Meet the VETRI Foundation Board

Dominique: Thank you all for sitting down with me today, to talk about your roles at VETRI and where you see the project headed from here. Let’s start with you Monique. Can you tell us a bit about your background and about what brought you to join VETRI?

Monique: Thank you for having us Dominique. I spent 16 years at Cisco, where I became the company’s first Services CTO and spearheaded Cisco’s transition to services as the core piece of their offerings portfolio. After leaving Cisco, I founded The Humanized Internet, a non-profit organization with a mission to provide persistent, secure, global intelligent digital identity to the world’s population – a mission which I hold very dear to my heart. I am an associate researcher at the Alexander Humboldt Institute of Internet and Society, focusing on digital identity, particularly from a security perspective. In addition, I serve as an advisor to a variety of projects such as Rising Star Accelerator, Sparklabs Accelerator and the World Future Society. What fascinates me about VETRI is the narrative of being in control of your data and to monetize it. This is an exiting opportunity for the industry!

Dominique: Thank you, Monique! We are very happy to have such an experienced and visionary entrepreneur at the helm of the Foundation.

Yves, you have already been with VETRI since the very beginning, conceiving the whitepaper and serving as the CFO during and after the ITO phase. How do you see your role now, as a board member of the Foundation?

Yves: As you know Dominique, I was involved with VETRI from day zero and since I contributed to its original concept, I take it upon myself to see VETRI’s vision being realized and bring value to its stakeholders exactly as we intended, and perhaps even beyond. I am very excited to be part of this journey and every day that goes by comforts me in my conviction that we are on the right track and that new, alternative ways of how we interact digitally are desperately needed.

Dominique: Lukas, you are the newest addition to the team, if you will. What has your journey been and what motivated you to join the VETRI movement?

Lukas: I have been working as a tax lawyer for over 10 years now and currently hold the position of Partner at WADSACK. I am a member of the Zug and Swiss bar association and a member of the International Fiscal Association. Many of my clients are active in the blockchain and fintech space, hence why I have developed a personal interest in the topic of decentralization. I realized that the use of the personal and private data by 3rd parties is a very big issue and the applicable rules are breached regularly. In the vision of VETRI, the disposition of the private data stays with the respective person and should only be used by 3rd parties upon approval. In my view, this is exactly how it should be and why VETRI needs to be supported.

Dominique: Thank you, Lukas and welcome to the VETRI family. Monique, now we of course all want to know, where do you see VETRI headed?

Monique: Today’s digital world is dominated by massive data privacy violations, increasing data protection laws and is constantly polluted by highly inefficient digital marketing gimmicks aimed at maximizing publishers’ profits. If you believe that “data is the new oil” and that, in the future, individuals will also expect to be compensated for sharing theirs, VETRI offers a concrete alternative to the status quo.

Thanks to the way it is structured, as a not-for-profit, peer-to-peer platform, VETRI aims to empower people across the globe by enabling them to collect their digital footprint and partake in the data economy. VETRI is designed as an interface between data owners – you and I – and the data buyers – product and service companies – thereby enabling a frictionless marketplace where data is traded fairly and securely. By removing the “man-in-middle”, VETRI also takes away the flawed economic incentives that have led to the kind of excesses and abuses that captured the headlines in 2018.

VETRI uses blockchain technology to ensure trust in the marketplace and guarantee smooth transactions between data owners and data buyers. Thanks to the trusted and fair relationship VETRI will establish with its users, it will be in the unique position to keep on developing and enhancing its features right alongside the very people it wishes to serve.

Dominique: That sounds very exciting! Thank you Monique, Lukas and Yves for taking the time.