Dawn Song #77

Co-founder and CEO of Oasis Labs

Dawn Song & Co-founder and CEO of Oasis Labs & background` Dawn Song & Co-founder and CEO of Oasis Labs & poster`
Dawn Song & Co-founder and CEO of Oasis Labs
Category Tech
person-quote
I strongly believe that building a responsible data economy is critical for society, and this requires a community effort. [...] Let’s take on the big challenges together.

Biography: 

Dawn Song is a self-described serial entrepreneur. On top of being co-founder and CEO at Oasis Labs, Song is also a professor at UC Berkeley’s department of electrical engineering and computer sciences. She has been teaching at UC Berkeley for 15 years. Song earned her B.S. degree from Tsinghua University. She is also an alumna of Carnegie Mellon University, where she earned her M.S., and UC Berkeley, where she earned her Ph.D.

Song is also part of the Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence based at UC Berkeley, the Berkeley DeepDrive, and the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research Lab. Her research and interests include security and blockchain, applied cryptography, deep learning, computer security, and privacy.

Song has researched and built several security and privacy technologies in networking, software, smart contracts, distributed systems, and more. She has received many awards and recognitions, including a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Sloan Research Fellowship, the NSF-CAREER Award, the MIT Technology Review TR35 Award, and the Faculty Research Award from Google, IBM, and other tech companies.

Song’s 2021:

2021 was another notable year for Song’s Oasis Labs. In April, Oasis announced the integration of Tidal Finance, a DeFi insurance and coverage provider, with the Oasis Network. “The plan is to leverage Tidal’s protocol to provide asset coverage for lending protocols and DEXs that will be integrated into the Oasis Network,” Song’s organization said in a blog post.

Oasis also announced the launch of its $160 million development ecosystem fund, which will be used for NFT, DeFi, tokenization, as well as metaverse projects being built on the network. Projects building on top of Oasis are the focus of the fund, and it was established to entice more developers, startups, and existing projects to build on the Oasis Network.

Meanwhile, Oasis announced in late 2021 that it is officially partnering with MetaAI (formerly Facebook AI) on an application focused on “secure computing technologies in AI.”  

Oasis also held an inaugural mentorship event with female blockchain leaders in May of 2021. Headed by Song, Oasis continues advocating for women in technology and blockchain. Song also launched the “Future of DeFi Fireside Chats” in December 2021 as an adjunct to UC Berkeley’s DeFi MOOC (massive online open course) lectures. In the podcast, co-hosts Dawn Song and Arthur Gervais talk to thought leaders in the DeFi space, such as Michael Egorov and Avichal Garg.

Song’s 2022:

Binance Labs (the venture capital arm of the Binance crypto exchange) has announced its support of the Song’s Oasis Ecosystem Fund, currently at $200 million, having grown from $160 million in 2021. The fund focuses on several projects in Web3, DeFi, and cross-chain capabilities, and continues to entice VC firms and DeFi builders alike. Binance Labs joins other VC firms backing the Oasis Ecosystem Fund, such as Jump Capital, Draper Dragon, Dragonfly Capital, and Hashed.

Meanwhile, the first DEX on Oasis Network, YuzuSwap, hit $100 million TVL in just 24 hours of operating and trading volumes of $323 million. YuzuSwap was built on Emerald, Oasis Network’s smart contract environment.

Song has also continued to publish episodes of “Fireside Chats” in 2022, with the latest guests being DeFi figures Christopher Giancarlo, Kevin Chou, and Jeremy Allaire. Song is expected to remain active both on Twitter and as a public speaker, while also pushing the Oasis ecosystem toward mainstream adoption.