Speaker

Abhishek Bhattacharya

Abhishek Bhattacharya
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Bio

Abhishek has been a serial entrepreneur focused on FinTech, AgriTech, BlockchainTech, a Forbes 30 under 30 honoree, an UNDP INSPIRO & a THINC Fellow, and was a Product Owner for the service product at Policybazaar.com (an Indian unicorn insurance aggregator). He’s a 3-times Entrepreneur, an Author, and a regular Visiting Faculty for Blockchain Technology.

At Brú Finance, he built India’s largest Blockchain network that saves 25-40% of farmers’ income, and protects banks from millions in very regular frauds in the segment of Warehouse Receipt Finance. This integrated mega-platform is currently deployed in 1,400 warehouses across 5 states in India, has over US $600 Mn commodities tokenized on the blockchain, and over US $10 Mn digital loans dispatched to farmers and agri-businesses, with US $330 Mn committed by the partner banks to be routed via the platform. Brú has been incubated at IIM Ahmedabad, University of Toronto's CDL, Chiratae Innovators' Program, TheGAIN in collaboration with MeiTy, GUSEC et. al. Brú has constantly received recognition in Centralized and Decentralized Finance from the likes of United Nations Development Programme, FICCI, Indian Banks Association, Binance, ETHDenver etc., including a case study by IIM-A which will be taught in their flagship MBA program.

His experience in the web3 / crypto / Fintech / DeFi / NFT industry has given him valuable insights into customer needs and market trends, allowing him to develop innovative and user-centric products, such as his most recent experience with Brú which created a traction in the lives of more than 20,000 farmers and attracted US $200,000+ in equity-free grants from marquee names as well as US $350,000 in seed funding.

Abhishek has been an Advisor to several startups such as eSports.com (who raised 5.8 Million EUR in their ICO), Vayla, Blockchain Advisory Council, NafCoin et. al. His second book (Secure Chains: Cybersecurity and Blockchain-powered Automation) has been published by BPB Publications - Asia's Largest Publisher of IT Books, and the next book on Blockchain in Healthcare with Wiley is scheduled to be published mid-2023.

He is a regular speaker in blockchain and has delivered lectures in blockchain for 8,000+ faculty, PhDs, and students worldwide. He's a Director with Althash University, an educator with ODEM US, and a visiting faculty with Amity’s Post Graduate Program in Blockchain Technology and Management as well as faculty with IIT Madras’ & Great Learning’s Blockchain course. He has also advised the Certified Blockchain Professional (CBP) Course by EC-Council that's present across 145 countries.

He was nominated for the "Top 50 Tech Leaders" award by InterCon Dubai. He had been invited as a Speaker at one of Europe's biggest Blockchain conferences - Decentralized 2019 in Athens, Greece; as a Speaker at The Blockchain World Forum in Shenzhen, China; and as a Panellist/Speaker with a nomination for Best Crypto Educator in GURUS Awards by Next Block Asia 2.0 in Bangkok, Thailand last year; as a panellist/judge at Govt. of India’s program for startups at IIM Kashipur; and, as a Speaker at the European Digital Week and Global Technology Summit, 2020.

1. https://youtu.be/jq2C620r370?t=817 (DEVCON Bogota - Ethereum Next Billion Panel)
2. https://youtu.be/9NN7Fh894GY
3. https://youtu.be/aZUJNAbV4uk (Saudi Arabia CITC Conference)
4. https://youtu.be/5SM-wiEusWY?t=60 (CISCO Film on Social Impact)

Speaking engagements in 2023: AIBC Asia, Philippines in July '23, Thailand Fintech Festival, Bangkok in Sep '23, and Web3BB, Tokyo in Dec '23.

Speaking Topics

Driving Financial Inclusion using Blockchain Technology and Decentralized Finance

We have seen tremendous ups and downs in the crypto segment. DeFi came into the picture to help the unbanked and underbanked get access to a wide variety of financial products. With volatility still an active part of DeFi, it is imperative to make more meaningful protocols that can support seamless financial tools and products that actually help the unbanked. These protocols need to support stable real world assets, which is where more than $4 Trillion worth of lending happens annually.

In this talk, Abhishek discusses how bridging this massive gap between CeFi and DeFi is the talk of the hour and how this can enable financial inclusion for several population strata across the globe.

Real World Assets - a new paradigm for NFTs

In this talk, Abhishek explores his experience with going beyond vanila digital art as NFTs and what it means to explore novel use cases of a technology as standard as NFTs. His delves deeper into his personal use case in India that enabled smallholder and marginal farmers tokenize their crops as NFTs on the blockchain and eventually access not only capital from Centralized banks in the country, but also bridged financial inclusion opportunities with the global DeFi industry. This use case has been supported by marquee names such as UNDP, Govt. of India, CISCO, CITI, Google, Microsoft etc.

Web3 - It Came, It Saw, It Conquered

A very specific topic on which Abhishek delves deeper into the advent of Web3 and how it became the next big thing. The coverage of this topic usually ranges from the very fundamental concepts on which Blockchain Technology stands to advanced and technical topics across the breadth of web3 which define the future of this domain. Segments from this talk are at certain times excerpted as panel discussions, as a moderator or a panelist.

Fintech for a Sustainable Future

This is a topic that's very close to Abhishek's heart. With the advent of technology across most aspects of finance and financial management, Abhishek unlocks how Industry 4.0-enabled platforms must be developed with Fintech at its core. Here, he talks about neobanking, APIs, and even entire national stacks such as the India Stack, for enabling fast and efficient access to finance for a variety of populations segments.

Web3 Education and Solving the Impending Talent Crisis

With his experience as a visiting faculty of Blockchain Tech with premier universities as well as a Director at Althash University, he has seen the impact that motivating developers and non-developers towards web3 is going to have a huge benefit in their careers in short and long terms. Additionally, while running companies, he has first-hand experienced the dearth of web3 talent and is able to foresee a huge impending talent crisis. In this talk, he explains for the benefit of universities, institutions, coaches and faculty, the importance of focusing on creating blockchain degree and diploma programs and keeping up the pace with the industry. He explains how university boards can go from 0 to 1 across course curriculum, structure, credit distribution, industry-mapping, learning outcomes development, content strategy and creation to distribution and reaching the appropriate audience.

Speaking Topics

  • Driving Financial Inclusion using Blockchain Technology and Decentralized Finance
  • Real World Assets – a new paradigm for NFTs
  • Web3 – It Came, It Saw, It Conquered
  • Fintech for a Sustainable Future
  • Web3 Education and Solving the Impending Talent Crisis