Fellows

Abhishek Bhattacharya is a co-founder at Brú Finance . Brú Finance is a new platform that aims to provide harvest-time loans for farmers in India. For his Fellowship project, Abhishek will be overseeing and learning from the launch of Brú's platform to a public chain that utilizes decentralized liquidity for the farmers, and exploring what this system could look like at a global scale.

Gabriela Guerra founded Bloinx, a startup that implements blockchain-based tandas (also known as cundinas, susu, hui, arisan, quiniela, stokvel, and others around the world) – informal savings circles. Gabriela is convinced that blockchain can have real benefit for the unbanked population of the world, and that savings circles are one good starting mechanism. During her Fellowship, Gabriela will conduct pilots in Mexico and Venezuela and use the research to help improve Bloinx for larger scales.

Karam Alhamad is an entrepreneur, fintech visionary, international development professional, and human rights policy advocate. Karam founded ZeFi, an educational platform and community focused on fostering blockchain education and research custom-fit for the Syrian context. For the Fellowship, Karam will conduct research that increases practical and culturally-sensitive understandings of how blockchains can solve problems in conflict settings.

Marcus Alburez Myers is a Guatemalan entrepreneur working to address today's pressing challenges. He is currently a Founder-in-Residence at Europe's leading accelerator, Entrepreneur First, where he is drawing on the power of web3 to empower marginalized communities. Through his work with Lamina POP, a low-cost housing design project in Guatemala, Marcus will be exploring the real-world barriers to physical asset financing for DeFi, and will apply his findings to develop a possible solution for housing finance.

Mary Davies is a legal researcher and technologist based in the Cayman Islands. Mary has been exploring a pressing question: If life-extension technology doesn’t pan out over the next few decades, what happens to your crypto when you die? Currently there is no trustless or decentralized solution to this question, and this presents a problem. Mary’s fellowship will explore what new cryptographic mechanisms might enable us to trustlessly transfer assets after death, in a way that is legally compliant.

Mihajlo Atanackovic is leading the digital transformation journey of one of the world's biggest non-formal educational youth movements - the World Organization of the Scout Movement with 57+ million members from around the globe. To get the Scout Movement ready for web3, he is embarking on an ambitious project involving digitalising badges, exploring DAOs for different levels of the Movement, and how the scouts might employ novel coordination mechanisms for grassroots organization.

Benson Njuguna (Acre Africa) worked to implement blockchain solutions to a microinsurance product that protects thousands of small-scale farmers in Kenya from extreme weather events. His project tested and showcased Ethereum’s potential in enabling the viability and sustainability of products and services that target the bottom of the wealth pyramid. Read more about Benson's work here.

Chuy Cepeda (OS.City) worked with municipal and national governments to create an Ethereum wallet app in Spanish for citizens, with a vision to one-day hold government-issued documents (like permits and IDs). During the Fellowship Program, he and his team worked with the government of Argentina and created strategies to advance the meaningful adoption of blockchain in the public sector in Latin America. Read more about Chuy's work here.

Kuldeep Bandhu Aryal (BRAC) sought to build a blockchain and crypto strategy for BRAC - the world’s largest NGO based in Bangladesh that annually serves over 100 million people. His project - which also involves multiple experiments using blockchain - could serve as a model for other social enterprises and the development sector at large.

Naroa Zurutuza (Giga) explored Ethereum-based solutions as part of Giga's effort to connect every school to the internet. By helping to provide today’s most important public good to billions of currently unconnected people, Naroa envisioned many roles that blockchain can play, from increasing accountability of service providers and financing connectivity infrastructures to an access point to the global economy and marketplaces.