Mr. Lee started his career in Silicon Valley as a software engineer at Yahoo!, and led the development of the earliest online communities. He graduated from Stanford University with B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science, and was a member of the Mayfield Fellows Program. He earned an EMBA degree from CEIBS in China. Mr. Lee currently serves on the board of Bitcoin Foundation, a non-profit organization that fosters the adoption of bitcoin globally. In his spare time, he enjoys traveling, photography, watching movies, and playing poker.
George is a blockchain and cryptocurrency investor and advisor to global financial institutions, startups and law firms. He recently was the lead author of “The State of Stablecoins 2019: Hype vs. Reality in the Race for Stable, Global, Digital Money”. He also co-authored a seminal report on blockchain architecture with KPMG and Gilbert & Tobin. Recently, George has been consulting and advising startups such as Fantom, Agridigital.io, Commchain and Hedera Hashgraph (Swirld’s). George is an advisor to Kadena, Meter, Lightstreams.network, GoodMoney.io, Crown League, and tatau.io. He also writes a blog on blockchain technology and use cases at sammantics.com. George also co-founded BTC.sx, now magnr, a bitcoin trading platform in 2013. He is also a former Wall Street Senior Portfolio Manager and Market Strategist as well as a technical analyst. George holds the Chartered Market Technician (CMT) designation.
Finance, Entertainment and Technology industry entrepreneur, seasoned capital formation leader, film producer, and talent representative. With over 25 years in the entertainment and finance industries, Jon is a major force at the intersection of celebrity and social good. He is a founding Advisory Board member of Slate Entertainment Group, creator of disruptive crypto-driven streaming and ticketing platforms. As a veteran of the William Morris Agency, he founded Infinity Management International in 1990, which represents top record producers, film and television writers, directors, and producers. He began his career practicing transactional and securities law at two major law firms on Park Avenue in New York.
Karas is officially the co-founder and president of Akoin. One of Akoin’s big use cases will be to help African users convert mobile phone minutes into other currencies. At present pre-paid mobile phone minutes are used like digital currencies in countries where inflation is rampant. There are even ‘minuteaires’ who are independently wealthy with mobile phone minutes.
“It is a huge store of value. And it’s something that they trust. They know they’re going to keep using that, they know they can trade them they know they can pay for things with them,” he said.
Akoin signed a partnership with BitMinutes which will provide free money transfers to 1.2 billion accounts across Africa and free mobile top ups four four billion mobile phones. It will also provide micro lending.
While Akon has done charity projects before, including installing solar lighting in 18 countries, Akoin is a for-profit venture.
“Our belief is that all social impact ventures if they’re for profit, they will grow bigger faster better,” he said adding that profitablity was good for users too.
“The token is intended to be something that will increase in value both by a limited circulating supply and by more and more and more utility,” he said.
He’s spent a lot of time around musicians – he notes in passing that one of his colleagues at Akoin is actually the cousin of the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir. And Karas even hangs out with former Beatle Ringo Starr.
Jon Participated at the Smart City Fireside Chat during AIBC Summit this November 2021
The panel ? Smart City Fireside Chat ? was discussed at AIBC Summit this November 2021 during the main stage event for Blockchain & The Economy: ? Dustin Plantholt, Founder & CEO at Crypterns ? Akon, Founder at Akoin ? Jon Karas, Co-founder & President at Akoin AIBC Summit aims to be a pillar in the technological development by uniting tech-leaders, regulators, investors and entrepreneurs from across the world to discuss, share ideas, make partnerships and build the foundation for the industry of tomorrow. ? Check out what AIBC has lined up for 2022 ➡ https://aibc.world/
Richard Heart is a Bitcoin, Blockchain, cryptocurrency and internet marketing expert who has founded and managed several successful Internet startups, the largest having 150 employees with a turnover of $60M and operating in mortgage and consumer finance markets. He is a search engine optimization, affiliate marketing and startup veteran and has appeared on numerous international broadcasts including Russia Today (RT) television and CNBC (Africa) speaking about Bitcoin, Blockchain and cryptocurrency issues
Truth raider is a Bitcoin and blockchain advocate within the cryptocurrency community. He specializes in Euorpean markets and provide social media coverage to major blockchain conferences. He utilizes Truthraider.com, Twitter, Instagram, and his vast network of industry contacts to promote events within the region.
Adriaan Brink is CEO of Funtoken.io – promoters of the FUN token and associated activities. FUN Token is creating a gambling ecosystem based on a crypto token. It trades on major exchanges and is the largest gaming crypto in the world. It also operates casino and traffic acquisition sites through related companies.
Brink started professional programming on ICL and UNIVAC mainframes in 1984 performing statistical analysis, moving on to real-time financial markets analytics in 1989, followed by online recruitment with PeopleBank in 1990.
In 1994 Brink introduced PeopleBank to the European markets. Towards the end of 1994 he started “The London Mall” as a portal to attract visitors to PeopleBank. PeopleBank and The London Mall were sold to the Daily Mail newspaper group in 1995.
