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Creating a Sustainable and Interoperable Blockchain Ecosystem

Pratik Gauri, Founder and CEO, 5ireChain

Pratik Gauri is a serial Indian social entrepreneur, investor, public speaker, and writer widely known as the ‘Creator of the 5th Industrial Revolution.’ He has been championing the UN sustainable development goals and helping transition the world from a for-profit economy to a for-benefit economy for more than a decade. As a young visionary leader, Pratik believes that the service of humanity and social good can work together with business and is on a mission to prove the thesis of 5IR (5th Industrial Revolution). Pratik has founded eight companies prior to founding 5ire, which is a blockchain ecosystem that brings forward Sustainability, Technology & Innovation to build the 5th industrial revolution. In an interview, he speaks on an array of topics. Excerpts from the interview:

Bitquery: The Blockchain Data Company

Dean Karakitsos, CEO, Bitquery.io

Dean Karakitsos is a visionary innovator in disruptive technology development and business management with more than 20 years of experience bringing an industry-changing approach to designing and launching dynamic new technology products. With a proven history of integrating market analysis and consumer insight to capitalize on opportunities and create the products the market demands, this technology enthusiast helps companies enable corner key market niches and bolster a position as pioneers in new technology. With a demonstrated track record of entrepreneurial leadership, building concepts and businesses from the ground up to achieve award-winning success, Dean is a strong team leader.

Blockchain Triangle – Converging big data and securitization

Darren Wolfberg, Co-founder & CEO, Blockchain Triangle

Darren Wolfberg is a senior-level technology and finance professional who has managed multiple institutional business lines at large multinational banks. He has a BFA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is also known for innovative form of art seen on Bubbleart.io. He is the CEO of Blockchain Triangle (BCT), a fintech platform that connects big data and securitization on one chassis. In an interview, he speaks on an array of topics. Excerpts: Conception of Blockchain Triangle: Blockchain Triangle is a patent-pending technology that connects smart meters & IoT devices into the digital securitization process bringing speed, efficiency, and transparency for all stakeholders both at capital formation and ongoing management of the asset.

Revolutionizing the Sports Betting Space

Mitchell Chun, Founder & CEO, BLOK SPORTS

Mitchell Chun is not less than a champion when it comes to pursuing his dream to build a business. With over two decades of professional experience, particularly in sports media technology, Chun absolutely played it smart when he combined his passion and expertise in sports tech with blockchain to launch BLOK SPORTS, a sports betting platform leveraging blockchain technology to provide a trusted and secure player experience.

Sports Betting: direct, reliable and secure: The story began when Chun was deep in the blockchain NFT games space back in 2018 as a strategy consultant for the world’s largest virtual items marketplaces.

BTP – Enabling efficient and trustworthy multiparty innovation

Duncan Johnston-Watt, Co-founder & CEO, BTP

Duncan Johnston-Watt is a passionate entrepreneur. He is the Co-founder & CEO, BTP, an enterprise blockchain company. Prior to this, he founded Cloudsoft Corporation and served as its CEO for nine years. He was also the founder & CTO of Enigmatec Corporation. Duncan holds an MSc in Computation from Oxford University where he was a graduate student at Balliol College and has served in multiple fintech roles. In 2021 he was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). His specialties include Open Source, Blockchain, Cloud, Autonomic Computing. He speaks on an array of topics. Excerpts from an interview:

EXtrance – Re-defining Commercial Real Estate Investements

William Lively, CEO, EXtrance

A fintech enthusiast, blockchain expert, real estate & private equity supporter and a philanthropist, William Lively dons many hats. As an investment specialist, William has developed a platform that can simplify investments thus, helping people understand the nuances of the real estate industry. He founded the EXtrance, a new blockchain-compatible platform that changes the game for real estate investors. He speaks on an array of topics in an interview. Excerpts:

Conception of EXtrance: Says William that he realized that commercial real estate investor management was a lot less attractive than it should be since it was dodged by a slew of problems faced in the industry.

