Relaunching DIA Labs
We are thrilled to announce the revamp of DIA’s innovation lab by expanding its development tracks, adding a new stellar mentor base and a new principal lead.
In Q4 2020, with the surge of new solutions and tech stacks in DeFi, DIA announced DIA Labs, a grant and acceleration program designed to support and accelerate the development of building blocks for the DeFi ecosystem.
In Q1 2021, the DeFi space witnessed an unprecedented growth in new products and platforms, complemented by a stablecoin craze and significant rise in retail and institutional participation in the digital asset market. In order to facilitate the creation of a consolidated ecosystem for new projects, adapt to the versatile needs of the expanding market and create an inclusionary platform in the digital asset ecosystem we are excited to announce DIA Labs 2.0.
In addition to maintaining our support for innovative projects in the space, DIA Labs will now also serve as a platform for regulatory interaction, DeFi/CeFi interconnectedness and relationship building between DeFi innovators and lawmakers. Moreover, DIA Labs will kickstart a platform aimed at tackling disproportionate female representation in emerging tech.
What is DIA Labs?
DIA Labs is a nucleus for experimentation, networking and engagement.
DIA’s core mission is to provide transparent, open-source and regulatory compliant data as a key building block for the overall development of the DeFi ecosystem. DIA Labs will support this structure by contributing to the maturation of the space via its three development tracks: regulatory interaction, promotion of women in tech and experimentation with disruptive technology.
Three Development Tracks
1. Regulatory interaction and incumbent partnerships
Global regulatory guidelines, legislative proposals and regulations have emerged and are in the process of being developed and implemented across multiple jurisdictions. However, the intricacies and interconnections underpinning decentralised finance are still largely overlooked or misinterpreted. In a cross-ecosystem effort, DIA Labs will spearhead and build a nucleus for advocacy and education on DeFi together with other key players in the ecosystem.
Regulated entities will need clean data sets for products built at the intersection of DeFi and CeFi while regulators will need to deploy new tools to access and regulate on-chain activity. In that respect, DIA will play a crucial role as a provider of regulatory compliant, sanitised and transparent data sets as well as immutable audit trails.
We believe in an interconnected, hybrid DeFi/CeFI ecosystem. DIA Labs will accelerate the transformation of this vision into reality via multiple angles, including interaction with lawmakers and incumbent players in an effort to help define a new and revolutionary ecosystem in a sustainable manner.
2. Women in emerging tech empowerment
Efforts to attract more women in crypto and emerging tech are admirable but relatively disjointed. Multiple factors have influenced disproportionate female representation in emerging tech and some of them are not yet clearly defined.
Inclusion should commence with access to education and evolve towards identifying hidden talent, providing targeted funding opportunities for women and supporting research aimed at identifying the cause for gaps in representation. DIA Labs Women, via its eclectic and impressive line-up of mentors, will build a women in emerging tech movement seeking to solve the aforementioned issues and to promote support for DeFi projects with women at the helm.
We will announce our mentorship base progressively and our choice of partners will represent a clear indication of our aspirations and goals for this section of Labs.
3. DeFi ecosystem development
DIA has consciously chosen a decentralised approach for its core product and the overall governance parameters because we believe in the power of the community. Even though we currently focus on financial data in its various permutations, the ambition is to expand way beyond that.
Decentralisation doesn’t only apply to financial services — it represents a novel form of collaboration via code governance, incentives alignment and game theoretic mechanics, the aggregation of which is arguably the most powerful form of innovation — a form of innovation built around the democratisation of access.
This is exactly why DIA Labs, via its ecosystem development track, will act as a testbed for projects that aim to disrupt centralised systems.
With the support of mentors and partners, DIA Labs’ DeFi ecosystem development track will engage with interdisciplinary creative minds within DeFi, NFT, digital fashion, green crypto, gaming, sports and other segments to experiment and build the best and most disruptive projects in the space.
DIA Labs Team
New Principal
Ioana Surpateanu DIA Labs is led by DIA’s Chief Strategy Officer. With 15+ years of expertise in emerging tech and blockchain, Ioana is specialised in the design and implementation of strategies and EU-level policy engagement, with a clear focus on digital assets and emerging technologies.
New Mentors
Julie Muroff (COO @ Blockworks), a crypto force with specific ‘crypto institutional symbiosis’ expertise will join as a mentor for the women development angle within Labs. A renowned and passionate supporter of diversity in crypto, Julie will be instrumental in amplifying our women empowerment ambition and subsequent initiatives aimed at generating substantial change.
Alberto Zilio (Director of Government Affairs @ AT&T), one of the most versatile policy design and political engagement specialists in Brussels , with leadership roles in AmCham EU and transatlantic industry bodies, will join as mentor for the policymaking interaction angle, to support our advocacy and innovation promotion projects in the political environment.
Prof. Will Knottenbelt, one of the first academics to fully embrace crypto and create and lead a Centre for Cryptocurrency Research within Imperial College, will join as a mentor and partner for our DeFi Ecosystem development initiatives, especially on research, project incubation and student interaction and promotion.
Dotun Rominiyi, a vastly experienced blockchain and emerging tech specialist at the London Stock Exchange Group, will join us as a mentor to support Labs in our DeFi /CeFi collaboration projects as well as the regulatory interaction segment, with the aim of building additional bridges between decentralised finance and the institutional ecosystem.
What’s next?
In the coming months, DIA Labs will announce a series of partnerships and initiatives designed to support, promote and engage with novel and disruptive projects and teams. We will progressively expand the mentorship base and organise events, initialise projects and engage with partners to concretise the aforementioned three-tracked goals.
Follow the activity of DIA Labs via our own Twitter account or the website and get in touch with us to discuss your ideas at labs@diadata.org.
About DIA Labs
DIA Labs is a nucleus for experimentation, networking and engagement. This structure supports DIA’s overall mission of providing transparent, open-source and regulatory compliant data as a core function of the DeFi infrastructure, alongside a multifaceted contribution to the overall development of the ecosystem.
