-Hub and TiE Bangalore.

Algorand's expanded partnership with T-Hub, one of Asia's largest tech incubators, includes the launch of the Algorand Startup Labs at T-Hub. This 12-month program aims to accelerate the growth of high-performing Indian Web3 startups building on the Algorand blockchain. T-Hub will provide crucial support to 20 Web3 startups, including the finalists of the pitch competition, throughout the stages of product readiness, market preparation, investor engagement, and eventual mainnet launch.

Algorand's partnership with TiE Bangalore includes the Foundation's rapid expansion in the Bangalore tech community, with master class series, training programs, startup engagements, and various other educational programs to demonstrate the real-world utility of blockchain.

"The solutions that came out of AlgoBharat's Creating Impact! Pitch Competition is a testament to the fact that India is at the epicenter of global blockchain innovation," said Anil Kakani, Vice President, and India Country Head at Algorand Foundation. "We are proud of the achievement of the winners and all who competed, and feel confident that the continued support we will offer India's Web3 startups through investment and collaboration with T-Hub and TIE Bangalore will continue to strengthen India's leadership position."

Winners of the "Creating Impact!" Pitch Competition were judged based on the following criteria:

• Impact: Does the project help improve access to capital/finance, markets, or services?
• Scale: How large is the addressable market that the solution can serve?
• Development stage: How developed is the solution?
• Innovation: How innovative is the project team's use of blockchain?

Algorand also formalized its partnership with NASSCOM as the leading layer 1 blockchain protocol to support the training platform's emphasis on training the next generation of computer programmers. Algorand will provide training content for Web3 developers through this partnership.

AlgoBharat launched its 'Road to Impact' in July with workshops in cities across India to support teams ready to build their impactful Web3 solutions on Algorand. The first leg of the competition took place in Delhi, followed by Ahmedabad, Kolkata, and Hyderabad. The competition received an overwhelming response from the Indian blockchain community as several hundred developers participated and submitted over 175 projects. Out of these 175, 10 teams were shortlisted to present before a panel of judges at the summit.

Apart from LW3, the first runner-up - Maximus was awarded US$7,500, and the third-place winner - FDP was awarded US$5,000, with all finalists receiving additional resources to deploy their solutions on mainnet. All ten semi-finalists took part in the Algorand Impact Summit, a premier blockchain event of 2023 interacting with policy officials, investors, executives, and other thought leaders from India and around the world on November 30 and December 1 in India's capital city.

For more information, please visit: https://www.algorand.foundation/impact-summit 

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