Hi Urvi! This is a very special ChainChat because you are going to be heading — along with some of your colleagues — our new Singapore Chapter, right?

Yes, I’m super excited.

Us too. Hopefully the start of a long and fruitful partnership! So basically how this ChainChat works is we interview people from different parts of the industry, and we ask each person to leave a question for the next person. The last question we had — I’m wondering if you’ll have an answer for it because I know you’re a smart woman. But the last question was, What’s one thing you’ve done in Web3 that you’re not proud of?

Uh oh. That’s interesting.

This is what I mean, I think you’ve probably thought everything very well through before doing anything.

I’ve done some silly things like buy some silly NFTs and put them on the exchange but, I don’t think I regret anything.

I think that’s fair enough! I sensed you were careful, perhaps you can help us with how not to make silly mistakes, but we’ll come to that! Would you tell us a little bit about you and your background?

Yeah, sure! My name is Urvi Guglani and currently, I’m working in finance, focusing on the technology initiatives and the investment side as well. I have always really worked in this field and my background academically is in computer science and economics. You can see I’ve always been really interested in this intersection between finance and technology and that’s how I’ve become involved in blockchain and that cross-section. During college, I was heavily involved with an organization called Blockchain at Berkeley, which was the largest student-run organization where we were consulting for various companies, including Airbus, BMW, and the likes. That was when I really got involved in Blockchain in the past. Now I’m going to be heading the Singapore Chapter of DiB which I’m super excited about! Bringing some of the passion I’ve built up during my time in the Bay Area and in New York to Singapore, which is a slightly different ecosystem definitely, but very excited to be able to do that. 

Cool, so I’m going to ask you why you have an interest in diversity, first of all, then I’m going to remember the next question I want to ask…

Diversity is something that is very close to my heart. I’ve been a minority in pretty much every setting I’ve been in. At college, I was majoring in STEM, and in a class of 126 people I was often one of three girls in the classroom. Then I decided to go into the finance industry and also I was one of fifteen women in a team of again, about 120 people. It has always struck me and I think that the state of diversity in industries like finance is much behind where it should be. I was reading a statistic, particularly about the Investment Management industry and currently, 11.5% of all funds are managed by women. At this rate, it would take 300 years to reach gender parity! And frankly, I’m impatient and don’t think I could wait 300 years. During college, I was supporting an initiative which was called She256 which was particularly supporting gender diversity in crypto and blockchain. Through this experience, I found that having role models who are female and having role models who are diverse in terms of ethnicity really does make a difference in terms of the perspectives you can get introduced to. Ultimately, in the long term, there are plenty of studies that show that it leads to more innovation, healthier workforces, and just all round benefits for businesses.

Have you had any specific role models yourself? Or do you have enough confidence to want to be a role model for other people?

I have a lot of role models. It’s my role model and mentors who really have supported me and helped me get to the place where I am today as well. So all kudos to them. One role model that really stands out and has supported me for a while would be my mentor, her name is Giulia, and she works at BlackRock. She is extremely encouraging and pushes me to look at issues from different angles, approach everything with an indomitable spirit, and really take the path less taken. Wanting to work with the Blockchain industry in particular, or even a general FinTech, it’s not the most traversed path, it’s continuously evolving and her belief in my abilities has really benefited me so far. I hope that I’m able to make an impact enough that I am able to be a role model for other people’s lives as well.

I’m sure you will be. I’ll be coming to you with loads of questions don’t worry. How did you get in contact with your mentor? Is it through an official program?

I interned at Blackrock in 2019 and she was assigned as my random mentor through BlackRock’s Women-In-Network (WIN). She happened to also be the alumna of my school, UC Berkeley and that’s how I connected with her.

So that was an internal policy that Blackrock had, to set somebody that was coming into the company up with somebody that was already in the company?

Yes, it was a part of the Summer Internship program!

But The Women’s Network is Blackrock-specific or it’s independent?

