Presentations 2018

About the speaker:  

• CEO at RefToken, the world’s first decentralized affiliate platform;
• СЕО at Launch Malta, a full stack ICO launch agency;
• provides advisory services within E&S Group for ICOs, blockchain, and cryptocurrency related projects;
• hails from the online gambling industry, where he held executive positions at heavyweights IGT, Amaya & HLM, over a 10-year career.

Announcement

Over the past 25 years, I have acquired a broad investment banking (Citibank), asset management (Dexia Asset Management) and wealth management experience (Julius Bär; KOCH Finance Services), having worked for private and institutional investors of many nationalities in London and Frankfurt.

Now my role is to advise and manage WAAM Solutions’ clients’ wealth and portfolios, by bringing innovative and tailored solutions with WAAM’s network of selected partners, so as to generate real, risk adjusted performance over the long term.

I hold a master degree in Portfolio Management from a French University in Lyon.

Born in 1969, Automotive Engineer, Daniele Bernardi is a serial-entrepreneur constantly searching for innovation. Chairman of DIAMAN Sicav and CEO of DIAMAN, a Group dedicated to the development of profitably investment strategies, Bernardi's activity is oriented to the development of mathematic models, which simplify investors and family offices decision making processes, for risk reduction. He is the author of interesting academic papers about innovation in finance, published by Wilmott Magazine in May 2014 and on Journal of Accounting and Finance in April 2015. Models, indexes, and indicators developed by Bernardi have been presented in international conferences such as the Financial Management Association Conference in Denver and Nashville, the World Financial Conference in Shanghai, Venice and New York. Bernardi is also Charman of Investors' Magazine Italia SRL and DIAMAN Tech SRL, board member and co-founder of 2Pay, a P2P mobile payment; He was recognized as "Inventor" by European Patent office for his European and Russian Patent into mobile payment field.

Olga Feldmeier is CEO & founder of SMART VALOR, a Swiss-based blockchain start-up building a decentralized marketplace for tokenized alternative investments. Prior to that, Olga held the position of Commercial Managing Partner at Xapo, a prominent Bitcoin start-up from Silicon Valley and was responsible for strategic topics and the establishment of the company in Switzerland. In a close collaboration with Swiss authorities and financial regulator, Olga successfully handled licensing process. As the result, Xapo became the first Bitcoin custodian to have received a permission to operate in Switzerland without a banking license.

Olga’s professional background is in banking: she worked for Barclays Capital in London and UBS in Zurich. At UBS Wealth Management she was Executive Director and the head of Central and Eastern Europe regional distribution. Olga started her career with a five-year stint at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) where she focused on strategy projects at financial institutions such as Deutsche Bank, Unicredit and Commerzbank.

In Switzerland, Olga is known as one of the founding members of the Crypto Valley (Swiss blockchain technology cluster), an early supporter of DigitalSwitzerland and a mentor at Kickstart Accelerator, the largest European accelerator program. In 2017, the leading Swiss management magazine BILANZ nominated Olga as one of the top 100 digital shakers in Switzerland. She was also nominated to be part of 100 Women in Fintech Powerlist 2017 by Innovate Finance (UK).

This year, Olga has taken a lead in the new area of blockchain-based crowdfunding: she is the producer of the ICO Summit 2017, the first global conference on blockchain crowdfunding in Switzerland. Olga is also a member of The ICO Governance Foundation (IGF) - an international organization whose mission is to protect global ICO investors and facilitate capital formation for ICOs.

Olga is also a regular speaker at the conferences and universities, in particular on topics, including regulation in the blockchain space, tokenization of assets and banking disruption through blockchain technology.

Originally from Ukraine, Olga was awarded a scholarship by German government and graduated from Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany.

Msc Banking and Finance Higher School of Economics, Bsc Banking and Finance London School of Economics, co-founder of Predprocessing Ltd, the representative of Coinsbank in Russia.

Vladislav started his career in the field of electronic top up and processing in 2004 and then in 2010 started his own business.

Dr. Jean-Marc Seigneur has been researching Sybil attack-resistant decentralized systems at the University of Geneva since 2005 after obtaining his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Trinity College Dublin on this topic. He has published more than 100 scientific papers in the field and is now applying it to the application domain of crypto-currencies, blockchains and other distributed ledgers. He has received a Google Award of Excellent Research in Academia in 2016. He has helped several ICOs to raise several million of USD, for example, Monetha raised more than 36 million USD on the 31st of August 2017 in 18 minutes. He is the founder of Reputaction, which has recently filed a patent for offline instant anonymous Bitcoin/Ethereum transactions based on an innovative hardened crypto wallet using Reputaction tokens. He is also an expert of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which has launched several standardisation working groups on distributed ledger technologies and digital currencies.

Martins Liberts − a technology entrepreneur and visionary, transforming traditional industries by establishing and growing mature businesses based on the most potential and modern technologies: micro-service solutions for enterprise, blockchain technology for FinTech, robotization of software operations.

He is sharing vast technological experience and cultural insights with other entrepreneurs and community through one-on-one coaching, meetups, public discussions, workshops, and conferences, thus supporting them in setting and reaching their business goals.

