New York Blockchain Week is back on 10-17 May, although it doesn’t seem like almost a year since the Lambos cruised down Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, yet again the lack of female reps from the Blockchain industry highlights the fintech’s gender imbalance.
The second of such events hosted by CoinDesk and the New York City Economic Development Corporation is expecting industry stakeholder’s from over 100 countries to meet and collaborate in what has now become the de facto annual industry summit.
Industry big names such as Caitlin Long and Donna Redel will be speaking at the annual celebration of blockchain, but it would be nice to see other women pushing blockchain forward in attendance. Women at the top have long viewed diversity as the blockchain industry’s fundamental, but this doesn’t always stretch to big events such as these.
IBM’s blockchain sisters Bridget van Kralingen, Marie Wieck and Ginni Rometty showed what they could achieve in 2018. Amber Baldet, once of JPMorgan, left Wall Street to develop her own software by founding Clovyr and get startups on the road to using blockchain technology more effectively. These are all voices the industry needs to tap into at the big events.
In 2018, Blockchain Women Ireland (BWI) was founded in the Irish Republic to further advance awareness of the blockchain sector in the country in an attempt to address the current figures which illustrate that still, only 20% of those in tech-related fields are female.
New York Blockchain Week speaker Caitlin Long is another who followed the Wall Street Exodus to blockchain, co-founding the Wyoming Blockchain Coalition which has been responsible for pushing innovative blockchain legislation forward in the state. She explains:
“The developments in Wyoming over the past year have been so positive for both the industry and Wyoming. We are paving the way for how to provide clarity to blockchain developers about what’s legal and what’s not.”
Speaker Donna Rede; professor at Fordham Law and leading advocate for the financial literacy of women runs courses in crypto and blockchain, is another leading from the top. The once chair at COMEX and one-time Managing Director and Board member at the World Economic Forum says her focus is now on educating future leaders in blockchain technology.
A recent UK government report revealed that salary imbalance between the genders when it comes to business is still slow to change. Although one in three entrepreneurs are women in the UK — a hugely improved figure — many of the companies run by women are also half the size of those with male directorship. The report goes on to indicate that accelerating female recruitment into the business over the next year could add an extra USD 25 billion to the UK economy alone.
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