FoolFarm - Creating startups through innovation

Andrea Cinelli, CEO & Founder, FoolFarm

Andrea Cinelli is one of the emerging leaders in the global AI (Artificial Intelligence) market. He is a sought-after pioneer of change with a unique entrepreneurial vision and track record, visionary acumen, and social commitment needed to thrive in today’s marketplace. He has successfully led large organizations through their digital transformations by driving innovation, identifying top talents, bringing them together, and fostering conditions for success to accelerate momentum in the delivery of a united vision with measurable impact. Currently he is the CEO and Founder of Foolfarm, a Deep-Tech Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain & Cybersecurity Venture Builder. In an interview he speaks on an array of topics. Excerpts:

Playtreks: Revolutionizing the Music Industry

Anjo De Heus, Founder & CEO, PlayTreks

For Anjo De Heus, standing out and being successful come from a mixture of greatness and madness. Resilient and tenacious by nature, Anjo’s zeal to identify gaps in the market and implement the right technology at the right time has led him to unravel concerns and create solutions that no one has ever found in the music industry. With a powerful combination of data and blockchain, Anjo built Playtreks, an innovative all-in-one app for the music industry based.

The metadata manager: The digital world has given artists many opportunities to promote music, connect with fans, and ultimately grow their careers.

SCIX : Re-Imagining Medical Care with Blockchain Technology

Gloryvee Cordero, Co-Founder & CIO, SciX, LLC

As a seasoned professional, Gloryvee Cordero believes in creating meaningful partnerships with enterprises and applying the modernization and scaling approaches to IT solutions to transform organization’s infrastructure & architecture, while supporting their technology-based ecosystem. Her expertise lies in tech advances- including, blockchain technology, AV/VR, cloud, mobile apps, big data, IoT, Machine Learning support DevOps. As the Co-Founder of CIO of SCIX, a comprehensive Machine Learning Service Platform built on a government infrastructure, designed to monitor patient data & deeply learn formulated predictors which influence executed outcomes used in medical science, she is at the helm of affairs within the firm. She speaks on an array of topics. Excerpts from an interview with her:

Herwig Konings, Founding Partner & CEO

STG- Pioneer in Security Token Industry

Herwig Konings, Founding Partner & CEO, Security Token Group

Herwig Konings is a passionate fintech enthusiast, who is also a pioneer in the security token industry. This Belgium-born serial entrepreneur is a graduate of the University of Miami. He is the founder partner and CEO of Security Token Group (STG), an organization dedicated to helping enterprises, asset managers, fund directors, investors, and financial institutions in leveraging the benefits of Security Tokens through consulting, media and data services, and tokenized fund products. He is now looking to disrupt the trillion-dollar capital markets with ‘a new wall street without walls.’ He speaks on an array of topics in an interview. Excerpts:

Converging healthcare and blockchain

Pradeep Goel, CEO, Solve Care

Pradeep’s deep and extensive expertise in combining technology, healthcare and blockchain has helped him carve a niche in the healthcare sector. Before taking the reins at Solve.Care, a global blockchain healthcare platform company, he has led multiple innovative technology companies in the roles of CEO, COO, CIO, and CTO for over 25 years. Pradeep has been passionate about designing and building solutions for public programs, such as Medicaid, Children Health Insurance Programs, Medicare, SNAP/TANF, Child Welfare Programs, and other health insurance and health information exchanges. An accomplished speaker, he is a regular in the events circuit, delivering keynote lectures to governments and industry officials across the medical, economic, and technology sectors.

Blockchain to bridge gap between real and digital art forms

Ryan Howells, CEO, The Rare Antiquities Token Ltd (RAT)

Ryan Howells has over 15 years of experience within Chief Technology Organisation for various corporate organizations in the UK including AXA UK, GoCompare, Motability Organisation before moving to a small fintech company as the Information Security Manager reporting directly to the board. Ryan moved to become a full-time private investor in 2020 before entering the cryptocurrency space in 2021 bringing across his knowledge from share investment sector to the project he speaks about today – The Rare Antiquities Token. In an interview, he speaks on an array of topics. Excerpts: Conception of RAT: The initial concept was to target a single area of the market and be the best at providing a service to that sector.

Providing Blockchain-enabled SaaS Solutions for Fintechs

Howard Krieger, Founder & CEO, unFederalReserve

Howard Krieger is a serial entrepreneur. He is well-versed in risk and valuation concepts, consumer and commercial lending and executive leadership.  He is the founder & CEO, unFederalReserve™, a fintech SaaS company that combines software built on blockchain technology and 200+ years of banking experience. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from James Madison University and an MBA with a concentration in Quantitative Finance from Rutgers School of Business. Prior to founding unFederalReserve™, Krieger served as Managing Director at CBIZ Valuation Group, Valuation Director at WithumSmith+Brown and was also a Senior Manager at KPMG LLP.

