GLOBAL DEFI SUMMIT 2021
Produced by Blockchain Venture Studio Draper Goren Holm, the Global DeFi Summit is 2021’s leading annual gathering of DeFiers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency community.
The inaugural one-day event is bringing you an unparalleled group of DeFi innovators and change-makers to share their stories about how they are defining the next era of global finance. The team at Draper Goren Holm brings you an exclusive, curated, high-impact, informative, and thought-provoking event presented by some of decentralized finance’s foremost informative speakers.
Who’s Attending?
It’s a no-brainer; you want to learn and hear from the best of the best - so that’s exactly what we’re bringing you. Market movers and industry definers ranging from CEOs, CIOs, CLOs, COOs, and CTOs will take the stage at the Global DeFi Summit this summer. Come learn from your favorite marketers, venture capitalists, software engineers, entrepreneurs, up and coming DeFi startups, data scientists and analysts, lawyers, regulators, writers, reports, and avid industry enthusiasts.
Why Attend?
Expect to get answers for why decentralized finance is the move forward for not only a global economy, but a transparent financial system.
Global Networking
Unique Content
Expert Speakers
Backed by some of the most unique and highly quoted leaders, the Global DeFi Summit is hosting the industry’s best of the best to ensure you have all the resources and notes required to expand your imagination, insight, creativity, and understanding about the future of decentralized finance.
Agenda
Speakers
Ralf Gerteis
Co-Founder & CEO ScaleswapCo-Founder of Scaleswap, the next generation IDO launchpad on layer 2 scaling protocol and Advisor & Angel Investor at Metis where we build the next generation DAO framework on layer 2 OR. Next to that I am active in different blockchain organizations and I'm currently focusing on all things DeFI, DAO, multi-chain and layer 2 scaling solutions. I'm a strategist, innovator, connector and thought leader, experienced in business development, conceptual solution development, token metrics/ token economics, fundraising strategies and a hands-on leader with a driven personality for success and growth.
Aly Madhavji
Managing Partner at Blockchain Founders Fund and LP at Loyal VC & Draper Goren HolmAly Madhavji 穆亚霖 is the Managing Partner at Blockchain Founders Fund which invests in and venture builds top-tier startups. He is a Limited Partner on Loyal VC and Draper Goren Holm. Aly consults organizations on emerging technologies such as INSEAD and the UN on solutions to help alleviate poverty. He is a Senior Blockchain Fellow at INSEAD and was recognized as a “Blockchain 100” Global Leader by Lattice80. He is an internationally acclaimed author, publishing three books and a monthly columnist for the leading blockchain magazine. Aly serves as a board member of CryptoStar Corp. (TSXV: CSTR), Mechanical Technology Incorporated (NASDAQ: MKTY) and has served on various advisory boards including the University of Toronto’s Governing Council, which manages a $2.5B budget. He is a mentor with Chinaccelerator, an elite accelerator program operated by the venture fund SOSV with $855M+ AUM and the Mobile Only Accelerator (MOX). Aly holds a Master of Global Affairs as a Schwarzman Scholar from Tsinghua University (清华大学), a Master of Business Administration from INSEAD (Singapore and France), and a Bachelor of Commerce with Distinction from the University of Toronto.
Maggie Love
Founder at SheFiReimagining and building new business and societal models with blockchain for inclusiveness, interconnectedness and resilience. Passionate about doing meaningful work, positively impacting and empowering others, constantly learning, and connecting people, ideas and technology together for a common good.
Ting Peng
Blockchain Journalist & Corporate Communication SpecialistTing Peng comes from a political science background and is a former university lecturer. She’s passionate about how Bitcoin and blockchain technology can empower people and help businesses transform in the new era. She has an entrepreneurial spirit and has joined several fintech startups since 2017. She speaks fluent Chinese, English, and Korean, and is currently based in Italy where she’s pursuing her dream to become a corporate communication specialist.
Michael Anderson
Co-Founder and Partner at Framework VenturesMichael is a co-founder and partner at Framework Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on building the value of blockchain networks through strategic investment and infrastructural support. Before founding Framework, Michael built and sold Hashletes, the first and only NFLPA-licensed digital collectibles, with co-founder Vance Spencer. Michael’s prior experience bridges investment banking and consumer tech, with experience from Snap, Inc., Dropbox, and Barclays Capital. To learn more visit: framework.ventures.
