Courage Award

Wassim Jarkas, the Managing Director of i-Blockchain https://www.linkedin.com/company/i-blockchain , displayed great courage by leaving a very high-level position along with its prominent title and pay in STC, the biggest telecommunication company in the Middle East and the third largest corporation in KSA after ARAMCO and SABEC. He made this dramatic move just to join the Blockchain Technology journey with GBA, FAB, and i-Blockchain.  He clung to this goal despite all of the circumstances he has been through and business politics around his role.

This was never an easy decision for Wassim and his family, and he endured challenges from colleagues and people around him. Wassim continues to stand-up, unbending, until reaching this level for i-blockchain maturity.

His contribution to the technology in the Middle East is uncountable, and he has participated at his own expense in three major tech. events to promote the blockchain features and benefits for the good of the nations and governments in our region.  If business can thrive in the Middle East, it will go a long way in promoting peace among the people of these contentious nations. For this reason alone, Wassim truly deserves the Courage Award.

Wassim received the Leadership Award in Money 2.0 Dubai, along with many other regional and global recognitions in the Telecom Sector.

Innovation Award

Tanuj Surve, the Product Manager for Programming.com spearheaded groundbreaking advancements in blockchain technology, marked by a patent for a blockchain solution that revolutionizes mortgage transactions through the use of smart contracts, significantly improving both efficiency and security. This innovation, paired with his development of AI-generated smart contracts in collaboration with the Hyperledger Foundation, showcases his ability to blend technical expertise with practical applications, setting new industry standards. His work with UC Berkeley Law School highlights his commitment to ensuring that blockchain technology evolves within a robust legal framework, enhancing its reliability and societal impact. Additionally, his contributions to the academic field through research papers and book chapters on DeFi governance layers, along with his role as a DeFi writer for Cointelegraph, demonstrate his dedication to advancing the blockchain community’s understanding of governance and regulatory issues. These efforts exemplify a blend of technical innovation, legal research, and community engagement, making him a deserving candidate for this award.

Organizational Excellence Award

EarthID is a global award-winning decentralized identity platform which allows secure and frictionless exchange and verification of identity information. On January 20, 2024, this organization achieved the Level 1 Rating of the Blockchain Maturity Model (BMM) issued by the Government Blockchain Association (GBA) and recognized by the United Nations Internet Governance Forum’s Dynamic Coalition of Blockchain Assurance Standards.

For EarthID to achieve the Level 1 BMM rating ensures that they can demonstrate credibility to potential customers, and they now have a roadmap for continuous improvement.

EarthID offers its users a straightforward and versatile human verification process by using future gen biometric technology. This helps organizations reduce identity fraud and ensure privacy and regulatory compliance. Powered by third generation DLT, Artificial Intelligence and the latest biometric security, EarthID provides a Universal ID Solution that is resistant to cyberattacks and compliant with global Data Regulations like GDPR and PDPB. For these reasons, EarthID is being nominated for the GBA Annual Achievement Award for Organization.

The International Centre for Culinary Arts has adopted EarthID for blockchain-based certification for their students.

Innovation Award

Mike Kanovitz exemplifies innovation. He has created technology that connects blockchains to state and federal courts – something that was previously impossible. Over the last year he has continued to innovate upon the technology to go beyond a Bitcoin fork and build tools that help creators create smart contracts, give NFT holders the ability to swap NFTs and offer cross-chain swaps. All with the ability to interface with a court in the event of a bad-actor or fraud.

Courage Award

For his tireless efforts to clothe and shelter thousands of war-ravaged refugees in the Ukraine conflict, I nominate Pradeep Goel for the GBA Courage Award. When the Russia-Ukraine war erupted, Pradeep, an American entrepreneur and businessman, was the CEO of a technology company, Solve Care based in Kyiv, Ukraine. Pradeep had the option to return to the United States to his family to weather the conflict in safety,
yet he chose to stay to support and protect his Ukrainian employees and the people of his adopted home. He started an initiative called “Care Shelter” which built housing and provides food, shelter, schooling, and medical attention to the war refugees he saw displaced all around him. While these efforts were supported by donations from contributors around the world, Pradeep’s Care Shelter
initiative was largely self-funded. To date, they have built more than 10 shelters accommodating 1100 beds and serving over 2500 people.

I know Pradeep to be a blockchain innovator and thought leader, but because of his courage in the
face of danger, and his demonstrated love for the people of Ukraine, I believe Pradeep is also a
hero.
Read more about the Care Shelter Initiative here:
https://solve.care/careshelter/#:~:text=ShelterbySolve.,Care&text=TheSolve.,foodmedicineandhealth
care.

Leadership Award

US House of Representatives
Deputy Legislative Director- Congressman Darren Soto (FL-09)
Executive Director, Future Forum- US House of Representatives

Bill Oversaw the policy, communications, administration, member services, and outreach programs for Future Forum. Future Forum is a generational caucus comprised of young Democratic Members of Congress serving in the U.S. House of Representatives. The group focuses on issues important to millennial and Gen Z Americans. Its core principles include working to bridge the divide between young Americans and their government, engaging and empowering young voters, and inspiring the next generation of leaders.

Social Impact Award

Illinois HB 212 was introduced to address, among many things, the impact of emerging technologies upon our future leadership. HB 212 creates a Mental Health Task Force for Communication, Intelligence, Empathy, Emotion, and Empowerment. Provides that the purpose of the task force is to explore and determine a method and program for all students in primary and secondary school to receive mandated mental health care. This bill will provide students with the tools that they will need to help guide them into a future of emerging technologies that we cannot fully understand nor predict. Mental health is, after all, cybersecurity for the human mind. This award will help further validate and promote this initiative onto larger federal and hopefully, global platforms.