The chapter that assigned my mentor to me was Blackrock’s Chapter but it’s an organization that spans multiple companies. 

OK, that’s an interesting way for many more companies to propel diversity as well then. I know there are external ones, I was chatting the other day to a couple of great women, Dzhuliana Nikolova and Natalie Robinson, who founded OneUpOneDown which is a mentorship program as well. It sounds like mentorship is definitely the way forward. 

The other question I wanted to ask you is, What is the situation in Singapore, how does it differ from what you’ve seen before in the Web3 space specifically?

I think Singapore as a country is extremely tech-forward, it’s often said that Singapore itself operates like a startup. One of the ministers, Vivian Balakrishnan, came to visit the Bay Area a couple of years ago, while I was in college. He said, “Urvi, you must bring your tech skills back home to Singapore, it’s your duty to do so.” And I think Singapore as a country is very supportive of the technology industry and its image to the rest of the world in that scene as well. So for example, it has Blockchain technology platforms to validate certificates and transfer electronic records. School diplomas and health certificates and things like that. Public databases that people can access to validate for example their employees’ records and things like that. It really encourages innovation in the industry through various grants, like the Monetary Authority of Singapore has over 16 grants and programs for innovation and learning supporting up to SGD$400,000 worth of technology, providing up to 70% subsidies, and even business development people or people who want to scale up these programs. And they have so many festivals, companies here that are encouraged to come and present to Singaporeans. For example, this Wednesday, there’s the FinTech festival in Singapore which has the ex-CTO of Coinbase speaking there and various founders of Blockchain companies, so it’s definitely a very bustling ecosystem in regards to technology and innovation, and Blockchain generally. But at the same time having studied in the Bay Area, which is undoubtedly the tech paradise, I think Singapore does have a lot of areas to improve on. As such, one of the primary reasons I want to get involved in DiB and bring that to Singapore is to bring together more people to build a strong community here because I think there’s interest, but the community could be stronger.

What do you think then could be the first thing then that Singapore needs to make an improvement, what is it crying out for?

The biggest thing is education in Blockchain generally. Schools don’t teach blockchain in Singapore. There’s something called Polytechnics which are kind of like Community Colleges in the US, and they don’t have blockchain-specific courses, they have a few seminars here and there but nothing to teach what blockchain at its core, is. The biggest thing we can do for the ecosystem is having more education. Get more people involved and as a result of that, the ground up foundation of the industry would be stronger.

Yeah I think education is a recurring theme when it comes to hurdles and barriers. Obviously you studied computer science but what resources have you used to stay up-to-date with your knowledge when everything is so new?

The biggest thing I rely on is hands down my community. I’ve been learning a lot from industry professionals, from attending conferences, coffee chats, and using LinkedIn to reach out to people. Besides that, I’ve been lucky to have built a strong group of friendships from my time at Blockchain at Berkeley. My friends from there are super passionate and the majority of them are actually working on startups in the industry. I often bounce ideas off of them, and talk about innovation and what’s going on.

What’s one thing that not many people know that you think they should know?

One thing I find really cool about the blockchain industry is the concept of whitehats. So whitehats are basically ethical security hackers. Unlike traditional sectors, there are a lot of people watching out in crypto. For example, in ETHDenver Jay Freeman talked about how he found a USD$350 million smart contract vulnerability left the wormhole bridge. Incidents like this have been very, very frequent. There are many such instances where there has been a leakage of money, and a whitehat finds that vulnerability, and returns the money to the owner. It’s stunning how strong the network is and how people really want this industry to flourish and how unique it is.

The impression I get from the non-tech side is that the people who are building it are honest so it’s attracting this kind of personality into the space. Like a vicious circle but not vicious. Where do you think DEI should or could be focused for up and coming companies in the Web3 ecosystem?

Back to the point of education, looking at universities and schools is really where it should start. Sorry it keeps breaking up…

Sorry, I think it’s my end.

