These Women of Blockchain from the Philippines are Innovating and Breaking the Bias.
Blockchain is a remarkable technology. From the span of 2018 – when we were just imagining the potential of Blockchain to reinvent commerce and the economy – to the current year of 2022 where you can see a global market change as economies and the commercial side of the business are now expanding rapidly into the Blockchain sector. The technology has given us new and exciting market opportunities from Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) to the Metaverse and the decentralization & digitalization of finance as the world is making shifts into Cryptocurrencies and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC).
The Philippines is recognized as an emerging hub for Blockchain-related technologies as Filipinos have been more than just early-adopters; they are a leading market segment when it comes to Blockchain startups, NFT ownerships, Gamers to Play to Earn Blockchain Games, and Crypto Traders. And today, we bring you the women who are innovating, thriving, and leading the way for women everywhere in the Blockchain and Decentralized space.
We bring you the Philippine Women Innovators in Blockchain 2022
Gail Cruz-Macapagal – Country Director / Certified Blockchain Expert, DynaQuest
VP & Board of Trustee, Health Information Management Association of the Philippines (HIMAP), 100 Most Influential Filipino Women on LinkedIn 2021
Ann Cuisia – CEO & President, digiCOOP Technology Service Cooperative, Director, Blockchain, Cloud Security Alliance of the Philippines, Former IT Advisor, Office of the President, CEO and Founder, Traxion Pay Inc, Traxion Tech Inc, Independent Director, PSSLAI
Marites Allen – Philippine Feng Shui Queen, Investor / Shareholder, Kaloscope, President and CEO House of Allen, ULFS Inc. / Frigga Charmed Life, WOFS Philippines Inc, Wonderkin UK, Wonderkin Philippines
Emmy Lou Versoza-Delfin – Director, ICT Industry Development Bureau (IIDB) and Supervising Director, Information and Strategic Communication Division, Department of Information and Communications Technology ( DICT )
Marife C. Ramirez – Business Marketing & Development / Certified Blockchain Expert, DynaQuest
Tracy Li – Technical Project Manager, HaloDao, Board of Trustee, BlockDevs Asia
Janice Ariño – CEO & Founder, Service Economy Applications, Inc., FILIPAY/FILIPCOIN/FILIPWORKS
Myrtle Anne Ramos – Founder & CEO, Blocktides, Co-Founder & CEO, Placewar, Official Influencer, CoinMarketCap
Jemimah Keziah H. Morales – Co-Founder, Director for Community Management Department and Brand Building Department and Community Manager & Marketing Consultant, Blockchain Network Philippines (BNP)
Chiin Gandia – Consultant, Emfarsis, Co-host, BitPinas Webcast
The women on the list, are leaders and are excelling with the technology that has been a prime catalyst for the global business disruption as Blockchain is changing our supply chains, our commerce, and our lifestyle. These innovations started from the handful of Blockchain consortia and with their respective use cases to demonstrate how the technology is reinventing both fundamentals and processes of industries. From healthcare to agriculture, to finance, and to commercially driven solutions, Blockchain innovations have since gone global — through local initiatives stemming from the private and local government sector.
Blockchain: A Growing Disruptive Movement in the Philippines
For Ann Cuisia, Blockchain is a fundamental technology that will reinvent the ecosystem of finance, business, and commercial infrastructures. Starting with her initiatives in Traxion, to her numerous R&D use cases contributions under DigiCoop, a platform that aims to unite and streamline technology adoption for Philippine enterprises — that will allow startups, cooperatives, and the small & medium+ businesses to navigate the changing technology ecosystem.
In developing the potential of the Philippines as a destination for Blockchain, the government and its agencies must be proactive and maintain a cutting-edge initiative in the Blockchain and emerging technology scene. Emmy Lou Versoza-Delfin is among the supporters of the many initiatives done for nascent and frontier technology under the DICT, IIDB, and NICP, which aims to bring awareness, workshops, initiatives, and a national-regional roadmap for the development of new technologies across the Philippine regions. Emmy is recognized as among the ambassadors of technology for the regional ICT development efforts. As decentralization dictates, game-changing and catalyst projects for frontier technology may as well stem from various local efforts that originate from Philippine provinces.
Putting the Philippines in the Blockchain roadmap need not always start within the country. Marites Allen, known as the Feng-Shui Queen of the Philippines and among the most recognized Feng-Shui masters in the world, is also well-versed in the sustainability and efficiency of a harnessed nascent technology for the enterprise. The British-Filipino entrepreneur manages several of her businesses in the manufacturing and commercial side of things across the United Kingdom and the Philippines. One of the tenets of Feng-Shui is the harmonization of elements and with that virtue, Marites is keen on keeping her enterprises well-managed, responsible and sustainable. In her venture to Blockchain, she is a senior executive adviser to Kaloscope, an upcoming NFT Metaverse platform that will bring an interactive and fully-immersive metaverse experience.
