Ethereum Founder’s Mom, Natalia Ameline, is a Core Educator on Blockchain Inclusion, Not ETH

Not very often do you have a family as dedicated to a business, especially crypto, as the Buterin family. Yes, you’ve heard the name before, most likely, from Vitalik Buterin – Founder of Ethereum and CEO to Ethereum Foundation.

Natalia Ameline, mother of Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and co-founder of the educational nonprofit CryptoChicks, is trying to establish blockchain literacy programs around the world.

CryptoChicks currently has over 600 students in their cryptocurrency program from across the world, from Canada to Pakistan, mostly consisting of youth and women. The project has partnered with BlockGeeks, another crypto education facility co-created by Vitalik’s father, Ameline’s ex-husband, Dmitry Buterin – a true crypto family.

CryptoChicks is about increasing gender balance in the blockchain space. (Image: Medium/ @CryptoChicks)

Not focused on Ethereum

Despite her son being one of the leading figures in the cryptocurrency universe, Natalia does not depend on her son’s business networks to grow CryptoChicks. It would come as a surprise that most of the funds raised by the nonprofit organization is from legacy companies such as Microsoft, IBM and the Royal Bank of Canada.

Recently, CryptoChicks announced they will be holding a hackathon in Bahamas with Fenbushi Capital as the leading sponsor.

Ameline explains that CryptoChicks is focused on the overall impact of crypto to the people, especially to youth and women groups, and not to support a particular chain. She said,

“We’re an educational organization, not a political organization. We want to provide women and youth with the maximum opportunity to make their own choices.”

Since the launch of CryptoChicks in 2017, the organization has raised over $350,000 USD in donations to fund conferences, programs and hackathons. The programs are mainly on smart contract development for enterprises and business use cases on the blockchain.

Women in Blockchain and Cryptocurrency

The field of blockchain and cryptocurrency has long been dominated by men, with very few women participating in the field. In response, CryptoChicks is focusing most of its resources in onboarding women, more so young girls, into the industry.

CryptoChicks co-founder Elena Sinelnikova sees their organization as an open to all community with a special interest in women and youth. Elena said,

“One of our goals is to bring more women into the space, but we’re starting by focusing on youth. That’s where girls disengage a bit and turn into different areas. That’s why we’re trying to get them involved early on.”

CryptoChicks and volunteers during a presentation in Toronto, Canada (Source: CryptoChicks)

CryptoChicks ambassador and founder of non-profit WomenInTechPK, Faiza Yousuf, said the efforts by CC are positively impacting Pakistan youth. She hopes the programs and hackathons will keep the development of smart contracts on an upward trajectory boosting adoption. She further said,

“We want to work with these [hackathon] teams so that they can develop these projects further. There are not a lot of communities here in Pakistan related to blockchain … so this was the first of its kind and we invited a lot of people from the technology industry just to start a conversation.”

The organization is planning on raising $2 million dollars to continue with the development of these smart contracts and decentralized applications for enterprises.

CryptoChicks announced a hackathon in Bahamas this coming month with the five winning teams winning $1500 USD each. Over 100 participants have registered for the event – most aged between 7 to 25 years old.