#MeetTheTutellusTeam: interview with Covadonga Fernández, PR & Communications at Tutellus
How was your arrival at the Tutellus team and what have you learned on a personal and professional level since you arrived?
I noticed about the Tutellus tokenization process through Twitter. I am a journalist and I had recently created BlockchainMedia, a site to follow the process of decentralization in the cultural and creative industries as a result of the irruption of the internet.
Then I thought that to write Miguel Caballero, founder of Tutellus, was a good idea in order to propose the creation of a course on basic notions of blockchain for journalists. And that’s how it all began. With Tutellus I learn every day. It is a thermometer of how fast this technology evolves and how to be aware about that and learn every day, because what it is good today, tomorrow can be overlaped by something else that is much more suitable for your project.
The migration of Tutellus from Ethereum to Nem is an example. I also learn from the work of all my colleagues, leadered by Miguel. His way of being and behaving makes it one of the main assets of the company.
How was the first time you had knowledge of blockchain technology?
It was the end of 2015. I was looking for information on the internet to write an article about how technology could help manage water more effectively and I came across the word blockchain. As it was the first time I had heard about it, I started looking for information and I must say that, since I did not know much, I put it away for a few days.
After a few weeks I became interested again, coinciding with the celebration of the World Economic Forum. And what finally got me was the TED talk by Don Tapscott. What I read and learned seemed so fascinating to me that I felt the need to tell it, and that was how I contacted CriptoNoticas and proposed to be their correspondent in Spain.
Then, Alex Preukschat who is one of the key people in the Spanish blockchain ecosystem, invited me to participate in the book “Blockchain: the industrial revolution of the internet”, where I wrote the chapter about the applications of this technology in the media. Since then I have not stopped reading, writing and creating sites to follow closely the evolution of the chain of blocks.
Do you think blockchain technology has come to stay or is it a fad?
Of course, I think it will stay and that it will revolution the industries and the logic of business, as happened with the internet. In fact, we are already seeing some of its applications: in the traceability of food, in the banking of people living in developing countries, in the monetization of the contents that we pour into the network, in the voting system (Sierra Leona), in transactions …
And then there is everything that has to do with the issuance of tokens and the possibility of tokenize everything that is likely to have value and to democratize the financial markets. All these issues are already real, so blockchain has no turning back
Why do you think blockchain technology can change the world of education?
The Tutellus proposal is incredibly disruptive and I really think it has great potential to change the way to face learning and training. I see blockchain as a very valuable and necessary tool to respond to the training needs of the labour market and of the daily life too. For instance we can think about the new world of cryptocurrencies and how many people want to know about it in a accelerate way. Above all, at a time like the current one, where centralized education systems have proved ineffective in meeting the demands of more technological profiles by companies.
What is being done to change the lives of more than 100 million people from Tutellus? What are your feelings about it?
I think Tutellus’ strategy of using tokens in order to put the accent on community empowerment is entirely correct, because it means greater efficiency and value for the project. It is plenty of meaning that the Tutellus community (students, professors and companies) is involved in the design of the courses according to the needs of the market.
I also think that the pool of 20 million dollars in scholarships that Tutellus is going to dedicate to energize local communities in the process of development is very opportune. All this together with the fundamental essence of the project, which is to find the motivation of the student.
In Tutellus that motivation comes from paying to learn according to their dedication. I think there is not better way to reach the one hundred million people that Tutellus want to get.
When you go out of the Tutellus HQ, how is your life? What are your hobbies?
As I said above, my professional life is articulated about blockchain and journalism. Beyond my professional life, I love being with my family, staying with my friends, going to the movies, reading, traveling, cooking, shopping, going to art exhibitions and anything that has to do with discovering new things, because I’m very curious about the world we live.
