It is always known that the tech industry has a large gap in the female/male ratio. Cryptocurrency/blockchain, a subpart of the tech industry seems to be male-dominated right from its roots. Even though the percentage of women in this sector in comparison may be small, the noise they are making within the industry is not. Some of the most influential leaders in this space driving the development of blockchain and cryptocurrencies while increasing awareness of its potential are females. On this international women’s day, let’s take a moment to appreciate and celebrate some of the female powerhouses notably the ‘women in blockchain’ who are transforming the entire industry.
Media
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Credits: Shutterstock
Laura Shin– Journalist/ Host of podcasts Unchained and Unconfirmed. Formerly a senior editor at Forbes, she was the first mainstream journalist to cover crypto full-time. Her work as a senior editor at Forbes and host of the Unchained and Unconfirmed podcasts is highly acclaimed.
Tina Hui– CEO and Founder of Follow The Coin, has been interested in Bitcoin since 2013 when she took up a consulting project focused on cryptocurrency mining. Follow The Coin Labs has become an innovation collective providing education, a hub, community and resources in support of impactful and meaningful projects, inclusive of crypto.
Manoush Zomorodi, Jen Poyant– Founders of Stable Genius Productions joined Civil, a blockchain journalism platform, earlier. They took along their journey to learn more about crypto through the Zig Zag podcast, shining new light on a favorite mantra among cryptoheads – ‘mass adoption’. Zomorodi and Poyant approached the crypto user experience with humour, honesty, and optimism – three traits that are very needed in blockchain.
Caterina Ferrara– Founder at Blockchain Ladies, an international community born to connect all women involved in this field: professionals, hackers, developers, crypto traders, entrepreneurs, investors, tech-loving women, all supporters of this new disruptive technology.
Helen Disney– Founder of Unblocked, a hub for Blockchain events, education and information. Unblocked makes blockchain technology accessible for a non-technical business audience. They act as a bridge between the technical and business worlds, helping executives to understand the opportunity blockchain technology offers their business.
Business and Finance
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Credits: Uran-Dribble
Sandra Ro– CEO at Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) brings together founding members from over 40 countries to advance global understanding of Blockchain technology. Prior to this, Sandra was Executive Director, Digitisation at CME Group, and responsible for the company’s digital asset and blockchain/distributed ledger technology (DLT) initiatives.
Kate Mitselmahker- CEO and Founder, Bloccelerate– Growing up in Russia, Kate Mitselmahker watched her parents overcome bankruptcy nine times only to see their assets depreciate in value by 90% as the Russian economy collapsed. Her personal experience with the failures of the global financial ecosystem is at the heart of her passion for blockchain. Now, Mitselmahker has founded a powerful blockchain fund and accelerator – Bloccelerate. Bloccelerate gives entrepreneurs access to funding, advisors, mentors, developers and training. It will be exciting to see the projects that emerge from this accelerator in 2019.
Olga Feldmeier– CEO of Blockchain Startup, Smart Valor an alumnus of the UBS banking group is focused on enabling ‘high net worth’ individuals to purchase assets using blockchain- administered tokens that can subsequently be bought or sold in a secondary marketplace.
Jalak Jobanputra– Founder of venture capital fund, FuturePerfect Ventures is an American businesswoman and entrepreneur. Prior to founding the fund, Jobanputra served as a director at Omidyar Network and as a senior vice president at the New York City Investment Fund. She’s been an investor in blockchain technology since 2013 and is actively promoting knowledge sharing to foster diversity in the nascent sectors of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.
Arianna Simpson– MD of investment firm Autonomous Partners is an early-stage investor with close to 40 investments to date. Before she started investing, Arianna was at BitGo, where she was the third employee. Prior to BitGo, she worked at Facebook in Global Marketing Solutions and at Y Combinator-backed Shoptiques, where she ran sales. She developed a strong interest in cryptocurrencies about 5 years ago, which is when she first started investing in Bitcoin.
Technology
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Credits: Hootsuite
Amber Baldet– Cofounder and CEO, Clovyr. As the former Executive Director of JP Morgan’s Blockchain Center of Excellence, Amber Baldet is a leader in all things fintech. Building on her already impressive resume, Baldet founded Clovyr, a hub for decentralized applications. Baldet’s keen focus on accessibility, privacy, and quality makes her a respected expert in crypto and blockchain.
