Barefoot Innovation Podcast

This is a special episode of Barefoot Innovation because I have no guest – it's just me. As we go into 2022, I want to share the advice I have on my mind for everyone (including myself). And I'm also going to share a quick overview of what we're doing at AIR. We are a small organization doing very big work, in the US and worldwide. I'm going to describe the highlights, partly to encourage you to engage with us if we have points of connection. In addition, I want to invite you all to tell us what you would like to hear about this year on Barefoot Innovation. What kinds of guests should we have, and what kinds of issues should we explore? Come to www.regulationinnovation.org and let us know!

Happy New Year everyone! As we enter 2022 and hope it turns out better than its two predecessors, one of my goals for the year is to invite you on a journey with me to explore the frontiers of change in finance, and of course therefore, financial regulation. We're going to look at Web 3.0, DeFi, crypto, blockchains, tokenization, DAOs, embedded finance, and the whole universe of mold-breaking innovation flooding into the financial sector. To kick it off, I've invited our second-ever four-time guest onto the show. In our final episode of 2021, I featured our first four-time guest on Barefoot Innovation – Chris Giancarlo, talking about his great new book, CryptoDad. Today, we're talking for the fourth time with Shamir Karkal – and for very good reason.

Dubbed "CryptoDad" for his celebrated call on the US Congress to respect a new generation's interest in cryptocurrency, the Honorable J. Christopher Giancarlo served as 13th Chairman of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Considered one of "the most influential individuals in financial regulation," Giancarlo also served as a member of the US Financial Stability Oversight Committee, the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, and the Executive Board of the International Organization of Securities Commissions.

My guests today are Lisa Rice, CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance, and Kareem Saleh, founder and CEO of Fairplay. Lisa is a civil rights activist. Kareem is a tech guy who founded a startup that uses AI analytics to deliver what he calls Fairness as a Service. They come from two different worlds, but they have teamed up to work on the problem of unfair lending.

Corey and Todd argue that, as with so many other things, new technology is opening new possibilities. In this case, they think the tough old problem of financial consumer protection and financial health should be looked at afresh because….yes, you guessed it: because we now have digitized data that changes the whole game.

Today I have something different for you. Last spring, I recorded a conversation for the virtual South by Southwest conference with Cleve Mesidor. Cleve founded the National Policy Network of Women of Color in Blockchain, among other roles. SX had asked us to talk about the lack of diversity in the tech sector, and what to do about it. We had a great conversation, and we got permission to share it with you as a podcast.

My guest today is one of the most high-ranking women in the world of banking. Stephanie Cohen is Global Co-Head of Consumer and Wealth Management, Goldman Sachs. In that role, she co-leads Goldman's digital bank, Marcus.

Melissa Koide is the CEO of FinRegLab, a nonprofit financial innovation and research center that examines how technology and data can help achieve public policy aspirations, address regulatory requirements, and lead to a more efficient and inclusive financial marketplace. FinRegLab provides an independent platform for financial stakeholders and policymakers to dialogue and gain an evidence-based understanding of new financial technologies.

Jesse Morris is the current CEO and former CCO of the Energy Web Foundation. Throughout his career in the electricity sector, Jesse has had one focus: to partner with utilities, technology providers, developers, and regulatory stakeholders to help clean energy become an integral, widely-accessible part of the global electricity system. Last spring, AIR launched an initiative called the Crypto Climate Accord, a voluntary effort to make the crypto sector carbon neutral by 2030. Our partners in this project are two other nonprofit organizations -- the Rocky Mountain Institute and the Energy Web Foundation. My guest today is Jesse Morris, Energy Web's CEO and one of the most visionary innovators in the climate space. In this conversation, we talk about the Crypto Climate Accord -- what we're doing and who is joining in. The group includes crypto miners, crypto exchanges, renewable energy providers, and financial services firms offering crypto options. Please note that all kinds of entities that work with crypto are invited to participate.

My guest today, Sheila M'Mbijjewe, is the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya and is helping lead the way to a new world of financial services and financial regulation. In our conversation, she describes what it was like for the regulators who faced that cutting edge situation, new terrain that no one had navigated before them. They saw the powerful potential for full financial inclusion. She says there wasn't much money spent on marketing M-Pesa -- that people just saw immediately what this tool was and they got phones and started using it, and the regulators had to figure out how to enable it, while also managing the risks it could bring. They didn't have laws in place for it, but, as she says, they were shown a solution by the technology world, and so they watched, and learned, and collaborated to figure it out. Today, 83% of Kenyans are served by the formal financial system. Last year, half of Kenya's GDP moved on the M-Pesa rails.