“Centrifuge is a playground for curious minds”
A Female Perspective
A year and a half since Centrifuge was founded, we’ve grown to a team of 17 people from 11 different countries. We think that just as simplified ecosystems and a loss of biodiversity are detrimental for our planet to thrive, so is monoculture in organizations something to be avoided: consensus culture, homogeneity of thinking, echo chambers…no thanks! A question that has been, and still is, very present when building the team is on the topic of diversity: how to find underrepresented talent with regards to gender, but also in terms of culture, background, opinions?
As of the year 2019, still no country in the world has closed the gender gap, and tech, just as all STEM industries, is far, far behind. PwC recently looked at the current state of affairs in the UK, where women accounted for an astonishing 15% of the STEM workforce. In Germany, the percentage of females in tech is 16%. At Centrifuge, the number is 29,4%. It’s still far from 50%, but it’s something. We’re proud of the team we’ve put together until now, and we’re excited about what the future has in store for us.
Investing in women as talent is a no brainer. The tricky part is finding them! We thought we would share some insight from inside our organization: so here we go, meet the women and curious minds behind Centrifuge.
Name : Cassidy Daly
Role: Token Design and Research
Nationality: USA
Interests: dance, yoga, travel, economics
Why did you join Centrifuge?
I could say I joined for the vision of the product, or the potential to shape a truly revolutionary token economy — but although those were important factors, in the end I really joined Centrifuge because of the team.
What do you think of the current state of crypto?
Experimental. I am really excited to see how the projects which launched this year shape. I think we will all learn a lot from the outcome of those experiments and I look forward to seeing how we continue to push forward.
What excites you about Blockchain?
I like to say my passion for token design comes from its potential to re-imagine what an economy should look like from the ground up to better facilitate our needs as a global society.
What excites you about what we’re building?
I am really excited about the possibility we have to unlock value for businesses around the world, and to give them control over that value and the information they choose to share.
What is your background, and how did you end up in tech?
My background is in economics — and specifically central banking. I got my Master’s in International Finance from Columbia University where I also worked as a consultant for the Federal Reserve. But, I couldn’t help but feel that I wasn’t having a real impact with my work. So — I decided to just move to Berlin. It was here that I started my own company in the blockchain space and realized my passion for token design and engineering.
What do you think of Berlin as a place to live and work.
Prior to Berlin I lived in NY for many years. Though the pace of life and competitive nature of NY can be very inspiring, it started to feel exhausting for me. It felt like I was running on a hamster wheel: moving fast but not actually going anywhere. Berlin has a great balance between life and work. And — I really think it is the best blockchain community ;)
Name : Charleen Fei.
Role: Software Engineer
Nationality: USA
Interests: Using well-designed tools to make random things out of bits of fabric/bamboo/metal, and bouldering
Why did you join Centrifuge?
I think what we are building at Centrifuge are well-researched and exciting applications of blockchain technology. As someone writing code who came from a background of intellectual property law, I have seen many projects which are extremely well designed and implemented on a technical level, but lack the legal or business practices to bring the project to life in the ‘real world’. The rare combination of traits that all the founders exude of being able to walk the fine line between practicality in implementation and imagination in innovation is what drew me to Centrifuge.
What do you think of the current state of crypto?
I feel conflicted. I am inspired by the amount of energy and enthusiasm being poured into the space. But I do feel a bit of apprehension about the amount of influence that well known ‘thought leaders’ have in a community which purports to be about leveling playing fields — or at least somewhat checking traditional power structures — through decentralization and anonymity. Because the State of Crypto is largely ruled by technical innovation, I am afraid that we might not have the historical/sociological understanding to avoid replicating exploitative and dehumanizing economic models which we see in the fiat world.
What is your background, and how did you end up in tech?