The bill’s Chief Co-Sponsor is Emanuel “Chris” Welch, whose new position as Speaker of the House is historic in that he is the first Black Speaker in Illinois, but also, comes in after the longest serving legislator in leadership, Michael Madigan.

Courage Award

Bukele Created History: Bitcoin Will Be Legal In El Salvador
The young Salvadoran President, Nayib Bukele played a crucial role in classifying Bitcoin as a legal tender in El Salvador. This was a remarkable achievement for the country as with this decision, El Salvador became the First Country to classify Bitcoin as a Legal Tender. The Bitcoin bill introduced by the Salvadoran President gained 62 out of 84 votes of the Congress leaders. The bill officially
passed in the Assembly. It is announced that Bitcoin will be legal tender in El Salvador and will be accepted as the currency for goods and services just like U.S. Dollars. According to the Bitcoin Law, Bitcoin will be instantly convertible to US Dollar and for commerce and legal obligations; Bitcoin will possess the same legal standing in the country. To ensure the ease to use the bitcoins for the Salvadorans, the government will come up with the required resources and the technologies which are requisite for the use of the
currency. The legalization of the currency in El Salvador is expected to be a constructive step towards boosting foreign investment, economic growth, and employment generation in the country. Bukele
also mentioned previously that adopting bitcoins will make the financial services accessible to a lot of citizens in El Salvador, as they do not require bank accounts for the transaction of the currency,
this will play a major role in the growth of the country’s GDP. Moreover, it will become easier for the El Salvador citizens who are living abroad to send the money home. This will not only increase the
investment in the country but “This will improve lives and the future of millions.”

Innovation Award

Frank Ricotta, the CEO and co-founder of BurstIQ, has created a blockchain platform currently in production that is innovating blockchain healthcare opportunities. Mr. Ricotta’s is the only production blockchain to date that stores Protected Health Information / Personally Identifiable Information directly “on chain”. This blockchain platform can manage the scalability of big data, large data sets, and large files with complex ownership and granular consent. To ensure compliance with government privacy regulations, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Frank pursued independent SOC 2, Type 2 audits and recently received security and compliance certification without any corrective actions required.

BurstIQ’s innovation has already created an evidence-based impact to Intermountain Healthcare and its spinoff company, Empiric Health, by allowing aggregation of disparate surgical health datasets and deep analytics that resulted in $90 million in savings. BurstIQ is replicating this initiative with several large pharmaceutical companies and dozens of smaller healthcare startups who have reported in our recent marketing survey that they would have had to hire three companies if BurstIQ did not exist.

BurstIQ is the only blockchain company member of the United Nations Global Compact which provides BurstIQ with a framework to collaborate with governments, NGO’s, and enterprises for a common set of goals. BurstIQ has also executed a strategic partnership with the International Trade Administration (ITA) to support activities related to international trade and commerce. The partnership with ITA involves educating the public about the economic benefits of blockchain with trade.

BurstIQ has participated in initiatives with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Economic Forum, the European Union Parliament Intercontinental Blockchain Initiative, and Global Women in Blockchain organization, among others, and has worked with clients on nearly every continent.

Courage Award

Carlos Toriello Herrerias began a Guatemala Blockchain Meetup in September 2016 and grew the sparse meetup until it attracted over 100 people. Each meetup enabled visitors the opportunity to open wallets and make crypto purchases. Several initiatives were spun out of this first community, including Ceiba.io. Ceiba.io is a means to accelerate blockchain adoption in the region via an active
community that educates and welcomes anyone into the blockchain industry. It has evolved into an active cryptocurrency and blockchain community focused in Guatemala with members from Mexico through Panamá. Carlos then had the idea for what became #Fiscal Digital. Carlos’ #Fiscal Digital hopes to provide legitimacy to elections, reduce conflicts and prevent violence by using multiple levels of Blockchain technologies. Carlos faced significant challenges with his #Fiscal Digital project. His team found evidence that tens of thousands of documents could have been tampered with. This meant that not every high official wanted legitimacy in elections. Carlos spoke during a nationally televised public event, in the presence of 5 magistrates of the national voting authorities, and the national representatives of all 26 political parties, insisting that the JPG votes be delivered only if they were accompanied by a hash signature. This would trace their origin to the national voting authority. His recommendation was included in the legal document known as TSE’s “Acuerdo Magisterial 351-2019. By June, all hashes were verified, and the resulting information was registered on the Bitcoin and DogeCoin blockchains. This means that all the JPGs utilized by #Fiscal Digital can be independently verified and traced back to the official handoff via 4 different blockchains. Much more work is still to be done as possible illegal alterations are still happening in the Guatemala elections. In December of 2019, Carlos and the #Fiscal Digital coalition presented a formal
proposal to the Electoral Modernization and Updating Commission suggesting using blockchain certifications to replace wasteful paper trails, redesign election documents to allow machine reading, and limit the voting authorities IT department’s responsibilities as solely the implementation of #1 and #2.

The Guatemalan Justice Department’s office of Election Crimes formally began an impeachment inquiry which proved that there were clear indications of criminal conduct within the national voting authority’s Preliminary Results system. Therefore, #Fiscal Digital’s proposals will save millions of dollars in waste, produce faster and safer results, and also prevent future authorities from ending up in jail.