Taking leading positions in IT business in Baltics for more than 13 years, Martins Liberts is a member of the Board of alternative financing company DEBIFO and Director at information technology company INNTEC, which specializes in developing modern solutions for public and private institutions.

The current focus is Debitum.Network – accessible business borrowing and investments in loans facilitated by a distributed eco-system. Decentralised, transparent, and GLOBAL!

Peter Mitchell is an associate in the International Tax and Wealth Management practice groups of Baker McKenzie Zurich. Peter recently earned his LL.M. in taxation from New York University. Prior to his studies, he gained several years of litigation experience in insurance coverage, federal investigations, and white collar defense.

Christopher Murrer is an associate in the International Tax and Wealth Management practice groups of Baker McKenzie Zurich. He joined the Firm after practicing for seven years as a domestic tax and estate planning attorney in New York and Washington, DC.

Enrique Melero has 25 years experience working in Finance in large corporations. He is Economist by the University of Madrid and Executive MBA by the Instituto de Empresa. While working for IBM, Nokia, Reuters and HSBC, he has participated in and managed large projects leading international teams in Switzerland, Germany, UK, Singapore and Finland. In the early 90s, he got together the team that undertook the translation of GNU/Linux programs to Spanish. Since then he is a frequent contributor to Open Software projects where he has gained big practical experience dealing with multicultural teams loosely committed to achieve a goal and has a profound desire to understand the dynamic mechanisms by which teams can work better together. Enrique has been captivated recently by the beauty of the Blockchain technology and decentralized systems, subjects on which he speaks publicly very often.

Manuel is project leader for Big data streaming infrastructure and Internet of Things projects at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN). During his entire career, Manuel has focused on supporting large research collaborations through technology innovation and evolution. Among other tasks, Manuel has been involved and led critical projects to improve the operations of the Large Hadron Collider, the largest and one of the most complex scientific instrument ever made. Currently, Manuel is the co-founder of Orvium.io, a blockchain initiative to unlock open and transparent science while returning the benefits of science to the society.

Aviya Arika, Advocate, Head of Blockchain Innovation Porat & Co. Law.

She professionally entered the online world through online gaming and financial technologies. Before getting into blockchain, Aviya was a legal consultant for online gaming companies as well as for forex brokers, technology providers and payment service providers. When came across the blockchain and cryptocurrencies world, she was immediately enchanted and knew for sure that this is her new focus, and that it’s here to stay.

Aviya advising various blockchain related ventures including cryptocurrency exchanges, ICO projects and crypto funds with regards to legal and regulatory aspects. Her goal is to help her clients and peers sort out the mess and understand which jurisdiction and legal scheme would suit them best. Since she spends a lot of time researching the blockchain market and ecosystem, she dedicates much to understanding what is missing in these sectors, and which markets are worth targeting. Aviya spends most of my time exploring non-legal aspects of blockchain, because she believes that in order to give good legal advice, a deep understanding of the sphere and technology is needed.

Many people outside the industry itself don’t quite grasp that blockchain has become a whole galaxy, not just a planet. Aviya tries to spread the word on the importance of of distinctions between different use-cases of blockchain and cryptocurrencies and of in-depth observation instead of categorization as just an “ICO” or “Cryptocurrency”.

Currently her main research focuses are taxonomy of different tokens types (securities vs. non-securities, work-tokens) and their different legal frameworks, as well as regulatory aspects of cryptocurrency exchanges in the U.S, Canada and various European countries. Although there is great uncertainty, Avia finds this era as an opportunity to think outside of regulatory "boxes" and create new paradigms, to pave the way for the entire industry. This is how she aim to contribute to this brave new blockchain world.

James began his career in finance at EY, moving people, capital and companies around the world. He spent his time deep in accounting, tax and law - the rules and regulations that provide a framework for improving our lives across the world. A Chartered Accountant, he was recognised in the 35 Chartered Accountants under 35, as well as Forbes 30 Under 30, whilst having a technical background as a Developer in Residence at Playfair Capital - an early stage venture capital firm in London.

After a professional career covering finance, law, accountancy and technology he is well placed to drive the innovation occurring in early stage fundraising, and to drive the perfecting of capital allocation.

Douglas Azar has 14 years' experience in Banking in various locations (U.S.A, Middle East, Switzerland) including 8 years in Private Banking focusing on investment advisory.

Douglas has extensive knowledge in art investment and wrote articles in newspapers on the subject. He is also passionate about blockchain and the way the technology opens the door to asset tokenization.

He founded Wealthinitiative last year in this specific field. He graduated from Audencia business school in France and has a Master’s degree in business law from Assas University in Paris. He is a CAIA (Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst) charter holder.

He became interested in cryptocurrencies in 2013 after receiving his first bitcoin at the price of 27$ as a gift. Since 2015, Kir Kelevra has been engaged in active cryptocurrency trading and has founded the micro-investment fund. He is a permanent participant of specialized cryptocurrency events. Besides, the expert has put huge efforts to establish and develop the blockchain community in Ukraine and the CIS countries. Kir Kelevra is an opinion leader and trendsetter; representative of several projects; expert in exchanges as well as in cryptocurrency price formation and trading: blockchain project adviser.