Having witnessed firsthand the potential of the internet and the success of the UK National Lottery, in early 1995 the idea was born for an Internet-based lottery. Operating out of Liechtenstein Brink established PLUSLotto – the world’s first Internet lottery and online gaming site and quickly established its position as a leading e-commerce site in Europe.
In 1998 Brink was a founding director and CTO of Earthport (www.earthport.com) – a UK-based Payment Services Company specializing in interbank payment and forex systems. Earthport was listed on the LSE and was sold in 2018 to Visa for $340M.
In 2001 Brink formed Zabadoo AG focusing on white-labeled lottery systems. In late 2004 Brink joined the team at Mahjong Mania to bring for money, multiplayer internet Mahjong to the world. Mahjong Mania became part of TSX listed company Dynasty Gaming Inc. He was President of Mahjong Systems Limited for 4 years and was instrumental in pioneering multiplayer Mahjong on the Internet, cutting deals with operators and suppliers such as Ladbrokes and Microgaming. He exited Dynasty Gaming Inc at a market cap of $140M.
In 2007 Brink formed iCoins and introduced a new concept in the way money should move on the Internet. iCoins launched peer-to-peer and merchant payments on Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo. With the release of the early Bitcoin code, iCoins was mothballed as it seemed that Bitcoin was more advanced technology.
In 2011, after building the mobile sportsbook client for Bodog, Brink formed Socialize to develop and operate virtual sports betting apps on Facebook and mobile. In 2015 he joined Gamesys PLC in London as Program Lead to establish their new Virgin Bet brand. He left the team of over 100 people in late 2017 to pursue a new startup in Cryptocurrency.
In 2017 he launched BETR – Better Betting with a successful ICO in December 2017. BETR is an escrow cryptocurrency (BETR) with its first application in a peer-to-peer sports betting system which went live mid 2018. BETR is live with daily action, all peer-to-peer with no central party. It offers a wide range of markets on all popular sports with eSports added in early 2020. In 2021 BETR merged with FUN Token and the functionality is being ported to the new token.
On day 3 of Malta Week 2021, Adriaan participated in the panel “The Future Of Betting And Payments In The Quantum Computing Era”, at the Main Stage Adriaan discussed short and long term perspectives of the future of payment, and how Quantum Computers are being used by companies to try to solve the problem of making them more commonplace.
Matthew started mining bitcoin in 2013 while working at a boutique venture capital fund in Los Angeles. He went on to become the chief digital officer for one of the fund’s portfolio companies and later left to consult for Google Ventures. In 2016, Matthew began investing more broadly in cryptocurrencies and in September of 2017 he set out to form Blockhead Capital.
Multi-faceted professional, driven by passion for emerging tech. I never do something unless my heart is in it My first dive into this exciting space was in 2011 through mining bitcoin. Coming from a business development background I began getting involved through various roles assisting startups with strategy and fundraising. As I got more exposure I became aware of the lack of talent and how crucial the right talent is for success, so I began my recruitment career, helping innovative projects build their dream teams. By no means am I an expert, still looking for opportunities to expand my knowledge base, further my professional development and help build the future of the financial Industry as we know it
Sergio Stephano is a technology executive with more than a decade of experience building startups and delivering marketing strategies to Fortune 500’s and large scale online platforms. Notable past and current clients include: Disney, Tony Robbins, MERRY JANE, Internet Brands, 1-800-TAXICAB among others. Prior to founding Blockdigital, Sergio built and sold an innovative social media platform to a publicly traded company. In his spare time Sergio enjoys playing the occasional chess game and studying the latest blockchain technologies and startups. He is an avid proponent of Bitcoin, Ethereum and crypto technologies used to solve large scale economics and business challenges.
Serial blockchain entrepreneur targeting emerging markets in Latam, currently developing Blockzy a disruptive new era financial platform using Blockchain targeting undocumented immigrants globally, as a Bitcoin enthusiast and experienced entrepreneur, he has supported cryptocurrency and Blockchain technology since 2011 being involved in the fintech sector.
Sagi Bakshi, CEO of Coinmama, is a computer science engineer with over 20 years of experience in the tech industry and an extensive background in telecommunications, ad-tech, and blockchain technologies. He joins Coinmama from tech unicorn IronSource, which recently announced their IPO intention with an estimated valuation of $11B. Sagi was a member of the IronSource founding team and, from 2011-2018, served as General Manager of the company’s biggest division. A longtime crypto enthusiast who is passionate about Bitcoin and participated in the Ethereum DAO token sale, Sagi brings his expertise to Coinmama in order to lead the financial revolution. · Name, Company & Job Title as he’d like them to appear
Dr. Stefan Beyer is a cybersecurity expert specialized in blockchain security and cryptography. As a distributed systems researcher, he worked on subjects, such as distributed consensus, reliable group communication, and replication protocols, long before these concepts were adopted by blockchain technology with the emergence of Bitcoin and subsequent protocols. He is the CEO of Cryptonics and the lead auditor of Solidified. He has audited over 50 well-known blockchain and smart contract projects.
