Applicant Name: azeem
Twitter: @azeemk_
Applicant Summary: I’ve been in the crypto space since the end of 2013 when I wrote an article for the Huffington Post about the New York City Bitcoin Center. In early 2014 I tried my hand at launching Kim Coindashian before the media I got for it ended up causing me to get a cease and desist. I’ve since held a handful of roles and even raised funds for a crowdfunding platform to support creators that I launched in 2021.
For going on two years now I’ve been at Gitcoin where I started in the Public Goods Funding workstream looking to speak to organizations to fund matching pools for us to run Quadratic Funding grants rounds like we have for the past four years now. In the time I’ve been here through all the efforts I’ve led with our grants program and our treasury diversification I’ve raised tens of millions of dollars that have gone to good places.
I’m a consultant to the United Nation on crypto related matters after the UNICEF round that I led for Gitcoin at the tail end of 2022. They have a crypto venture fund, which is in many ways a grants program because they’re not able to take equity, and I work closely with them on a handful of things.
Outside of that, I’m an advisor to Foresight Ventures, which is a $400 million venture fund that is the venture arm of the centralized exchange BitGet. I’m a mentor to the ConsenSys Fellowship, mentor at the Binance Labs Incubator, mentor at the Crypto Packaged Goods accelerator, mentor at the Hypernest accelerator, and the One Piece Labs accelerator.
My work includes speaking engagements at all the major conferences happening, I’ve got bylines with multiple publications talking about crypto including Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, Coindesk, Bankless, and Forefront. I’ve also been acknowledged as a contributor in two white papers by the World Economic Forum. One on Impact DAOs and the other on Blockchain Scaling for Climate Action. And most recently a whitepaper on U.S Climate Policy Action with the Blockchain Law for Social Good Center.
I’ve been covered in a variety of publications
Some other involvements of mine are being a member of the World Economic Forum’s Crypto Sustainability Coalition and also a member of the Future of Global Fintech Initiative, co-organized by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance and the World Economic Forum.
I was even a judge on a tv show with Binance earlier this year called Build The Block, which was a metaverse reality show similar to Shark Tank that was recently nominated for a BIMA Award. The other judges were He Yi who’s a cofounder of Binance, Robby Yung who’s the CEO of Animoca, and Guy Turner who runs the popular YouTube channel Coin Bureau that has over 3 million subscribers.
Involvement in Uniswap and/or Arbitrum community or prior initiatives:
Worked with Disuption Joe on getting his proposal passed for Arbitrum that’s had funding going through Gitcoin Grants Stack.
Prior experience in either Grants or Delegate Programs:
Being a leader in what’s arguably the most notable grants program in all of web3.
Any anticipated conflicts of interest:
Discussing with UAGP to use Grants Stack to distribute these funds.