Elizabeth Stark– Co-Founder and CEO, Lightning Labs– She is a co-founder of Lightning Labs, an open protocol layer that leverages the power of blockchains and smart contracts to make cheap, fast, private transactions available to anyone around the world. Lightning Labs’ chief product is an open protocol layer that enables cheap, fast, private transactions on blockchains.
Neha Narula- Director of Digital Currency, MIT MediaLab– As Director of Digital Currency at the MIT MediaLab, Neha Narula is the go-to blockchain academic. Narula’s current projects at the MIT MediaLab include a Bitcoin vending machine, a privacy-preserving auditing project, Bitcoin smart contracts and a blockchain-inspired initiative to manage digital music rights.
Elvina Kamalova– Researcher, advisor and investor in blockchain companies. She is performing qualitative and qualitative analysis of selected ICO platforms. Her advising focus areas include Investment Structure, Token Economic & ICO Performance. Elvina’s professional career began as a strategic financial technologist for the world’s largest financial institutions at EY USA.
Dr. Mihaela Ulieru– Chief Alchemist at Endor.coin. is an early blockchain pioneer working to push the current economic wave in favor of the 99%. With roughly 20 years of experience in distributed systems, Ulieru is a champion of leveraging technology to spur economic development and was responsible for the World Economic Forum recognizing blockchain as a Top 10 Emerging Technology in 2016.
Legal
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Credits: Julie Guillerm- Dribble
Yvette Valdez– Financial Regulatory and Transactional Lawyer advising clients on the complex regulatory challenges in developing cryptocurrency and cryptoasset technologies, token sales and market infrastructure, and trading, clearing and settlement solutions on distributed ledger technology.
Joshua Ashley– Blockchains and Cryptocurrency Lawyer. Recognized by Chambers and Partners as one of the top 12 Blockchain and Cryptocurrency lawyers globally, Ms. Klayman co-founded and has led since its inception Morrison & Foerster’s global Blockchain + Smart Contracts Group, which she currently Co-Chairs and which includes over 70 lawyers.
Pamela Morgan, Author, Cryptoasset Inheritance Planning: A Simple Guide for Owners- Pamela Morgan had the insight to focus her legal business on bitcoin and open blockchains in early 2014. This year, she built on that expertise by publishing a book on crypto asset inheritance planning. Practical legal advice like Morgan’s is absolutely essential to achieving mass adoption.
Crypto Community for Women By Women
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Credits: Workable
Women in Blockchain hosts hackathons, conferences, and networking events all across the globe.
Crypto Chicks is a blockchain and AI educational hub for women. This women’s community is headquartered in Canada but has chapters all over the world from Shanghai to Bulgaria.
Global Women in Blockchain is the first international nonprofit organization designed to activate and accelerate the powerful partnerships of women to lead in the education, development, and promotion of blockchain technologies.
Women 4 Blockchain is a group dedicated to building and empowering pioneers in the world of blockchain technology. No previous blockchain experience is necessary and the group focuses on mentorship and nurturing the next wave of women in the industry. Founded by Anna Vladi, the powerful group welcomes people of all races, sexual identities, and religions to participate in the new wave of the internet revolution.
Finishing Thoughts
Blockchain and cryptocurrencies have been the focus of the latest tech boom for quite some time. Even though this new field has a large gender gap, women are quickly rising to the forefront and making names for themselves. An open-source and a growing space, women can make a place for themselves in the cryptocurrency and the blockchain network. Since the blockchain movement is all about decentralization and leveling the playing field, it is the perfect opportunity for women who want to make a big impact to shine.
Lets applause for the female wave in blockchain!!
This article is not designed as a ranking of women in blockchain, but rather a celebration of women empowerment and female role models. Undoubtedly, there are many remarkable female executives, entrepreneurs, lawyers, media persons, academics, developers, etc. working in blockchain who are not recognized here. Tweet us here @cnpdaily to tell us about a woman whom you particularly admire.
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