Zach Burks
Founder of MintableZach Burks is a blockchain developer whose been in the blockchain space since 2012. Zach fell in love with NFTs when they were just created and has since built many things related to NFTs that improved the entire ecosystem. In 2018, he founded Mintable, a next-generation NFT marketplace built on the Ethereum & Zilliqa blockchain for buying/selling/creating NFTs. Mintable has since helped over 200,000 creators monetize their work via NFTs.
Jack O'Holleran
CEO and co-Founder of SKALE LabsTechnology entrepreneur focused on blockchain and decentralized systems. Co-founder and CEO of Skale Labs. Skale is solving the blockchain scalability problem by facilitating processing between blockchains and decentralized applications, helping the ecosystem run hundreds of millions of smart contracts and transactions per second.
Aaron Segal
Author at Bitcoin MagazineI am a Bitcoin Magazine contributor, and a portfolio manager at a NYC-based hedge fund with over 16 years of experience in the hedge fund industry, and prior to discovering bitcoin and the broader crypto industry, have had extensive experience investing, navigating credit markets, banking, monetary theories, macroeconomics, risk management, trading and game theory, and fundamental analysis of asset values in gold/commodities, equities, FX, options/derivatives, futures, and corporate debt. My intention now is to take some of the knowledge and insights accumulated over the past several years in crypto, combine it with my many years studying markets and economics in the real world, and share that combined perspective to become a more productive member of the bitcoin community and to help possible skeptics out there better comprehend the exhilarating and transformational tsunami that is underway.
Dr. Vin Menon
Co-Founder and Strategic Advisor of iBG.FinanceDr. Vin Menon, a veteran of technology services industry can be credited with the strategic direction behind several disruptive technology companies. In the corporate world, he held various leadership positions at MNC's like HP & Compaq with global responsibilities. Driven by his passion for technology & innovation, Vin has been a forerunner in technological innovation and has helped create the business ecosystem of disruptive technologies and high-growth companies. His experience helped him endeavour in the technology space as an entrepreneur & advisor, leading several startups from inception to meteoric growth across continents. With a proven track record of setting up motivated and high calibre teams in the technology and services industry, establishing development centres from scratch to scale, and building company competencies led him to being awarded ‘Entrepreneur of the Year 2012′ by Rotary-ASME, 'Outstanding Entrepreneur Award 2011' by APEA, the ‘Spirit of Enterprise 2010‘ by SOE Singapore and was selected as a ‘Leading Indian Entrepreneur of the Year 2010‘ by the Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce. Vin Menon is also a champion of techno-preneurship and was serving on the Board of Directors of the Spirit of Enterprise (SOE) and the Mentoring Programme under Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE) by SPRING Singapore.
Alon Goren
Co-Founder of Draper Goren HolmAlon is a Founding Partner of Draper Goren Holm, a Venture Studio focused on accelerating and incubating early-stage blockchain startups. Alon is also Co-Founder of LA Blockchain Summit. He is an investor, speaker, hostand leader of one of Southern California’s largest group of investors and entrepreneurs, 805 Startups, with a laser-focussed eye on building and supporting startups and entrepreneurs. A pioneer in the crowdfunding space, Alon had been involved in over $200 Million Dollars in online investment transactions. He has developed technology that powers websites and financial transactions for Fortune 500 companies and well-known foundations such as Coca-Cola, American Express, ATB Financial and Global Philanthropy Group. InvestedIn, Alon’s previous company, created a white label fundraising portal for individuals and businesses hoping to crowdfund ventures independently of major platforms. Later, his support of the JOBS Act, online media expertise and day-to-day interactions with venture funds, investors and financial professionals inspired him to create a solution to market hedge funds, real estate funds and venture funds to investors over the internet.
Joe Vezzani
CEO of LunarCRUSHJoe has an extensive background working in across finance, technology, advertising, sales, marketing, and start-ups. Since finding cryptocurrency in 2015 Joe has not looked back, a long-time hold’er he believes anyone building in the cryptocurrency space is building a better future.