Adhara - Redefining Payment Solutions

Julio Faura, CEO, Adhara

Adhara is a leading international payment solution company that provides real time, multi-currency and liquidity management solutions. Adhara’s holistic liquidity management for payments and market making solutions, help manage forex risk and leverage liquidity globally, on a network, in real time. At the helm of affairs at Adhara is Julio Faura. He has been driving innovation for more than 20 years in various financial services firms. He has held several senior roles in Investment Banking, Consumer Finance, IT & Operations and global M&A. Excerpts from an interview with Julio: Adhara – The Story Behind: Being pragmatic financial industry veterans, the founders of Adhara wanted to serve banks and other regulated players of the wholesale financial industry instead of trying to disrupt them.

Revolutionizing Blockchain Industry

Geir Christian Karlsen, CEO, AppsCo Inc

AppsCo, an international blockchain & Employee Management company combines the interdisciplinary capabilities in the field and use innovations to deliver quick solutions across sectors. The company’s blockchain technology provides enterprises, access to applications and services, using a secure workplace that connect users, cloud services and connected devices across various industries. Its unique technology offers a platform for securing production data, measurement values etc. It deploys technology that is vertical-agnostic and is a key component to digital transformation. The Entrepreneurial Streak: A specialist in business software, technology outsourcing and cyber security with more than 20 years of experience in the technology field, Geir Christian is a true entrepreneur.

Attrace: Re-inventing Affiliate Marketing through Blockchain Technology

Erwin Werring, CEO, Attrace

Attrace is a decentralised affiliate marketing platform using a custom-made dedicated blockchain. It is an Ecosystem for E-commerce that enables anybody to start an agreement in online marketing with a counterparty without a middleman involved (including SaaS propositions). Attrace blockchain takes out the middleman in affiliate marketing (online adverstising where advertiser only pays publisher per sale achieved), in that way solving all problems that are restraining affiliate marketing from reaching its full potential.

At the helm of affairs at Attrace is Erwin Werring, CEO of the company. Excerpts from an interview with Erwin:

Avanza Innovations: Implement Now and Prepare Next

Waqas Mirza, CEO, Avanza Innovations

For Waqas Mizra, business success lies in persistently ensuring that the customers achieve their desired outcome. Apart from implementing the best technology tools, he does this by understanding customer needs and critically analyzing their landscape. “Our customers prefer us over other technology providers due to our team’s unwavering commitment to our customers in fulfilling their project objectives,” says Mirza, CEO, Avanza Innovations. Being an innovation-focused company, Avanza built the state-of-the-art blockchain orchestration and governance platform, Cipher, that comes pre-packaged with dozens of components and micro-services which are required in any blockchain implementation.

Bitit.io: Simplifying Crypto-Currency

Nicolas Katan, CEO & Co-founder, Bitit

“Being normal. I think that’s actually really important when it comes to understanding your team, creating an organization that works for everyone in it, building trust,” says Nicolas Katan, CEO and co-founder of Bitit.io. Katan believes in living a simple life and applies the same to his work environment. Bitit.io is a France based crypto-currency exchange platform launched in 2015. The platform offers the option to buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and DASH. It offers services in 50 countries with a focus on Europe. Forbes France featured them in their magazine as one of the best platforms to buy bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple.

Bloqs4good: Re-Inventing Decentralized Blockchain Technologies

Jose R Rosas, Co-CEO, Bloqs4Good

Bloqs4Good is a cutting-edge technology that builds solutions for B2B and B2C. B4G is leading the decentralized economy revolution in a unique direction – Connecting Humanity and Technology by delivering an ecosystem of people, businesses, and communities, empowering them to act with purpose and generate value, while guaranteeing their values of Trust, Integrity, and Sustainability.

The vision is to employ decentralized technology to promote new avenues of commerce for all their stakeholders and partners.

Coinify: Creating a Unified Blockchain Trading & Payment Platform

Mark Højgaard, Co-founder CEO, Coinify

An established global virtual currency player, Coinify runs a Blockchain trading & Payment platform for users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. Offering solutions in globally, the company also acts as a Payment Service Provider (PSP) that lets banks and merchants accept payment in 17 different cryptocurrencies while getting paid in their own local currencies. Other services the company offers include individual currency trading, corporate brokerage, payment processing services and Enterprise solutions via Coinify API. Riding the wave of blockchain enthusiasm in the financial service world globally, the company is looking to mainstream the use of virtual currencies by helping businesses and individuals foster financial innovation. It also intends to bridge the gap between the current financial world and all the fintech innovations.

