From Architect to Web3 Entrepreneur: Navigating the Web3 Landscape with Lumos Labs
CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview with Kaavya Prasad, Founder, Lumos Labs
- Could you shed light on your journey into web3 and what motivated you to establish a tech based firm despite having a non-technical background.
An architect by degree, I was inclined towards innovation and creativity from the very beginning. I dabbled into various creative sectors such as graphic design, UI/UX, marketing, community building, etc, before finally settling into the role of an entrepreneur and founder.
My introduction to blockchain technology was during the early days before the term ‘web3’ was coined. After working with a few web3 based startups and networking with experts, my co-founder, Raghu Mohan (now Buidlers Tribe), and I were certain that this technology would surely bolster the global tech landscape and enable futuristic innovations. This belief in the potential of blockchain pushed us to establish Lumos Labs in 2020 . My aim was to establish a web3 innovation ecosystem providing holistic community building, developer onboarding, and marketing services for global web3 firms and removing barriers to their India entry as India was and still is a hotbed of developer talent. Lumos Labs went on to organize and facilitate 40+ programs with leading web3 names such as Binance, Polygon, NEAR Protocol, Hedera, etc, as well as fostered collaborations with certain Indian state governments, thereby giving a major push to the blockchain story in India.
Currently, we at Lumos Labs have further expanded our offerings to a product suite that will cater to the web3 developer ecosystem comprehensively.
- How did web3 disrupt the existing tech landscape?
Emerging technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning, mixed reality, etc, accelerated rapidly during the pandemic. Acting as the catalyst, the sudden surge in demand for digitization enabled a technology revolution where new innovations were encouraged and needed. Web3 technology was one of the primary tech sectors that modelled the new age of innovations that saw massive highs during 2021. Reaching a peak of over $3 billion in 2021, web3 disrupted several traditional systems with its features of security, anonymity, and immutability. With viable use cases across sectors like technology, finance, investment, entertainment, governance, manufacturing, supply chain, healthcare, etc, blockchain was incorporated steadily to make these industries more efficient and secure as well as upgrading them with modern technology.
While decentralized finance (DeFi), unlocked avenues for novel financial services, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) opened the market to digital assets, trading, fractional ownership, and became a significant bridge between web2 and web3 where numerous web2 companies entered the NFT industry for its unique status and distinct ownership value. The security enabled by this disruptive tech as well as the protection of user identity drove the web3 adoption which was further cemented through the emergence of NFTs and Metaverse.
- Why is there a growing demand for Web3 talent and what measures can be taken to meet this demand?
The web3 boom was chiefly led by startups and founders which led to more demand and employment within the industry. With the rising growth, the demand for skilled developers, writers, marketers, community builders, and more, increased rapidly to ensure smooth development of startups from inception to viable businesses. While the blockchain sector witnessed pioneering augmentation, finding experienced and remarkable web3 talent became a difficult feat, which it still is.
Web3 has always had an open learning environment with nearly all decentralized solutions having their own whitepaper containing detailed explanations of their offerings, technology infrastructure, mission, vision, etc, easily accessible to interested folks. This openness towards learning and providing credible resources to increase awareness is further accelerated by the hackathons and accelerators hosted by leading names of the industry to incentivize learning and monetization within the sector. Additionally, there are platforms like Lumos Academy, a web3 education platform, through which budding developers can gain the required skills across different levels and chains to ensure holistic growth.
- What motivated you to redirect the focus of Lumos Labs into creating a web3 developer centric ecosystem?
The ever-expanding web3 ecosystem has a number of opportunities to learn, earn, explore, get hired, and network. Yet there were multiple challenges ailing the sector, especially developers and users. While the problems of scalability and lack of user friendly interfaces are well-known and being worked upon, there are certain pertinent obstacles that make web3 adoption difficult for new entrants and developers. With a plethora of opportunities comes a plethora of platforms to access them. This has resulted in scattering of said opportunities across different web3 service providers, as well as lead to duplication of online identities and information.
