TransCrypts Wins Pitchfest at Consensus Hong Kong

Four and a half years ago, Zain Zaidi faced a potentially devastating setback when the academic transcripts he submitted for grad school were lost due to an administrative error. This near-miss experience motivated Zaidi to address the challenges individuals face in proving their credentials. Instead of pursuing further education, he founded TransCrypts, a company dedicated to assisting businesses in verifying employment information. Recently, this blockchain-powered startup achieved success by winning CoinDesk’s Pitchfest at Consensus Hong Kong. Zaidi emphasizes the significance of being able to validate personal data, stating that the inability to do so can result in a loss of identity. In an interview with CoinDesk Live, he highlighted the importance of individuals being able to authenticate and take ownership of their personal information. TransCrypts empowers individuals by enabling them to maintain "self-sovereignty" over their ID information through on-chain verification processes. The company currently boasts an annual revenue of approximately $5 million and is broadening its services to include validation for medical and academic records. As a result of their victory, TransCrypts received $10,000 in tokens, a trophy, and ten coaching sessions. The runner-up in the competition was CredShields, an automated auditing platform designed to identify and resolve vulnerabilities in Solidity smart contracts. The Pitchfest in Hong Kong featured a total of ten competing teams, with finalists including Oneverse Technology and Liquidium, and semi-finalists such as Apillon, Domi Chain, GoSats, iBTC, NettyWorth, Tokenyze, Vanilla Finance, and Zypher Network. The event was sponsored by Dimitra, a token and toolkit specifically tailored for smallholder farmers.