2 0 1 9 / 2 0 2 0 â–Ş WAT E R FRO N T M AGA Z INE
your lunch. Tracy, the consummate community builder, puts the focus on inclusivity by leveraging an army of student volunteers. She tries to make ticket prices affordable.
development weekend where teams of "hackers," with the help of mentors, focus on solving a business or community problem. They compete to be the winner as the most viable project chosen by a group of judges at the end of the weekend. This year's successful event featured a family day with learning opportunities, including educational sessions and Blockchain games for kids. CryptoChicks is a not-for-profit established by an all women team just two years ago. Since then, they've hosted Blockchain hackathons, education initiatives, and started chapters in places like New York, Pakistan, Switzerland, Australia and Russia. The name and logo, a cartoon-like pigtail girl, was purposely chosen to stand out and be a bit controversial, according to Founders Elena Sinelnikova and Natalia Ameline, who both have master's degrees in computer science. The Blockchain Futurist Conference welcomed 2500 international attendees and top speakers such as Vitalik Buturin, Tone Vays and Roger Ver. It was two days of dawn to dusk keynotes, panel discussions, Bootcamp sessions, exhibits, networking events, parties and even dips in the Cabana pool. All in an immersive experience to understand everyday applications, including airdrop crypto coins, to buy
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TRACY DISCOVERED BITCOIN IN 2013 WHILE WORKING AS A MICROFINANCE VOLUNTEER IN KENYA
Tracy is the first Blockchain event organizer in Canada, and a force on the international scene undertaking past events in Chicago and the Bahamas. She discovered Bitcoin in 2013 while working as a microfinance volunteer in Kenya. Active since those early days of the Toronto Blockchain community, she reminisces about it consisting of developers and groups of counterculture libertarians and anarchists. Bankers in the crowd preferred not to mention they worked for a bank. However, much has changed since then; almost all banks are now researching or working on use cases incorporating Blockchain. Perhaps next year, diversity extends to more excellent representation from Bay Street. More information on these organizations and future events is available at www.toronto.cryptochicks.ca or www.futurest19.com
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lindamont3 Linda Montgomery, Marketing and Growth Expert for FinTech companies. She is Technology Editor of Waterfront Magazine and a Waterfront resident.
