Episode 5 | Genevieve Leveille on Agriculture and Blockchain
Episode 5 | Genevieve Leveille on Agriculture and Blockchain
Genevieve Leveille is the Principal Founder and CEO of AgriLedger. AgriLedger enables trust, transparency, and traceability through blockchain across the agricultural supply chain. Genevieve led a collaboration with Haiti’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry to deliver a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) pilot sponsored by the World Bank. The project went live in May 2020, allowing Haitian fruit farmers and consumers to reap the benefits of fairer prices and improved food security.
Genevieve was nominated by the Financial Times to the top 100 BAME in UK technology in 2019, named a winner of the ComputerWeekly 2020 Women in Software, and a top 5 finalist for Quesnay’s Female Founders in FinTech in 2019. She is vice-chair of techUK’s Distributed Ledger Technologies Working Group, which provides strategic direction for all UK activities related to DLT and is an inaugural member of the Advisory Group for the Estonian Government’s eResidency initiative. Genevieve has spoken on emerging technologies at numerous conferences and engagements globally and is fluent in English, French, Haitian Creole, and Spanish.
We talk about how Genevieve's company uplifts smallholder farmers, how her 25 years of financial services and payments experience helped her to combine FoodTech and FinTech, Zoom's upcoming olfactory feature, Haitian soup, and gratitude for family and friends.
Resources mentioned:
To vote for AgriLedger in the Impact Shaker Awards
Genevieve speaking with Jill Malandrino on Nasdaq Trade Talks
AgriLedger’s relationship with ConsenSys Academy to award scholarships to Haitian and South African women to learn blockchain development
Lumumba, a film about the Congo
Provenance, founded by Jessi Baker, which builds software to gather and communicate information about the origin, journey, and impact of products
At one point, we mention a fish called pomfret. See what it looks like here
Soup joumou, a Haitian New Year’s Day dish
Genevieve teaches us that gourmandise is French for gluttony. Here are a few works of art on this concept, by:
Jacques Callot, a French printmaker who may have invented the échoppe, a kind of needle with a curved tip that allowed etchers to imitate engraving
James Ensor, a Belgian satirist and precursor to Expressionist art
George Barbier, a French illustrator who led a group that Vogue called The Knights of the Bracelet for their fashionable dress
Ada’s List, a global community for women and non-binary people in technology where I first met Genevieve. The organization recently hired Khaleelah Jones and Mara Larson-Richard as the new co-CEOs as outgoing CEO Merici Vinton joined the White House.
Links to the podcast episode:
Outline:
0:00 Introduction
1:50 "#Digital #identity provides you not only security but also access to financial and legal services."
4:05 "It's not only the poor teacher who is standing in the heat. It's the poor student who is not getting taught because his teacher is on line trying to get his paycheck."
5:17 "I've always been a #scientist."
6:55 "I always like to dream about the impossible and then try to make it possible."
7:22 "Getting to Kinshasa was a feat."
10:25 "When you start putting yourself into the shoes of these individuals who are in the front line, you then start understanding why it is key to just relax and go with the flow and not give them lip."
11:32 We learn a new word, gourmandise - French for gluttony.
20:18 What is AgriLedger?
21:36 Asset creation, escrow, transfer, and termination
21:58 Genevieve's sweet spot
29:40 Example of food contamination
36:41 Asset pools
39:18 One of the biggest challenges in #agriculture
40:34 "I revere food."
43:08 "If you eat food, you are part of agriculture."
43:18 What does Genevieve want if she could snap her fingers?
45:31 Her mom's soup
53:55 Gratitude
57:57 "This past year could have broken me."
59:05 "My mom always told me to understand the value of myself."
Genevieve’s Contact:
AgriLedger’s Contact:
Bonuses from friends and subscribers:
Related to this episode’s content, Lars Hamre shared an interesting analogy for explaining blockchain.
Karan Gill wrote up his experience of a road trip through the Southern United States. Share any thoughts!
Au revoir,
HSY