Yeah so I think it’s really universities and schools that DEI should start off. But more than that, hosting open sessions, conferences and presenting at festivals really does make a huge impact. My company was presenting at the Asia Risk conference by Risk.Net a couple of months ago. And at the end of the conference, we had a large number of people coming up to us asking about how they can learn more about how the industry has been running, D&I efforts, and things like that. Awareness, forums where people can get involved in really helps, and, of course, everything comes down to education and resources. 

Yeah it’s something that’s missing because a lot of people who are coming into it now and want to provide this kind of education, there are bits and pieces everywhere but there’s not a systematic, foolproof, step-by-step way to go from zero to hero. Try this avenue, speak to this person, read a bit on Google, watch a video… In fact I did see a Masters advertised, but here in Spain. It looked complete. But I don’t think I’ve seen anything like that in English yet which is strange. Have you seen any courses?

I can take this opportunity to pitch the course I worked on during college which is the Blockchain Fundamentals course on Edx. It’s one of the most popular and comprehensive courses with a few advanced concepts as well. My friends, Rustie, Nadir and Gloria are co-instructors and are extremely knowledgeable people. I would highly recommend it.

Tell me again where it is or how to find this course because again, I think it’s my connection but it cut out a little bit. Is there a website?

I’ll send you the link.

I guess the people who are good at creating these resources may not have the marketing down, it’s a combination of everything isn’t it. I got the ad for the Spanish Masters because of my location I guess…

A couple of universities have these programs, a few offer certifications and I haven’t actually seen a Masters in Blockchain so it’s interesting you mention that.

I wonder if the one you’ve shown me… I mean, for people who are casually interested, because you can do a year-long course in something but for people who want something casual I’m not sure what’s out there. What’s your prediction about where it’s all going?

Web3 industry overall?

Yeah.

Put simply, Web3 will transform the existing processes of different sectors and will be a multi-trillion industry. We can already see it becoming one of the fastest-growing sectors for the next decade, in terms of trends, some of the key trends are decentralisation, interactive technology, AI, embodied in Web3 and a mish-mash of all of these intersections where we can see it making a huge impact. It took me a while to understand the concept but Web3 is more than just a technology- it’s a social movement, powered by the people. Things like workplace exhaustion are things that are going to be challenged in the Web3 world. It’s exciting seeing these problems that people thought couldn’t be tackled can actually be addressed. That’s why I wholeheartedly believe it could revolutionize the workplace.

I find it interesting you say Web3 could help with exhaustion! Can you elaborate?

Yes I mean as jobs become available through the metaverse and things like that, the element of the conventional way that jobs exist wouldn’t be the same. So the exhaustion coming from coming into the workplace every day and doing the same mundane tasks, maybe can be replaced by something totally different in the metaverse. To me honestly it sounds a bit fuzzy when I say it, but as I read more and more, I realise it’s really a social movement and all that that entails that really embodies what Web3 is at its core.

Not fuzzy at all! It’s just something that I hadn’t thought about, I’ve heard about supply chains blah, blah, blah, buying skins in one game and taking them to another game but I hadn’t thought about the impact in the sense you mentioned. Anyway, something else to peruse.

I’m going to ask you if you have any other wisdom or insights or something that you were thinking in your head that I might ask you?

To all the readers and listeners I’d say Get involved! I personally would guarantee that blockchain technology will become more refined and improve our daily lives. No matter what your sector, industry or position is, it’s still super early so you can have an impact on it. Whitehats as I mentioned are normal people. You can be one of them. You can be one of the people that develop the Next Generation of technology. That’s exciting. I work in finance and finance is old-school in the way it works, you can’t necessarily disrupt the way it’s running with ordinary tools as easily as you can with an industry like blockchain where each and every one of us can have an impact on a daily basis. So get involved, the earlier the better, and it’s something to be excited about!

OK! And then, a question for our next guest then!

What is the craziest thing you think could happen in the Metaverse?

Got it! Thank you so much! We will leave it there and I’m going to check out the link you sent me! Looking forward to working with you!