What happens when an academic’s ambitions to address global poverty and inequality collide head on with her teenage son’s otherworldly fascinations with video gaming and crazy new technologies?

The answer is that you get Dr. Jane Thomason, the Australian international development researcher and practitioner who has become a leading evangelist for blockchain and cryptocurrencies on the global stage.

She dates her introduction to the wacky world of blockchain back to 2010, when the price of bitcoin hovered around 10 cents and she was devoting her spare time to getting her son off of the computer and away from time-sink hobbies like World of Warcraft and goofing around in obscure corners of the internet. 

That dynamic began to change when he told her about cryptocurrency:

“My son told me to buy bitcoin as an investment. I ignored that advice, and told him to focus on getting a job. I was wrong!”

She first dismissed it as a gimmick, but after digging into the underlying technology, Thomason quickly realized its potential impact on the so-called “bottom billion,” the portion of the global population considered to be living in extreme poverty - many of whom survive on less than $1 per day.