Solving the tech talent crunch with TAIKAI Labs

Problem

The team at TAIKAI Labs was frustrated by having to execute crypto transactions manually, which was both time-consuming and not a very safe process. 

Yes, this means asking manually for invoices, doing manual payments, making sure they were paying to the right address, etc.

Solution

Request Finance has helped the team save so much time on their enterprise crypto payments by simplifying the process using batch payments. 

It’s a secure and easy way to do their crypto payroll each month using Request Finance; TAIKAI Labs pay their team in crypto at the end of the month in just a few clicks. 

All of the team’s crypto invoices are also managed using Request Finance. Crypto payments are done in bulk, and they don’t need to worry about whether they are sending funds to the right wallet address because they are linked to their names and email addresses.

Just 30 minutes per month

The clean user experience in the app simplifies the whole process, making it secure and easy for both organizations, and employees to use it.

“We’ve seen so much efficiency gains ever since we started using Request Finance. It helps us pay our team in crypto at the end of the month in just a few clicks - and we just love it! I’d usually spend 1 to 2 days a month just on making crypto payments alone. Now, I take just 30 minutes per month, thanks to Request Finance.”‍

Mário Ribeiro Alves, CEO & Co-founder of TAIKAI Labs

About TAIKAI Labs

There is a global tech talent shortage - and it's only getting worse. 

In 2022, the organizational consulting firm, Korn Ferry, released a report estimating a global shortfall of nearly 4.3 million tech workers by 2030. All these potentially unfilled roles add up to about 59 times the current number of employees at Alphabet, Google’s parent company.

Most approaches to solving the tech talent crunch attempt the enormously difficult task of trying to increase the pipeline of tech talent via educational pathways. This ranges from introducing coding into school curricula, or coding bootcamps to upskill existing talent already in the workforce. 

However, trying to change the talent pipeline via education is like trying to steer a gargantuan ocean freighter: change is slow. Moreover, training more students to become developers runs into the natural limitations imposed by individual preferences and aptitudes. Not everyone in an economy can, or should be trained as a developer. 

For Portuguese entrepreneurs, Mário Alves and Hélder Vasconcelos, a solution to the looming talent crisis is to reimagine the future of work. 

What if, instead of trying to fill every role, companies instead embraced employees working multiple jobs? In fact, with the normalization of remote work amidst the pandemic, many people were already doing so, as a report by the Wall Street Journal found.

In a global survey conducted by LinkedIn, 37% of respondents said their current job does not fully utilize their skills, or provide enough of a challenge. If talent is not being maximized at one company, then allowing them to take on extra work elsewhere could help alleviate talent shortages. 

From this eureka moment, Mário and his team launched TAIKAI Labs in 2018. 

‍

‍

TAIKAI has built decentralized collaborative tools that connect companies with developers, by crowdsourcing solutions to their challenges. Its two main products are the TAIKAI Hackathon Platform and the Bepro Network: a protocol for open innovation bounties.

In just three years, TAIKAI has held challenges to support innovation through more than 100 hackathons in collaboration with some of the world’s largest organizations – including Pfizer, Nissan, ByteDance, Microsoft and the European Commission. TAIKAI has also been working with large Web3 brands like the Near foundation, Ethereum Foundation, Solana, Harmony and Telos.

‍

‍

Outstanding talent who participate at these hackathons, or open-source development projects stand a chance of being hired by the companies that sponsor them. On top of being considered for employment, the best participants to advance in the recruitment process are rewarded with crypto tokens, regardless of whether or not they eventually land a job. 

With an impressive and growing community of over 50,000 developers, and a team of 24 team members, TAIKAI is well on its way to helping address the tech talent crunch in the coming years.

In September 2021, the startup announced a $2 million fundraising round led by the German fund of C3 Management, and with the participation of Portugal Ventures and Bright Pixel. TAIKAI says the funds will fuel its expansion in Europe and Brazil, and develop better hiring solutions for companies and startups.

Looking ahead, the team is working towards releasing Version 2.0 of their Bounty Network for decentralized development, Bepro Network. 

It operates as a payments and curation layer for GitHub repositories, simplifying the process of launching multiple bounties, managing disputes and rewarding collaboration using smart contracts.

‍

‍

In August, Bepro Network was awarded a grant by Aurora to deliver a decentralized Aurora Development DAO by deploying a customized Bepro Network on Aurora, a EVM Scaling Solution for Ethereum built on Near. 

This will allow the Aurora Foundation to attract developers from the community to work and contribute to Aurora Github repositories in a decentralized and sustainable way.

“We want to build the largest developer community of top tech talent from all over the world,'' says Mário. “As demand for blockchain and web3 technologies continue to grow, TAIKAI Labs’ decentralized tech talent network will help teams rise to meet the tech talent needs of tomorrow.”‍