I studied law, and finished my legal masters in Intellectual Property and Competition Law in Munich. After working for Intel Corporation for some time, mostly doing IP licensing and conformation to data privacy regulations work, I realised the day to day of being a lawyer was not really for me, and also that the engineers sitting on the other side of the table were doing some pretty cool things. So I learned to code. It was definitely one of the best decisions I have ever made!
Where are you from?
Lafayette, Louisiana, the heart of Cajun Country!
What do you think of Berlin as a place to live and work.
It’s my favourite city. But if you are thinking of moving here as an international, please do take the time to learn German and respect the place you are moving to! Learn about the neighbourhood you are moving to, and the history of the city. The tech scene is the reason behind the gentrification of the city, as much as it hurts our pride to admit it. We can do some really great things here, but if we turn Berlin into another glossy #digitalnomad lifestyle city, we will all regret it.
Name : Lea Schmitt
Role: Product Partnerships
Nationality: Germany
Interests: Bouldering, ethics and everything Olafur Eliasson
Why did you join Centrifuge?
At the beginning of last year, my old company sent me to the Bay Area to work from their Palo Alto office. I was working on a small fintech project in the crypto space. At that time I was just starting to learn about DeFi and hadn’t really figured out for myself what this whole DeFi space was all about. Thanks to the people that I met there, within the next 4 months I went from crypto tourist to aficionado. Among the people that I met was also someone who had just started working at a small startup in the financial supply chain space — Centrifuge. There suddenly was the spell of something new and Centrifuge checked all the boxes: an incredibly smart team working towards a future of data sovereignty and financial opportunity everywhere for everyone alike. And that was that.
What do you think of the current state of crypto?
I think that heavily depends on which lens you look at it through. In my role at Centrifuge as Partnerships Manager I have to wear the business/feasibility glasses. For me, it is important that what we are building is actually easy enough for companies to use and makes sense for them from an economic standpoint. And looking at it from that perspective I think the ecosystem still has some way to go. There are still many UX hoops one must jump through and if you are completely new to the space it can be overwhelming. Price volatility, scalability issues and legal uncertainty don’t necessarily help to get businesses excited either. But crypto is increasingly gaining political notice and legitimization. It set out to challenge existing systems and this is hard as these are the systems that have been built up over the past centuries. You can think of the recent Libra news what you want but the potential to onboard 2+ billion users to a digital currency that is not pegged to the USD does send a strong message.
What excites you about Blockchain?
Working in uncharted territory is exciting. Everything that we are building is open source which means we only have limited influence on how the community will ultimately use our protocol. Of course we have our focus and we set out to solve particular problems of a specific industry but in the end the community decides how they will use it. If they like it they use it, if they don’t they might fork it. What I find exciting is that you can bake rules in the code thus making interactions very transparent.
What excites you about what we’re building?
A while back my colleague Maya wrote about the “dickes Brett” of Centrifuge. What is meant by that is that what we are working on is an incredibly huge challenge in the space of the financial supply chain. We set out to enable accessibility to financial resources regardless of geography or circumstance. Prevailing systems are based on siloing data and customer lock-in. At Centrifuge we are working on enabling businesses to maintain data sovereignty and facilitate a modular access to decentralized finance instead of locking them into one single monetary system. To be working towards equal opportunity for everyone I find quite exciting. More, we’re bridging the on- and off-chain worlds by tokenizing real-world assets which allows us to move beyond purely crypto-native use cases in DeFi.
What is your background, and how did you end up in tech?
My background is in psychology and human machine interaction. Tech and how tech influences our human behaviour was an integral part of my studies and allowed for such a variety of interesting research fields. For instance, I wrote my final thesis at I.C.T., an affiliate research center of USC, where we studied and scrutinized the field of virtual reality in the context of alleviating PTSD among soldiers and veterans. Tech is a powerful tool — it shapes cultures and builds society and economies. With blockchain we have a tool at hand that impacts all three — with the potential of getting the value distribution right this time.
Where are you from?
