This is how GDC Masterminds look like

April 28, 2022

Global Digital Club Mastermind turned to be one of the most anticipated event in Dubai digital investment world.

Every week we meet with new age entrepreneurs, founders and co-founders, investors and influencers to discuss the latest developments in the industry, to share opinions and to have powerful brainstorms.

This week we held this event in The Opus by OMNIYAT – the new home for GDC.

The Opus was designed by world-renowned architect Zaha Hadid in 2007. Located within Burj Khalifa district of Dubai, the Opus comprises two separate towers that coalesce into a singular whole taking the form of a cube. The cube is then “carved”, creating a central void that is an important volume within the building in its own right— providing views to the exterior from the center of the building.

Come to Dubai to see GDC great networking in one of the most remarkable places in UAE with your own eyes!

Farzam Kalamabaidi

Investor

The Most Influential Foreign Figure in Modern China History

Farzam Kamalabadi, Persian-American, is a world-renowned influential personality specially in China, Middle East, Africa, and the West.

On strategy level globally Kamalabadi is in high relations with national leaders of some 100 countries at the level of Presidents & Prime Ministers, or Sultans & Kings, and/or Royal Families, including USA, China, all GCC, Africa, Europe, among others.

In particular he is slated as “The Most Influential Foreign Figure in Modern China History” by Chinese state media, United Nations’ Pictorial magazine, Arabian Business Arabic weekly, and other media in the United States and Europe.

Kamalabadi is Senior Economic Advisor to over 20 municipal and regional governments in China. He is the only foreigner who has masterminded and created several rounds of national policy of China, which have been signed, sealed, and endorsed in writing by China’s state leaders including the President, the Premier, and several other key national leaders collectively.

Kamalabadi is the person who guided and directed Africa’s first ever bloodless and zero- bullet power transition — Zimbabwe November 2017.

A well-known figure in the oil & gas and energy sector on the global stage, Kamalabadi has been the chairman or first keynote speaker at major petroleum & energy summits. He served in various capacities for economic development of nations as Senior Advisor to a number of countries’ national oil systems, including Oman, Kuwait, and China. He has successfully handled various oil and petrochemical trading deals and projects such as securing exploration rights and concessions. He is the only foreign personality in both the two national and several provincial private oil and gas associations of China in the first decade of their formation.

As the originating founder of the New Silk Road policy and China-GCC/MENA/Central Asia cooperation corridor, Kamalabadi was instrumental in China-Tajkistan boarder opening; China-Oman trade volume hyper jump from $600mm to $11Bn between 2001 to 2007; Gulf Cooperation Council’s series of Sovereign Wealth Funds’ investments into Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), the first ever in world history.

Ángel J. Ortega

Financial advisor in cryptocurrencies

Achieved sales over $20M

Born and raised in Granada, southern Spain, Angel has always stood out for his interest in learning, growing as a person and trying to make the world a better place. He holds a degree in Human Resources and an MBA from the University of Granada.

From a very young age he proved to be an entrepreneur, inspired by the figure of his father, a great businessman who Angel wanted to become.

When he was 14 years old, he became interested in the world of computers, building his first computers with parts. Traveling through Spain and Europe playing paintball, one of his sports, where he played in the National Team for 2 years.

At the age of 18 he founded his first company with small savings, which 12 years later is the largest in his city in its sector. In 2016 he discovered cryptocurrencies and since then his life changed.

He bought his first computer to mine Ethererum and thus started to get more and more involved with the crypto world.

In 2020 he reached the 13th position in the world in a major investment company thanks to his social skills and contacts, achieving more than 20,000 clients and sales over $20M.

Since the inception of Binance Smart Chain Angel has been studying the interesting DeFi world, surfing the waves of some of the fastest growing coins since its first weeks of inception, such as SafeMoon, realizing millions of dollars worth of gains.

Currently working as a financial advisor specialized in cryptocurrencies, he has several offices in Spain where he provides legal and financial support to his clients. Based in Dubai, he has specialized in the blockchain and DeFi world, where he brings his expertise to startups and companies.

Shiti Rastogi Manghani

Chief Marketing Offiicer, STEPN

Managed multi-million-dollar projects to founding AI start-up across US, UK, Europe and India

Shiti is an award-winning business leader with 14 years of experience across 11 countries managing multi-million-dollar projects to founding AI start-up across US, UK, Europe and India.