Austin Roberts
Co-founder & CEO of OpenRelayAustin has a vast array of technical experience, building frontend, backend, and mobile systems with a variety of languages and technologies. He has lead development teams in building stable operational systems, and transformed haphazard development processes into well oiled machines with strong automated processes. With a master's degree focused on application security, he knows how to keep your data safe. Austin uses this range of expertise to find creative solutions to all sorts of problems. Austin has been following the blockchain space for the last five years. He has been involved in the Ethereum community since before the mainnet launched, and has been developing for Ethereum since soon after it launched. For the last year and a half he has run a small consulting firm, including for some clients in the blockchain space.
Jesse Johnson
Co-Founder of Aavegotchi and BullionixJesse is a builder who has been hands on developing a number of non-fungible token (NFT) products that you may already be familiar with. He co-founded Mintable, Ethereum’s first no-code solution for minting NFTs and is the creator of Bullionix, a dapp that enables anyone to transform gold-backed stable coins into beautiful 3D digital collectibles. Jesse is currently building Aavegotchi, the ultimate gamified DeFi experience.
Ash Bennington
Senior Editor & Crypto Editor at Real VisionAsh Bennington is a former CNBC reporter with a special interest in blockchain and cryptocurrency whose work has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, TheStreet.com, BusinessInsider, and numerous other publications. In addition to reporting on finance and economics, Mr. Bennington was a Vice President of e-Commerce at BB&T. Prior to working at BB&T, he held the title Assistant Vice-President & Technical Expert at Credit Suisse.
Neeraj Khandelwal
Co-founder at CoinDCXNeeraj Khandelwal is the co-founder of CoinDCX, a leading Indian crypto exchange. As a known face in the crypto industry, Neeraj has been instrumental in building some of the most revolutionary products in crypto namely Lend, Staking and Margin Derivatives, among others, on the exchange. Neeraj believes that crypto and blockchain can bring about a revolution in the traditional finance space. With a passion for technology and an inclination towards building technology that can be scaled into a profitable business, Neeraj aims to build products that make crypto accessible and easy to global audiences. He aims to solve problems by enhancing financial systems with the help of Blockchain and Crypto technology. Neeraj is a firm proponent of the belief that crypto and blockchain can transform finance to a much greater degree in the next 10-20 years. His areas of expertise lie in the crypto macro space and also has a keen eye for global crypto developments such as CBDC, DeFi, among others. Neeraj holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay.
Barney Mannerings
Founder of Vega ProtocolFounder of Vega Protocol, an innovative decentralised derivatives trading and settlement network and previously Pik, a web/mobile first payments company building a better deal for digital content creators and consumers. Previously 10+ years in FS (Markets & Banking) including: Exchange and electronic trading platforms and algorithms, OTC products and trading processes, derivatives, FX, bonds / fixed income, equities, consumer banking customer experience and apps.
Dante Disparte
Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Global Policy at CircleDante Disparte is the Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Global Policy for Circle, a leading digital financial services firm building the most trusted treasury and payments infrastructure for the internet, including the fastest growing dollar digital currency, USDC. Prior to joining Circle, Dante served as a founding executive of the Diem Association, leading public policy, communications, membership, and social impact. Dante comes to Circle with two decades of experience as an entrepreneur, business leader and global risk expert, most recently as founder and CEO of Risk Cooperative, a strategic risk advisory and insurance brokerage based in Washington, D.C. Dante also serves as an appointee on the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) National Advisory Council, the United States’ federal emergency response agency. He is also a member of the World Economic Forum’s Digital Currency Governance Consortium, helping drive global standards and regulatory harmonization for digital currencies. Dante is a frequent speaker and commentator on business and political issues shaping the world. His views on risk, economic competitiveness and security issues are regularly featured in leading media and publications, such as Harvard Business Review, BBC, Forbes, and Diplomatic Courier, where Dante serves on the editorial advisory board.