I am from the part of Germany where all the stereotypes other countries have about us are actually true: Bavaria. We like our beer, build castles in every town, are stubborn and risk-averse and almost always on time. For the past 6 years I have been living in Berlin though which helped water down my German-ness a little.
What do you think of Berlin as a place to live and work.
Many things are done in a very hacky way (BER airport, constant Schienenersatzverkehr) which makes it feel like the entire city is a gigantic MVP of sorts. Many say — and I concur — that Berlin is not Germany. Everything is done a bit differently and its people are not very good at taking authority. In this sense it is very fitting that it hosts this large community of people working towards the decentralization of established systems. It is this great playground where everybody can find their niche — and probably the only place where people are emotionally attached to their public transportation service.
Name : Lisa Plesiutschnig
Role: Office Manager
Nationality: Austria
Interests: Making the city unsafe on my racing bike, bouldering, hiking, applied art and design
Why did you join Centrifuge?
Centrifuge is a playground for clever minds with innovative ideas and a large portion of expertise. I haven’t worked in the fields of tech and finance before but was excited to take over the office management position at a beautiful workplace with a forward-thinking team. I really appreciate that open communication, promotion of individual strengths as well as further development of common abilities, while building something big, are top priority here.
What do you think of the current state of crypto?
Is it slowly sloshing over into our daily lives?
What excites you about Blockchain?
I am still quite unknowing. What excites me though — as it is with every new field –, is the fact that I can still learn so much about it.
What excites you about what we’re building?
The fact that we are building products that have their fingers on the pulse of time.
What is your background, and how did you end up in tech?
Ending up in tech on a part-time basis was a coincidence. I am a curious person and wanted to try out something new. My background is the field of design, arts and humanities. But isn’t everything always in flux?
Where are you from?
Graz, Austria
What do you think of Berlin as a place to live and work.
Berlin is my adopted home for sure. I’ve lived here for five years now and do not want to leave any time soon. There are so many like-minded people from all over the world who are curious, adventurous, dauntless, creative and avant-gardist.
Name : Maya Byskov
Role: Communications, Project Management
Nationality: Denmark/Spain
Interests: Experimenting in the kitchen, contemporary art, surfing, literature, yoga
What excites you about Blockchain?
What I find inspiring is the terra incognita that comes with blockchain. It’s the unknown and interdisciplinary nature of the field that makes the space so intellectually rewarding. Working with compelling ideas around (re)distribution: of power, opportunity, money, and building solutions on the frontiers of what is possible is fascinating.
Maanantai Collective, Terra Incognita, 2014. Materials: Granite, Pocket Atlas. 21 x 28 x10 cm, unique.
Why Centrifuge?
Coming from a background in development studies, the idea of supporting the creation of a transparent and open network that enables even opportunities for micro, small and medium sized businesses across the globe was intriguing. At Centrifuge, I found a space where I can zoom in on the topics of transparency and accountability in physical and financial supply chains and hopefully have a positive impact.
What is your background, and how did you end up here?
I studied International Relations and have an MSc in Development Economics. I wrote my thesis on alternative currencies, more specifically, analyzing the correlation between participation in alternative currency movements and poverty alleviation, in times of crisis. This got me very curious about local currencies as a form of resistance to the global legacy financial infrastructure, how globalization and neoliberalism are leaving parts of our society behind and what can be done about it.
Where are you from?
I would say I’m a true European! I was born in Denmark, but I grew up in a small fishing village in Spain. I studied between Barcelona and Copenhagen and have since then lived in Berlin for 6 years.
What do you think of Berlin as a place to live and work.
I love it here. It’s an oasis of free thinkers and people who question the status quo. The weather and surrounding area kinda suck (as a person who adores the sea, it’s hard!), but what is amazing about Berlin is the people. Its history has attracted a certain anarchist spirit, and this is what makes the texture of the city so vibrant, eclectic and interesting.
This is the first in a series of posts on our team. Stay tuned for more from Inside the Centrifuge! Check out our website, follow us on twitter or medium. Thanks for reading ✌️
