Bill Barhydt

Change Agent, Entrepreneur, Explorer, Idea generator, Inventor, Social entrepreneur, Technologist, World traveler

Born in NYC and raised in New York and New Jersey, Bill is an award winning technology Entrepreneur known for his work in financial inclusion and Internet technologies. Along with a couple of other TEDsters, Bill recently started Abra which is building the world’s first digital currency based banking system enabling investing, credit services and peer to peer money transfer globally. For the first time we'll have a single smartphone app for banking that works in 155 countries. Bill is an active angel investor and advisor across several industries including digital currency and blockchain, gaming, fintech and AI. After spending several years with Goldman Sachs and then Netscape, Bill went on to start and advise some of the most innovative technology companies of the past 15 years. In 2013 Bill joined Eseye as a Board Advisor. Eseye is the largest cellular M2M provider enabling large scale IoT deployments in Europe and now in the Americas. They run the only global data MVNO for adding cellular data connectivity to any device in the world. The World Economic Forum honored Bill with their first Technology Pioneer Award in 2000. Bill has studied Computer Science, Computational Mathematics and Graphic Design. Locals can often see Bill flying his drones and rockets over Los Gatos and San Francisco.

... Trying new things ... Travel ... Mountains ... Formula1 ... Startups and new products

The opportunity to leverage the mobile phone and cellular networks to improve the lives of the "bottom of the income pyramid" is unprecedented in global history. Enabling money transfer, The Internet of Things, Micro-finance, P2P Lending, Insurance/Savings, Mobile Healthcare and Mobile Education via the mobile phone and cellular networks is an unprecedented opportunity to begin the process of lifting a billion people out of poverty. Everyone deserves the chance to become an educated, skilled, self sufficient, positive contributing members of society.

Angel investing, Bitcoin, Entrepeneurship, Mobile Technology, Start up and business mentoring, Venture Capital

At TED 2008 I met a TED Fellow who became my catalyst for creating the Boom Financial Foundation (BFF) and our work in Haiti. She encouraged me to spend time with non-commercial organizations such as the US State Department, USAID and other organizations that have shown me how our company could ultimately do more than just help the middle of the income pyramid and focus on the poorest of nations that could also take advantage of what we have to offer. I am very grateful to TED for the role they have played in shaping the last few years of my life.

Gardening Cooking Programming Car racing