Working with women in blockchain
The impressive line up this year of ICO projects and blockchain startups have brought a lot of figures to the fore. Refreshingly open and transparent, fronting the management team and developers is now a standard practice for a startup, seen as necessary to building trust in nascent communities of supporters and well-wishers.
At the same time, it’s also made a commonly-held assumption more painfully obvious: the tech sphere’s top management is filled with suits and ties. While it’s inaccurate to say there is a complete lack of women in startups, it’s fair to point out that they can generally be seen holding communication or PR-related roles.
It’s already generally known that women are few in tech and finance. And with cryptocurrency and blockchain a child of those two, it’s no surprise that the disparity is more pronounced. The statistics seem to suggest even more conservative estimates: CoinDance puts it at a mere 3% of Bitcoin women users, while Moneyish says between 1% to 5% of investors and users of blockchain tech are women.
At AmaZix, we’re pleased to be working with partners that buck this trend of a male-dominated industry. Here are a couple of them:
1. Loomia — smart fabrics to capture form and function
Founder Madison Maxey; Marco Paúl, vice president of operations and supply chain; Ezgi Ucar, director of product development; and CEO Janett Liriano. Photo: Loomia
Loomia is a fine example of how blockchain innovation can be used for every day modern application. Smart clothing isn’t just the realm of high-tech spy games, Loomia sees it as a simple and elegant way of solving common problems faced by normal people in daily situations.
The possibilities are really limited only by creativity. Apparel that change patterns or colours according to the surrounding environment. Footwear that adjusts heating in cold climates. Clothing with safety features that make themselves visible at night.
This week, Loomia formed a new partnership with L.L. Bean, a specialist in outdoor clothing and recreation equipment. With manufacturers like L.L. Bean, Loomia proposes blockchain tech and big data to enable companies to capture information about how their products are used — at the same time ensuring that customer data is only shared voluntarily, secured and anonymised through cryptography.
Loomia CEO Janett Liriano explains simply: “It’s like putting your data through a shredder and only you have the key to put it back together.”
The San Francisco-based company has three women making the calls at the highest level — CEO Janett Liriano, Founder and Technical Lead Madison Maxey, and Product Development Director Ezgi Ucar.
Loomia’s token sale will launch in 2018.
2. HydroMiner — green energy for cryptocurrency mining
CFO Nicole Damblon and CEO Nadine Damblon. Photo: HydroMiner
Of all the aspects of cryptocurrency and blockchain, few are as technically complex and male dominated than the mining industry. The Damblon sisters — Nicole and Nadine — started mining cryptocurrency from their tiny apartment with modest home rigs little over three years ago.
The venture has since evolved into an industrial-scale crypto mining operation running on carbon-neutral hydroelectricity generated from the many hydropower stations powered by the fast-flowing rivers in the Austrian Alps.
HydroMiner’s mission is to allow anyone in the world to access an otherwise complex industry of crypto mining, leveraging the lower costs and higher efficiency of eco-friendly hydroelectricity. Using H20 digital tokens based on the Ethereum blockchain, users can purchase mining contracts tied to energy consumption, essentially offering a managed mining solution for those unable to mine crypto on their own.
Today, HydroMiner CEO Nadine Damblon continues to work on business development and networking of the enterprise — and is often seen fronting the company at regional blockchain conferences. CFO Nicole Damblon is equally active, having agreed to many interviews from within their mining setups in Austria.
They concluded a successful crowd funding campaign recently, HydroMiner raised almost $3 million to expand their operation, which opens for public access in 2018. A second round of token sales is due to be announced.
3. Bancor — an industry-transforming platform for viable currency creation
Galia Benartzi, Bancor co-founder Photo: TEDx
Those fortunate to be active in cryptocurrency this year will need little introduction to Bancor, which made tremendous waves in the initial coin offering scene in June, raising a whopping $150 million in Ether — in a mere three hours. The Bancor project impressed not simply because of the sheer scale of funds raised, but by the professionalism and know-how exhibited by its team of visionaries, including that of its co-founder, Galia Benartzi.
Benartzi had already carved out a solid reputation with previous management roles at Mytopia, Particle Code and AppCoin and she is probably best remembered for her TEDx talk shared widely before Bancor’s ICO. In “The Value Revolution: How Blockchain Will Change Money”, she delivered cutting insight into how Bitcoin and its underlying blockchain technology would change not only the way monetary value would be perceived but how it would shape moral values in modern society.
Her leadership continues to take Bancor forward in its mission to be the standard for intrinsically tradeable tokens — a standard that all of AmaZix partners operate with.
Curious about what AmaZix can do for you?
We’re always on the lookout for another exciting project to work on. If you’re working in the crypto space and planning an ICO, or just want help managing your communities, we’d love to hear from you.
Reach out to us on the following channels:
1. Telegram: https://t.me/amazix
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3. Website: http://www.amazix.com/
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