Sentinel Chain welcomes its first Ambassador Catalin Ivan
It is our greatest honour and privilege to have Mr. Catalin Ivan, Member of the European Parliament for Romania — join our community as our Sentinel Chain Ambassador for Europe.
The Sentinel Chain Ambassador is a prestigious role awarded to a distinguished supporter for his or her voluntary contributions in any of the following:
- Making a difference to their community or field of work
- Enhancing the reputation of Sentinel Chain
- Accelerating financial inclusion through technological innovation
- Improving the lives of the unbanked in his or her region
The role of the Sentinel Chain Ambassador is an honour which carries the commitment to champion the mission of financial inclusion and contribute his or her expertise to improve the lives of the unbanked through the technology of Sentinel Chain.
- Can you give an introduction about yourself?
I am member of the European Parliament since 2009, and since then I have been involved in topics related with economic affairs, European budget and budgetary control, protection of European financial interests, fair taxation, fighting against money laundering and corruption. Now I am Vice-chair of the Budgetary Control Committee. In 2017, I have been involved in the first report on Fintech we have ever had in the European Parliament. I am a blockchain enthusiast and I truly believe in the potential that this technology has to bring more transparency, traceability, fairness, inclusion and trust in our society.
2. How did you come across the Sentinel Chain project?
As a rapporteur on Fintech in my region, I constantly read about concepts pertaining to smart economy, social and financial inclusion to find out how blockchain can solve the problems and challenges we face now in Europe and around the world. This led me to discover Sentinel Chain and its generous idea of banking the unbanked and I resonated immediately to its mission. Therefore, I had to read more to understand how this so noble goal can be achieved. Sentinel Chain comes to fill a gap left by all the European programmes and financial instruments European Union has ever designed for rural development.
3. Why do you want to become an Ambassador for Sentinel Chain?
I fully believe in Sentinel Chain’s mission and I see it as a solution not only for Asian countries but also for Europe. There are millions of unbanked small farmers and remote households across Europe. To bring them out of poverty means to empower them towards financial independence. I would be honoured to be the Ambassador for such a project that brings hope where there is none. Sentinel Chain offers solutions where European policies are failing. At least 22 million people would be directly and positively impacted by the implementation of Sentinel Chain in Europe.
“I would be honoured to be the Ambassador for such a project that brings hope where there is none.”
~ Catalin Ivan, Member of the European Parliament for Romania
4. Can you tell me more about the problems that Sentinel Chain can help to solve for your country?
As 70% of Romania’s poor live in the countryside and one third of the Romanian workforce is employed in agriculture, Sentinel Chain offers the precise solution for those underdeveloped and remote communities. In recent year these rural territories face a very strong phenomenon of depopulation. Almost the entire young labour force leaves the country to find jobs in western European countries. Giving them incentives to come back, offering them access to finance and knowledge to develop their own local businesses, they would more than likely return. This migration has huge social and economic impact on Romania’s sustainable growth perspective. We are talking about social dramas, with families disintegrated, children left behind with grandparents, early school leaving, illiteracy, modern slavery under the patronage of a pan-European network of organised crime and so on and so forth. Financing poor farmers and small rural communities would bring not only financial inclusion, but also social inclusion to those people.
5. What is the first thing you will do as the Ambassador for Sentinel Chain?
I will make sure that Sentinel Chain’s technological and financial solutions will be well known in Europe, in the Fintech community and in Romania. I believe that financial inclusion should be higher on the European agenda and Sentinel Chain can help tremendously to enrich the debates with the very real and clear argument that it is possible to bank the unbanked. It is possible — Sentinel Chain is already doing that in other part of the World. Why not in Europe too?
Thank you, Mr. Ivan. We are indeed honoured to have you with us advocating the message of financial inclusion through Sentinel Chain.
Sentinel Chain is a blockchain-based international marketplace for cross-border financial services and the world’s first platform to accept the use of livestock as collateral. Taking a unique approach to the last mile problem of financial inclusion, the Sentinel Chain model establishes livestock provenance through the creation of livestock insurance on blockchain — the registration of livestock provenance on blockchain provides the unbanked with a new opportunity: the real possibility of accepting livestock as ‘collateral’ for loans. Sentinel Chain is a project by InfoCorp Technologies and planning its initial coin offering (ICO) in March 2018.
To learn more about Sentinel Chain:
Website: https://sentinel-chain.org
Medium: https://medium.com/sentinelchain
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sentinelchain
Telegram: https://t.me/sentinelchain
Announcements: https://t.me/sentinel_ANN