Based in the UK, Shiti is an Electronics Engineer and holds an MBA in Marketing. Having launched multiple products successfully in international markets, her skills lie at the cross-section of technology and business.

Shiti strongly believes in harnessing the power of technology for social impact. She founded her own computer vision-based AI start-up to be amongst Top 50 wellbeing start-ups in the UK (At no. 14) and in the Top 100 health companies in the UK. Previously, she has worked towards launching Wall Street Journal’s digital arm in India and building power brands at PepsiCo US.

Shiti won UK govt’s Exceptional Talent 2021, was nominated in the Women Tech Network Global Awards in the category “Women-Led Tech-Startup of the Year 2020”, finalist in the “Entrepreneur of the Year 2021” category by Microsoft’s Diversity in Tech awards and been a panelist at the prestigious LSX World Congress for Longevity and been published across major technology, healthcare and startup-focused media.

She is an active member of female founders and technology forums in the UK and worldwide, and has been profiled on Women Of Wearable, She Can Code and other industry-leading platforms. She has been named as a “Woman to Watch” in HealthTech, a “Trailblazer” in the Digital Longevity space, and a “Fem Foundry Leader” in digital-technology.

Shiti presently serves STEPN as their Chief Marketing Officer. STEPN is a web3 lifestyle and fitness app that is taking move-to-earn sector by storm. Shiti has firsthand seen the power of democratizing healthcare into hands of common people. She therefore passionately shares STEPN’s mission to bring millions of people to web3.

Michele Nati

PhD, Head of Telco and Infrastructure Development, IOTA Foundation
Market Cap $887,850,875

Matured almost 20 years of product R&D in Internet of Things and data

Michele has 20 years of experience in the fields of data and IoT, working on research and development and recently on innovation in a number of roles, from Academia to SMEs to government organizations. During his career he pioneered and touched all the technologies and aspects that helped to create the connected world we are living today.

In 2007, Michele obtained a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Rome La Sapienza. He researched, designed and deployed novel cross-layer communication protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks and other resource-constrained embedded devices, dividing his time between Rome and Boston where he was a visiting researcher at the Northeastern University. After his PhD, he worked for academia and a number of SMEs as a research scientist in the area of remote sensing / monitoring.

In 2010 Michele moved to the UK to work at the University of Surrey, where he was a Senior Researcher at the 5G Innovation Centre. As part of the first large scale European smart city project, SmartSantander, he led the development and deployment of an Internet of Things campus-wide testbed comprising of thousands of sensor devices for energy monitoring applications. He led a group of PhD students investigating the impact of IoT and data in creating more sustainable buildings and campuses. He developed proposals and led a number of other European Projects, researching the field of privacy-aware communication and crowdsensing in mobile Internet of Things.

Since 2015 Michele has worked as the Lead Technologist for Data and Trust at Digital Catapult London, driving open innovation in the area of data and trust. He worked on a number of projects and initiatives to increase transparency and individual control on how personal data are collected and shared. He championed the introduction of a standardized Personal Data Receipt to increase transparency, track personal data sharing transactions and provide General Data Protection Regulation compliance.

In his research into trust and transparency, Michele was exposed to blockchain and distributed ledger technologies. He researched DLTs as a means to build an infrastructure for sharing data with trust, and to create innovation in the digital manufacturing and creative industries.

Currently he is an active member of the Mydata community, actively liaising with academia, SMEs, large organizations and governments to identify open innovation activities in the field of data and IoT.

Michele is responsible for growing the IOTA Ecosystem, by identifying, securing funding and leading the development of Web3 IOTA-based products. He manages the development of Spice, an IOTA as a Service solution. Michele also leads EU projects and IOTA international research collaborations. Together with his deep experience on blockchain, to date, Michele matured almost 20 years of product research and development in Internet of Things and data, both in Academia and various SMEs.

Vladimir "Alex" Kochenov

Rajesh Natarajan

Faith "Queen Wiki" Sloan

Kirill Mishanin

Olivia Mushamba

Messiah Wealth

Farzam Kalamabaidi

Bruce Jeong

Michael Gurvich

Samuel Atebefia Omamuyowin

Tatiana Geletskaia

Austin Kimm

Ángel J. Ortega

Ilya Churakov

Erik Nurm

Shiti Rastogi Manghani

Michele Nati

David Uhryniak

Arslan Kiran