>> From Santa Clara, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley, it's theCUBE! Covering Technovation's World Pitch 2018. Now, here's Sonia Tagare. >> Hi, welcome back, I'm Sonia Tagare here with theCUBE in Santa Clara, California covering Technovation's World Pitch Summit 2018, a pitch competition in which girls develop mobile apps in order to create positive change in the world. This week 12 finalists are competing for their chance to win the coveted gold or silver scholarships. With us today we have Tara Chklovski, the Founder and CEO of Iridescent, Tara thank you so much for being on. >> My pleasure. >> So can you tell us a little bit more about Technovation? What's the event about? >> Yeah, so Technovation is the worlds largest technology program for girls and we inspire them to find problems in their communities and actually create mobile apps and launch startups to solve these problems. And so we operate in 115 countries. >> Wow! >> This year we had about 20 thousand girls register for the program, and right now we see about girls and student ambassadors, regional ambassadors, mentors from 15 countries. So some of the countries are: Nigeria, India, Mexico, Brazil, Ethiopia, Palestine, Spain, and of course, the US and Canada. >> That's wonderful. >> And I think I may be missing a couple countries. >> So, could you tell me more about Iridescent and how Iridescent is involved in Technovation? >> Yeah, totally. So, Iridescent is the parent non-profit and we started in 2006, our mission is to empower underserved communities, especially girls and women to become innovators and creators of technology and engineering, and so it requires them feeling that they have a place at the table and being empowered to actually create new solutions, and not just be the users of solutions. >> That's wonderful. Can you tell us some success stories from past winners? >> Yeah, totally. So Technovation is unusual because it's 100 hour, pretty robust, almost like a bootcamp where, you don't need to have any prior knowledge of computer science or entrepreneurship, and you go through and have a completely finished product. And so, in the early years, in say 2010, the winners of the New York regional competition actually created an Uber-like app. And this was before Uber was actually known as a ride sharing. And a team from I think the Bay area created a Pinterest-like app. And so these girls are ahead of the times because, I mean everybody knows teenagers are ahead of their time, and girls are very active users of technology, and this puts into their hands that they become creators. But some of the success stories, one of our biggest one is Emma Yang, she was named like the top 10 under 10 to watch out for, but she created an app for her grandmother, who suffers from Alzheimer's, and she could, it would help memory training. And recently, she was actually featured in Apple's WWDC Conference when Tim Cook played the video showcasing the developer and their families, and so she was one of them on the video, so, we felt incredibly proud that we were the ones to bring her into technology. >> That's wonderful. So can you tell me more about how Technovation is helping these girls? >> Yeah, so Technovation again is unusual, because it's not like we're going to cram a whole bunch of coding and programming down your throats, it's rather, first the question is, find the problem that you're passionate about in your community, and then, oh by the way, did you know you could use technology to solve that problem? And so that real world application is very important for a new newcomer to the field, and so we bring thousands and thousands of young girls who would never dream about going into computer science into this field, so, just to give some numbers, annually, we have about 64 thousand undergraduates in computer science as a country, and only 10 thousand of them are women. >> Wow. >> And so just to give you a sense of the scale of Technovation, we have about 12 thousand Technovation alumni now in college and in the workforce. Every year we add about five thousand girls, and so that's 50% of our national output of the number of computer science graduates, right, like undergraduate women. And so we are significantly moving the needle, but it's taken a long time, I mean, this is our 13th year. And so that is the message that to build this community of young women leaders and entrepreneurs, they need to see more like themselves and so it takes time to get to get to that starting with a few girls, and so yeah, this year we have 20 thousand. >> How do you think the Girls in tech community is evolving as a whole? >> I think the coding community is becoming very, is becoming, it's becoming a movement, it's taken 10 years, and so I think you can see the change in the AP computer science results this year, you're seeing more and more girls becoming interested in computer science. But again, there's a big problem of access still, I mean, low income groups do not have access to, to coding programs in their communities, and I think, there's room for us to improve and add there. I think the Girls in tech community is vibrant, in Silicon Valley, but Silicon Valley is a tiny place in the world, as you can see, right? So I think, yes it's there, but we are very small, there's a lot of room, and there's a lot of room for other organizations to take up the challenge. >> That's awesome. So, last question: What advice would you give for girls who are interested in technology? >> I would say, find a problem that you care about, and find a mentor, I would say sign up for Technovation, because that really has all the elements and the support systems that you need, it's much more than an hour of code. You really need to see all elements of what technology can bring, and the change that you can enable. So I would definitely say yeah, sign up for Technovation, because it helps you make a real change in the world. >> That's awesome, thank you so much for being on theCUBE today. >> My pleasure. >> It's so inspiring what you're doing. >> Thank you! >> Thanks for being here, we're at Technovation's World Pitch Summit 2018, stay tuned for more. (bubbly music)

