Women in Crypto — the Rise of Parity in High Tech

Written by Jago Penrose, Serial Technology Entrepreneur

Technology is an industry frequently accused of being male dominated and missing the balance of diversity. Whilst this is undeniable, there are emerging sectors of high tech doing their bit to close the deficit in gender parity, one of which is certainly crypto.

The pioneering project Cardano Ecosystem, for example, has named its native token after Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) who was an English mathematician and the first person, man or woman, to understand that the power of computing would one day reach beyond simply making big calculations. She published the world’s first complex computer algorithm in 1843. Lovelace did this long before any modern machine existed to execute her algorithm, as it was written for the Analytical Engine which was never built.

There is also a significant number of female stake-pool operators at Cardano, one example of which is the woman-run Queen Ada pool with well over $50M pledged to the pool. Here, the first female operator talks about women in crypto and gives some great insights into attitudes towards women as well as safe forums that foster female participation in the Cardano ecosystem and the tech industry as a whole.

Those who actively support equal rights and opportunities in corporate technology projects will also be pleased to know that women are making up fundamental organs of exciting crypto internal teams and decentralised communities as mentioned above. Connie Gallippi is the founder and creator of BitGive, a philanthropic organization in the Bitcoin community. Tricia Martinez is the Founder and CEO of Wala and the Dala Token. Wala is a financial services app and partner to Dala Token, which is an open-source multi-chain cryptocurrency. Joyce Kim is the Executive Director of Stellar Lumens, as well as the managing partner at Spark Change Capital. Kim seeks to combat inequality when it comes to banking and finances.

You can find here more inspiring stories about women shaping their respective aspects of the crypto industry. There are projects now focused solely on facilitating women’s success in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, Crypto Moon Women ($CMW) being a fine example of such a project.

A startup fintech joining the likes of Cardano in terms of valuing female talent and leadership is without a doubt Omnia DeFi , which sports Janie Dam as Co-Founder & Chief Impact Officer, Vera Ishani as Chief Operations Officer & Data Protection Officer, and marketers Alyusha Mamiko Chagrin, Chrystalla Tsiamparta and Laura Saës, each of whom is an integral part of the team, as well as influences of women globally who aspire to work in high tech. An interview with Janie Dam, who holds a doctorate in education alongside a law degree and bachelor’s in mathematical sciences, revealed a perspective that both men and women should be socially accepted and supported to self-actualize whether they choose for themselves traditionally more feminine or more masculine roles in leading their personal and professional lives. Omnia also has plans for social impact projects around all genders gaining financial and crypto literacy.

One of the biggest factors surrounding the emergence of women in crypto is arguably due to the decentralisation element. The removal of barriers to recruitment and other forms of participation in technology projects historically governed by layers of unnecessary bureaucracy such as (let’s be honest, usually primarily male) directors, shareholders, and investors, can really help. So, those involved in the industry can state with pride the fact that crypto is not only creating a far more fair and proportional financial system, it is also helping to bring more inclusion and therefore new talent to the workplace, and more importantly, to some of the most necessarily innovative workplaces out there today.

If you’re passionate about how crypto is changing the world beyond the point of view of work, you should learn more about how changes to traditional finance thanks to crypto are empowering women and bettering lives globally. Here is an incredibly emotive video created by Coinbase.