The Philippines, a Growing Blockchain Hub, and Regional Presence
For the country to become a global destination for Blockchain and the Decentralized industry, the country, and its collective Blockchain industry must be consistent and prominent across the world’s biggest and most prestigious Blockchain events. Myrtle Anne Ramos, the Founder & CEO, of Blocktides, makes sure that the country is more than represented, that the spotlight also shines for the Philippine Blockchain and Cryptocurrency scene, as it is among the world’s most vibrant and fastest rising consumer sector when it comes to the Decentralized industry. Myrtle’s network and publishing reach are among the industry’s widest – able to tap into adjacent media on all about Blockchain and the Decentralized Venture Capitals, as she handles the organization, promotion, and PR of the world’s largest Blockchain events and networks.
In the private sector where many solutions providers reside, Philippine-based companies have also embarked on their Blockchain ventures – from development, consulting and other program-based services. Among the handful of companies who transitioned successfully were DynaQuest Technology Services inc., now, an award-winning Blockchain solutions provider and Gail Cruz-Macapagal, DynaQuest Country Director and a recognized Certified Blockchain Expert, heads the project management, operations, and client/investor management of the company. She has worked with the company partners who are focused on sustainable development with frontier technology. Gail is also an in-demand speaker for women’s empowerment forums, women-centric technology events, and Blockchain seminars.
In bringing technological disruption across the Philippine enterprise and business scene, technology and solutions providers are rolling out efficiency and unifying solutions to transform industries. Leading the charge of disruptive innovation into the public transportation sector is Janice Ariño and the company that she founded, Service Economy Applications. At a time prior to the pandemic where fiat-based transactions were still the norm, Service Economy Applications launched FILIPAY, an automated payment collection system alongside FILIPWORKS that enabled paperless fleet management. Not long after, Janice and her company launched FILIPCOIN, the country’s first decentralized network for transportation that was based on Ethereum and is recognized by the Binance Smart Chain Network.
With the rapid growth of Blockchain, the technical capacity in engineering and designing the future of decentralized architecture is becoming among the most desirable careers for men and women. One of the most respected in the industry’s technical development is Tracy Li, currently the Technical Project Manager at HaloDAO, a decentralized application (Dapps), an automated market built for optimized swaps of Stablecoins and digital assets over the network. Tracy is also among the board of trustees at BlockDevs Asia.
Blockchain Cooperations and the Bigger Picture
The world’s leading Blockchain nations have something similar in feature: their innovation is aligned with the economic and regulatory bodies set by their governments and have a working ecosystem consisting of both public and private partners to develop Blockchain solutions and roll out their Decentralized economies to connect with other decentralized economies. In the Philippines, aligning government, private and economical goals is among the priorities of Jemimah Keziah H. Morales as she serves an important role across the Blockchain-centric organization that she heads: she is the Co-Founder of Blockchain Network Philippines, as she is also the Director of the organization’s Community Management Department and Brand Building Department. To date, Keziah has worked with over 100+ Cryptocurrencies and several Blockchain companies under the Blockchain Network Philippines as a community manager, strategist, and advisor.
The success of Blockchain technology and its derivative and yet disruptive products must also be nurtured and its information and innovative capacities be made accessible to the public. Despite her schedule as the consultant of strategic firm, Emfarsis – that focuses on Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT), Chiin Gandia is passionate about the potential of the play to earn Blockchain & NFT games. Having produced the well-received documentary “Play-to-Earn: NFT Gaming in the Philippines”, and as a consultant to Yield Guild Games and the Blockchain Game Alliance. In helping to bring awareness to Play to Earn games that Blockchain brings, Chiin is a co-host on the popular Crypto and Blockchain Gaming webcast of BitPinas.
As more and more Philippine-based solutions providers are creating new solutions to the Blockchain and Decentralized commerce, it is giving a chance for women to jumpstart their journey into Blockchain. Marife C. Ramirez, the Business Marketing & Development of DynaQuest, was once fairly new to Blockchain but she did not let it faze her as she earnestly studied and passed Blockchain skills and knowledge online course. Today, Faye Ramirez can chalk up her resume and contributions to the efforts of DynaQuest and partners in their projects ranging from economic development use cases, NFT support services, and Blockchain education curriculum development as Faye was a significant contributor in terms of managing the deliverables and the quality assurance of performance-based metrics.
As we celebrate women’s month, we must take the time to appreciate the women who are excelling, being role models, and being leaders and innovators in the frontier technology space of Blockchain. That technology past the point of being promising and is now a catalyst for global economic and commercial transformation. With the disruption and transformation, these women are more than just thriving – they are embarking on new frontiers, redefining businesses and financial ecosystems with the transformative cause and effect of Blockchain. And lastly, they are here to inspire women, empower them to make the first step into the Blockchain space as they should believe that they can and they will be able to make innovative contributions to better our economies and industries. All they need to do is dream big, believe in themselves, and take the first step. In #BreakingTheBias the most important step is to make the first step and to show everyone that you can.
