Women in Blockchain Spotlights

Blockchain Conference Session | Empathy & Inclusion for Scaling Blockchains

At the 2021 Blockchain Conference for Business, Kathryn Carlisle, Elizabeth Kabaghe, and Sandra Ro led a panel discussion on Empathy & Inclusion for Scaling Blockchains. The panelists shared and discussed how Heifer International and the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) embed Empathy and Inclusion. They also discussed the importance of Empathy and Inclusion in the blockchain space.

Kathryn Carlisle is the Senior Managing Director of the Blockchain Center of Excellence in the Sam M. Walton College at the University of Arkansas. She holds a Master’s of Digital Currency from The University of Nicosia in Cyprus, the first institution in the world to offer this degree. Kathryn founded Distributed Tech Partners, a blockchain and cryptocurrency consulting business, that enabled her to lead product design, manage communities and pilot projects with businesses, startups and non-profits based all over the country.

Elizabeth has been working in international economic and community development for over the last decade, and currently is the Innovation and New Initiatives lead based out of Heifer Malawi. She supports the scaling of innovations to contribute in accelerating Heifer’s goal of helping 10 million families achieve living incomes by 2030. She focuses on program design and piloting digital technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, and solar technologies. She was previously awarded the fellowship of the African women in Agriculture and Research development and serves on the Social Impact Committee for the Diem Association (previously known as Libra). 

Sandra is a proponent for ‘human-centric tech’. She left a career in derivatives, investment banking and currency markets to focus on emerging technologies, particularly in financial systems, that promote sustainability, access, and resiliency. She is an early investor in, and an advocate of crypto and digital assets. Sandra currently serves as the CEO of the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC), a Swiss-based non-profit consisting over 270 institutional members. Sandra is an angel investor in emerging technologies, Board member, advisor, keynote speaker and cofounder of several start-ups, non-profits, and key blockchain industry networks.