Jill Carlson is an advisor on cryptocurrency and blockchain-based initiatives. She is the co-founder of Open Money Initiative, a nonprofit research organisation that works to facilitate access to free and open financial systems, the co-host of the What Grinds My Gears cryptocurrency podcast and a principal at Slow Ventures. In her role as an investor, she is an advisor for O(1) Labs, Algorand and UMA.
Open Money Initiative researches how people use money in closed economies and collapsing systems—starting with the situation in Venezuela.
“Coming from the worlds of finance, technology, and design, we started to brainstorm how we might help Venezuelans living under such dire circumstances,” the organisation explained in a Medium post. “Our early starts, however, led us only to learn how much we didn’t know. Without understanding the day-to-day context Venezuelans were living, it was difficult to grasp where to start and what solutions were needed. We needed to go to the field to learn how Venezuelan individuals, families, and communities were managing their financial health, their physical safety, and their overall wellbeing.”
Several sponsors support the organisation’s work, including the Human Rights Foundation, IDEO, the Tezos Foundation, the Interchain Foundation, LocalBitcoins, the Stellar Development Foundation, the Zcash Foundation and GiveCrypto.
Jill hosts the What Grinds My Gears podcast with fellow crypto-enthusiast Meltem Demirors. Every week, they discuss a key theme related to the crypto world and examine it through a broader lens. The duo also covers buzzworthy topics in the blockchain sphere.
Prior to founding Open Money Initiative, Jill held positions at Goldman Sachs, the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, and enterprise blockchain software company Chain.
She received a bachelor’s in classics from Harvard University and a master’s in global governance and democracy from the University of Oxford.
Tags: blockchain, cryptocurrency, finance, Investment and Funding, podcasts, VC, Women in Tech, Women in VC
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