Josef Holm
Co-Founder of Draper Goren HolmA global serial entrepreneur and investor with 20 years of startup, growth hacking, business development and digital marketing experience. He has a passion for disruptive ideas, unconventional thinking, and a “screw it, let’s do it” attitude. Born and raised in Austria, Josef worked and lived in Vienna, Sydney, Berlin, Zurich and Panama before immigrating to the US in 2012 where he shortly after joined the booming fintech industry and since has launched three startups in the space. Josef was named a “Top 100 FinTech Influencer” by LTP, he has been very involved in the crowdfunding ecosystem. Josef frequently speaks at public events such as SXSW V2V, Social Media Week LA, Fundit USA, Metropole, #CFGE Crowdfund Global Expo, #Crowdfunding USA and Kickercon. In 2015 he founded Krowdster.co, the first do-it-yourself crowdfunding marketing, and PR SaaS. Krowdster’s powerful tools enable crowd funders to plan and to growth hack successful rewards and equity campaigns. In 2016, he co-founded the Crowd Invest Summit conference and expo which has become the biggest conference and expo in crowdfunding and online investing. In 2018, Josef co-founded LA Blockchain Summit.
Jon Farjo
Chief Product Officer at LunarCRUSHObsessed with digital currencies since 2013, Jon Farjo is currently the Founder, Chief Product Officer of LunarCRUSH. LunarCRUSH delivers community insights to cryptocurrency investors, exchanges and funds through lunarcrush.com and the LunarCRUSH API. Jon has a diverse background in crypto trading strategies, user experience, artificial intelligence, product planning, and marketing for global brands.
Saeed Al Darmaki
Founder of Sheesha FinanceSaeed is Managing Director – MENA for CasperLabs, Founder of Sheesha Finance and Co-Founder of Alphabit Digital Currency Fund. He sits on boards of entities such as DEX, RealEx, MENA Fintech Association, BeMobi, Jahani & Associates, LEAD Ventures, Royale Finance, Artha, TeraBlock and Kenzi Wealth. These roles have given him tremendous insight into the crypto/blockchain space and enabled him to develop a key network of contacts which has helped him grow his knowledge of the market exponentially. Saeed started his career at ADIA in October 2009 as an Operations specialist then from May 2013 became a Fixed Income & Treasury specialist. In June 2018 he decided to leave ADIA to focus on the crypto/blockchain industry.
David Bleznak
Founder and CEO at TotleDavid is a serial entrepreneur and crypto asset investor. His background in real estate finance offers a unique perspective to the crypto space. With a business degree from the University of Michigan, David began his career in commercial real estate. He joined his brother and father in metro Detroit where he led acquisitions and developed Bleznak Group’s fundraising platform. Leveraging his deep understanding of finance, business administration and software development he generated extraordinary cash-on-cash returns for investors in excess of 50% among retail, industrial and multifamily investments. David saw opportunity in the blockchain space with the maturation of the Ethereum Foundation in 2014 and began to diversify his real estate earnings. His frustration with the lack of existing crypto asset administration software led him to pursue development of Totle.
Medha Parlikar
CTO and Co-Founder at CasperLabsMedha Parlikar is the CTO of CasperLabs. She has spent more than two decades in management and software engineering where she was responsible for the creation and delivery of software products. Before co-founding CasperLabs in the fall of 2018 she was Sr. Dir. Content & Engineering at Avalara, Sr. Mgr. of Quality Control at Adobe and Dir. QA at MP3.com. Her specialties include in Blockchain, Content Delivery, Analytics, Product engineering, and Cloud computing.
J.D. Salbego
Founder & CEO of AnRKey XJ.D. Salbego, Founder, CEO, and Art Director of AnRKey X, a cutting edge DeFi based gaming and NFT platform protocol, is a global leader in DeFi and crypto, market influencer, speaker, published author, and internationally-recognized subject matter expert. J.D. is a featured contributor on Cointelegraph.com, frequently gives media interviews, has been quoted by leading blockchain and crypto news sites, and regularly speaks at leading conferences around the world like World Economic Forum, and many more.. His work has been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Yahoo Finance etc., including being linked to boosting Japan’s economy with blockchain.
