Bill Barhydt

Bill Barhydt Founder Abra, Start-up Investor & Technology Entrepreneur ABRA New York Institute of Finance

My passion is information technology and how it can be used to improve people's lives. Whether it's for mobile money, education, group collaboration and messaging, cryptography, smart devices, robotics, or games I believe in the power of information technology and the people behind it to make a big difference. You may not know: In Feb 2012 I gave the first ever TED talk on Bitcoin. Bitcoin was trading at about $2 and 90% of the TED audience didn't know what it was. In 2011 I helped form the International Diaspora Engagement Alliance (IDEA) with the U.S. State Department and USAID to facilitate better relations within migrant communities across the US and their families "back home." I spent several years working on smart contracts technology. Some of this work was used at Sennari in designing our mobile wallet and digital currency system. Check out the "Colored Coin" project via google. In 2000 I received the Technology Pioneer Award from the World Economic Forum for our work in online collaboration at WebSentric. In 1998 I started WebSentric which was the first online meeting service that required no software install beyond a basic web browser. In 1996 I helped design the first ever large scale web hosting business in Europe for one of our customers at Netscape. It was used by millions of people. Business Interests: Mobile Payments & Bitcoin/Digital Currencies Mobile Education & Games for Kids Internet of Things & M2M Robotics, Drones & Arduino Programming