Having worked with over 60K developers through the course of 40+ different developer growth initiatives, Lumos Labs had the chance observe the progress from the grassroots which motivated us to rethink our role within the web3 ecosystem and pivot to a more product centric offering that aims to solve for the pertinent hurdles of web3 developer adoption. We reimagined a Lumos Labs ecosystem with a highly relevant developer centric product suite catering to every need of a web3 developer. With the different offerings of the platform, we aim to become a one stop shop for everything web3.
- What does the Lumos Labs developer centric ecosystem comprise of? What significance will it have for the overall web3 sector?
Lumos Labs’ ecosystem comprises different developer centric offerings that are focused on seamlessly enabling a web3 developer journey from 0 to 1. Our objective is to present a singular platform where developers can explore, learn, participate, collaborate, and get hired; therefore, every stage of a developer’s growth has been taken into consideration.
A few of our products are already out including Lumos Academy, a web3 education platform that has crossed over 4000+ developers, as well as Lumos Accelerate, which is in line to our initial offering of conducting and organizing accelerators and hackathons of fostering web3 development.
We have also launched the second edition of our flagship initiative, BUIDL for Web3 Summit 2023, where we are bringing global web3 opportunities for jobseekers, builders, developers, and startups, under one roof, for an exciting physical conference which will including keynote sessions from global leaders, a job fair, startup pitch, expert panels, and a vast reward pool to foster web3 augmentation.
Additionally, our next focus is Lumos HackHub, a virtual hackathon platform that will ensure web3 firms can conduct global hackathons without the hassle of using different providers during different stages of the program and will ensure participation from a global developer ecosystem as well as access to our thriving developer community. Apart from these, we have already started the development of Lumos Recruit, a platform chiefly focused on web3 recruitment and hiring, as well as Lumos Metaverse, the final stage wherein all our distinct offerings will be hosted within a single virtual world for ease of access for developers. We are also building an identity and reputation layer which will ensure that there is no duplication of digital avatars and Lumos users would need to register only once across any Lumos offering and they will be able to log in, or technically, virtually walk into any other Lumos solution, freely.
- What role does web3 centric education play in fostering web3 adoption and onboarding new users? How would Lumos Academy ensure holistic growth of developers and make their journey into web3 seamless?
Learning and increasing awareness around this new tech has been an inherent feature of the web3 sector. While there are a number of resources available and easily accessible for any interested user, finding a comprehensive guide to augment web3 education ensures growth across different verticals and helps developers in navigating their strengths and weaknesses. Additionally, having a foundation of web3 education helps in understanding the different offerings of the market, using different programming languages and coding etiquettes which have a learning curve for new entrants.
Through Lumos Academy, our native education platform, we aim to cater to developers across geographies, skills, and chains. Our courses and modules are focused on upskilling beginner to advanced developers as well as web2 developers transitioning to web3. Additionally, we also offer chain- specific courses for developers who want targeted learnings or just want to polish their skills. Our How-To content bytes further enable developers learning from us to build something first hand which they can have as tangible takeaways, apart from the various achievement NFTs offered on the platform as incentives that can be showcased onto their Lumos Metaverse profiles eventually.
We have allowed for different learning paths and have partnered with leading chains within the space to ensure developers can have multiple options to sustain their web3 journey. Our goal is to ensure that any developer that enters the Lumos Academy completes his web3 education journey without any disruptions and has different learning options depending upon their requirements or interests.
- Future plans of Lumos Labs in its endeavour to establish a one stop shop for web3 developers and industry augmentation
The future plans of Lumos Labs are very much developer centric. As mentioned earlier, we plan to establish a developer focused ecosystem that caters to fulfill every need of a web3 developer and seamlessly curates the journey of a user from a web3 explorer to a fully qualified web3 professional with the required knowledge, skills, reputation, and credibility. We also want to onboard the next generation of qualified developers to meet the growing web3 demand and allow global web3 firms to leverage the talent pool, garnered within the Lumos Metaverse.
Through our offerings, we aim to become the web3 haven for users to keep track of and have the chance to leverage global web3 opportunities and allow access to the thriving Lumos developer community for web3 firms to showcase their ecosystem offerings as well as hire talent according to their needs.
