As the data economy is radically transforming agrifood markets by enabling better-informed market choices, digital wallets bring data ownership to the source, the smallholder farmers in this case.
AgroWeb3 is expected to become a gamechanger in the relationship of smallholder farmers with real and financial markets, as it will empower them by enabling bottom-up market-making and endow smallholder farmers with the capacity to own and manage their own provenance, production, environmental, and credit data, thus empowering their business options, bargaining, and opt-in and opt-out capacities.
By attending this session, you will learn:
- How frontier technologies such as blockchain, Web3, and AI can help improve the lives of rural people
- Reasons why exploring these technologies is not an option but a mandatory requirement in the portfolio of any organization
- Linkages between blockchain and Web3 in the delivery of financial inclusion and data protection.
SPEAKER PROFILE
Gladys H. Morales is Senior Officer, Global Head of Innovation in IFAD鈥檚 Change, Delivery, and Innovation Unit (CDI), where she leads the design and implementation of innovation initiatives and partnerships aiming to support testing, learning, and scaling up of innovative solutions that impact poor rural people directly. She is also currently the Regional Ambassador of the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) in Italy.
Before joining IFAD, Morales led the digital transformation of a range of Multilateral Development Banks and United Nations agencies鈥� projects in Latin America, Asia, and Europe and worked for the International Poverty Reduction Centre in China (IPRCC), where she led the design of digital platforms and established partnerships and knowledge networks for the Global Poverty Reduction and Inclusive Growth (GPIG) Portal. She is also familiar with the startup ecosystem, having been part of the management team for a digital advertising startup in Indonesia and founding her own startup in Italy.
Morales graduated from the Executive Programme on Digital Business Leadership at Columbia Business School, Columbia University in New York. Gladys also has a Master鈥檚 in Development Economics and International Cooperation from the University of Rome, Tor Vergata, a certificate on Leadership and Innovation from MIT, and a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service and International Economics from Georgetown University. She also has a series of certificates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, United States, in Artificial Intelligence and Leadership and Innovation.