Dapper Labs: Best Blockchain-based Consumer Experience

Roham Gharegozlou, CEO, Dapper Labs

A relentless optimist by nature, Roham Gharegozlou, CEO of Dapper Labs, is focused on making the world a more open place by driving adoption of blockchain technology. To do this, he uses the “power of play” and delivers blockchain-based experiences, creating new digital economies and empowering creators in the process. “We create products for real people. If something doesn’t matter to you, it doesn’t matter to us,” says Roham. The Next-gen Products: Taking blockchain gaming to the next level, Roham and his team designed innovative and fun products like Flow, NBA Top Shot, Dapper, and CryptoKitties. Flow is a new blockchain built for the next generation of apps, games, and the digital assets that power them.

Ember Fund: Revolutionizing Managed Cryptocurrency Funds

Alex Wang, Co-founder & CEO, Ember Fund

Ember is the first mobile app that allows users to easily buy into a managed cryptocurrency fund, without holding users’ assets. The company believes in fundamentally transforming those investment products people have access to on a global scale and uses cryptocurrencies to achieve the same. At the helm of affairs of Ember Fund is Alex Wang, Co-Founder & CEO. Excerpts from an interview with him: Story Behind Ember Fund: Ember Fund is the first mobile app that allows anyone in the world to invest like a crypto hedge fund, with just a few hundred dollars. According to Alex, the company partners with the best minds in crypto (hedge funds, quants, etc.) to bring sophisticated institutional grade trading strategies to the masses.

Hut 8 Mining: Revolutionizing Digital Economies

Jaime Leverton, CEO, Hut 8 Mining Corp

The newly appointed CEO of Hut8 Mining Corp, Jaime Leverton has her hands full. At Hut8, she will work towards enabling momentum and change, while driving approach-based solutions thus delivering quick wins. Over the last 20 years she has driven operational re-imagining in increasingly senior executive roles with leading tech companies. She also transformed operations and accelerated growth which is her primary objective at Hut8 Mining Corp. An active mentor and a board member of the Stratford Festival, TECHNATION and the Merry-Go-Round Children’s Foundation, Jaimie is an ardent advocate of gender equality and believes that women should hold senior positions at top management levels. An avid runner, reader and a loving wife and a mother, she spoke to us on an array of topics. Excerpts from an interview:

Vault Security Systems: Effective, Affordable, and Accessible

Arman Sarhaddar, CEO and Founder, Vault Security Systems AG

“Once you have a vision, build a strategy around it to execute the vision.” A serial entrepreneur across markets, Arman Sarhaddar is a dreamer by nature who believes in carefully building the strategic foundation that shapes his dreams. Born and raised in Vienna, Austria, Sarhaddar became an active investment banker in 2000. He worked for big investment firms in various markets and managed companies with up to 50 brokers in the U.S.

The Blockchain Journey: Having over 20 years of wealth management experience, Sarhaddar has always been fascinated about the distributed ledger technology which brings true authenticity, integrity, and security in to play.

A Woman Who Changes Women’s Lives

Sigi Marmorstein, MSN, FNP-BC, Founder, CEO/Chairman, BabyLiveAdvice

OVlabs develops the blockchain technologies needed for a new global financial ecosystem. The organization has developed RSK Smart Contract Network, RSK Infrastructure Framework (RIF), and Taringa!’s platforms. The RSK Network is one of the more secure smart contract platforms in the world, designed to leverage Bitcoin’s unparalleled power. RSK Infrastructure Framework (RIF) is a suite of open and decentralized infrastructure protocols that enable faster, easier, and scalable development of distributed applications (dApps) within a unified environment and aims to add the identity, storage, communications, marketplaces, micro-payments, and gateways layers to allow the creation of Decentralized Sharing Economies.

Plazus Technologies: Blockchain in Everyday Life

Galya Westler, CEO, Plazus Technologies Inc

Oftentimes leaders do not recognize the power in them until they pursue it persistently. From a shy dancer first on stage to a bold TED speaker later in life, Galya Westler discovered the potential in her with relentless perseverance despite the odds she faced.

Originally graduating as a Software Engineer, Galya quickly climbed the corporate ladder but soon realized that she wanted the independence and freedom to develop her own company as an entrepreneur. She decided to quit the corporate world and devote her entire focus to cutting-edge technology projects.