Masha Prusso
Co-Founder of Crypto PR LabMasha is a public relations and business development specialist, founder of two companies with an overall revenue of 500K USD in the first year of operations. She was awarded a full LLM scholarship at UC Berkeley, then moved to the Bay area from Zurich in 2017. In 2018, Masha founded Crypto PR Lab powered by Millennium Communications. She worked in public relations and events with cryptocurrency exchanges, blockchain protocols, decentralized marketplace and other tech startups and tech conferences. Crypto PR Lab received two acquisition offers. Masha started to explore cryptocurrencies when her mentor, a former Lehman Brother trader, asked her for help in his new company, his algo trading exchange for bitcoin Exgate, in 2014. It was an unofficial internship where she learnt a lot and got enthusiastic about bitcoin. Masha worked as a corporate lawyer for Clifford Chance LLP and Gowling WLG in France and Monaco. As a relationship manager for UHNWI in 2015-2017, Masha represented UBS and HSBC private banks in Switzerland. In 2006 Winter Olympic Games, Masha represented Russia as the youngest participant in the halfpipe event. She was also a Champion of Russia in snowboarding two consecutive years.
Leila Stein
Features and Opinions Editor at BeInCryptoExperienced multimedia journalist and content producer with a special interest in crypto and data journalism. Skilled in news writing, editing, online writing and multimedia content production. Bachelor of Journalism a from Rhodes University and an Honours in Historical Studies from University of Cape Town.
Dr. Adel ElMessiry
Serial Tech EntrepreneurAdel is a technologist and a serial entrepreneur with two successful technology companies taken from inception to acquisition. He has proven executive experience with a solid track record in startups and public companies including HealthStream, WebDBTech, InVivoLink, HealthTrust, and UtilizeHealth. He also actively participates in a few blockchain, AI, and healthcare startups including legal alignment, Accelerate Insite, and under the radar: GarmentChain, HealthReasoning. Academically, he holds a Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning Natural Language Processing, with a dozen published papers and an award-winning blockchain paper from The World Academy of Science Engineering and Technology. He regularly moderates panels and speaks at relevant events. Adel enjoys working on DeFi, blockchain token economics, protocol design, and platform architecture with a focus on applied AI. When not playing mad scientist or mining ethereum, he is out biking with his son or deep ocean diving.
Dara Albright
President of Dara Albright MediaDara Albright possesses a distinguished 28-year career in financial services encompassing IPO execution, investment banking, trading, corporate communications, financial conference production as well as institutional and retail sales. Albright was one of the earliest voices covering the JOBS Act and advocating for greater democracy in the equity and credit markets. Albright has produced multiple conferences in the alternative finance space which has hosted some of the most prominent figures in the fintech industry as well as the legislature. In 2012, Albright produced the nation’s very first crowdfunding conference which was headlined by key JOBS Act architect, Congressman Patrick McHenry. That event helped birth the crowdfinance movement and led to the establishment of the industry’s trade and leadership organizations – which she co-founded.
Stani Kulechov
Founder and CEO at AaveStani Kulechov is the Founder and CEO of Aave, an open source and non-custodial money market protocol to earn interest on deposits and borrow assets. Stani was studying law at the University of Helsinki when he first got into Ethereum and he started exploring how it could impact the traditional financial system. In 2017, Stani released ETHLend, one of the first DeFi DApps ever. Since then, he has made it his mission to create tools for an open, transparent, and equitable financial ecosystem through Aave Protocol.
Anna Stone
Commercial Lead & Strategic Advisor at Good DollarAnna Stone is an accomplished leader at the intersection of social impact and emerging technologies, with a speciality in blockchain technologies. Anna is the Commercial Lead for GoodDollar.org, a social innovation initiative spun out of eToro.com that delivers global universal basic income to the world through leveraging decentralized finance protocols. Prior to GoodDollar, she served as the VP of Marketing at Bancor. Before moving into the blockchain and digital asset space, Anna's background is as growth and marketing leader for enterprise technology companies in the field of big data and artificial intelligence. Impact is close to her heart, and she began her career at the Clinton Foundation & Save the Children. She holds a MA in Global Political Economy and Business from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and a BA in Philosophy from Dartmouth College.
Title Sponsor
Gold Sponsors
Silver Sponsors
Bronze Sponsors
Media Partners
