Power to Puerto Rico

3 min readMay 8, 2018

Our inspiring interview with Enrique Martinez is on iTunes and Google Play! Our guest discusses how they’re using blockchain to bring better solar power grids to Puerto Rico.

Highlights below:

Tell us about your background coming into crypto?

Enrique is a trained aerospace engineer originally from Puerto Rico. His previous career was applying scientific applications in the public sector. Like many, crypto swept him in with Satoshi’s Bitcoin whitepaper. Since then, he’s been hacking and advising clients based on his evolving knowledge of blockchain and scientific endeavors.

How does one become a consultant in this market?

Stay humble. Stay hungry and passionate. Treat your clients like your friends you want to help.

He likes a few books in particular: Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper, Blockchain Revolution (Don Tapscott). He’s expanding his horizons into crowd funding, AI, neural network, and other emerging tech. Unlike traditional finance, this is such an interdisciplinary field and crypto markets don’t stop after Wall Street closes.

What is a successful blockchain consultant to you?

He looked to top consulting companies like McKinsey and Deloitte for quality standards. That understanding of markets and how to mobilize limited resources helps your clients understand risks and trade-offs with new tech.

For example, he worked with a successful water company who wanted to adopt blockchain. he walked them through the costs vs. benefits of adopting a new tech. There has to be some litmus test to tease out the value proposition of blockchain? What problems about the status quo that you’re trying to solve? What obstacles to improvement? Who are the players and how would water markets be affected? With supply and demand factors in mind, how would blockchain help you position in the market?

Power to Puerto Rico

Enrique learned a lot from connecting solar panel using a blockchain. When Puerto Rico faced damage due to hurricanes. With sustained and widespread power outages, Enrique saw a need to provide power by harnessing solar panels (lots of sun on this island). Blockchain allows you to capture a transaction— i.e. how much electricity is traveling or consumed between houses. It also allows the project to introduce a token, allowing users to own power consumption in a decentralized market.

For the last six months, he’s been shuffling back and forth to the island, and putting his own investments, and installing solar panel farms. Puerto Ricans are still struggling; on any given day, only less than half of households have stable power. Enrique is committed to this cause so he would love to partner with others on this mission.

When I saw the amount of destruction, I saw the need for water, food, the need for basic things, I had to do something. Maybe I can help with solar panel, with electricity— Enrique Martinez