I'm from San Juan Puerto Rico it's the cube covering coin agenda brought to you by silicon angle hello everyone welcome to special cube covers we're here exclusive conversations at coin agenda we just had blockchain unbound Puerto Rico is where we're at and we'll covering all the trends and latest news and analysis and cryptocurrency blockchain decentralized internet my next guest is Dan Bates founder and president of impact PPA Dan great to have you on thanks John glad to be here so one of the trends I'm noticing is a couple things flight to quality on the ico side first of all lot of the Deadwood's being pushed aside by the community still some stuff out there that you know might not have a business model but good entrepreneurs doing it then you start to see real use cases emerging I interviewed Green Chain they're disrupting how produce grains movement between suppliers and buyers and other impact mission driven stuff like how do you solve the energy crisis right we're in Puerto Rico right the grids half alive everyone knows that you're doing something really compelling take a minute to explain what you guys are doing is you have a token up and running what are you guys doing what's your value proposition so what we do is we've created a system by which you can now have renewable energy delivered to developing nations and we've taken the intermediary out of the equation whereby the world bank historically would take years to fund a project if they would do that they're big trepidation was how do you get paid at the end of the day so what we've done is we've come up with a solution that allows for generation of rent you know with the energy using renewables and track it all the way through to a payment rail if you will that a user can now prepay for energy on their mobile device it's m-pesa if you know what end pace is in Africa 70% of the transactions in Africa are done on a mobile device we are decentralized and pace up for energy so ok mobile app I get out you everyone can think about BRR and all the benefits and Airbnb brings you just have stuff happened talk about what's under the hood what's actually disruptive about what you guys are doing give some specifics because you're tying into Isis and jittering energy using the blocks you have a token how does it all work okay so what we do is in in the in the ability to fund the project getting the World Bank getting USA USA ID out of the equation what we now allow for is the community typically we are very liberal or tend to skew liberal right we actually believe that climate change is real and we want to help support these economies and these new types of you know betterment of the planet right but we don't expect that to be a philanthropic effort so people will buy the impact token which will fund projects that will then create what we're doing right now it's an AR C 20 of what we call a gen credit not a secondary token it's a credit that allows people to access the ledger so a guy will go down to the store just like he does right now and he charges his phones with more minutes or with a data plan it's fiat to a plan a digital currency we do the same thing it's now fiat into a gen credit we call it that allows them and transact with the blockchain so we get identity we get reputation we get trust and honesty about those transactions using the blockchain okay so where does the energy come from because the energy sources now are interesting because you're seeing people do great amazing things solar panels wind farming they see an Asia top of the apartment buildings there's a lot of wind yeah generally but how do they move that power into the market all right so what we do is right now we're using wind and solar rooftop or micro grid for instance we just finished a project in Haiti doing 150 kilowatts for a town called les a wha they haven't had power in two years a hurricane matthew prior to Hurricane Maria coming through Puerto Rico Puerto Rico's in a similar situation right so we created this micro grid using their existing infrastructure of transmission to distribution then we put smart meters on the home that smart meter connects to the blockchain and now people can have power at their homes pay-as-you-go awesome so what I've been to some of the hurdles you guys have had obviously to me it's a no-brainer of energy being tokenized is that makes such sense why wouldn't you want to do that obviously these regulatory issues that are incumbent legacy Dogma or or specific legislation of paperwork what not where's the efficiencies being automated away with the blockchain and what are some of the hurdles that you guys have gone through to get to this point all right so we work in the emerging economies of the world oftentimes there is not the kind of regulation that we have in the US or in the developed world like the EU something like that so when we go out to remote we go out to remote places like you know in Kenya and Ethiopia Latin America wherever it might be we don't have some of the Institute's that you would have if you were trying to set this up in Palo Alto I don't have to worry about PG&E and an interconnect and an off take and all that so what we do is that we'll go out set up a micro grid we're giving power to people who may have never had it before so all those regulatory layers are stripped away they're grateful for it that can they pay for it yes they can't afford to go buy a solar panel and a wind turbine on batteries and inverters nor would they know how to hook it all up yeah but they know that if they can buy power on a cellphone like they're already doing for other goods and services now we've got a game-changer Dan talk about the token economics I get this the payment rail piece mobile app no-brainer I get that check okay easy to use now I want to as a buyer of energy there's a token I some children there where's the other side of the marketplace how does that token economics work do you just take us through a use case and walk us through that example sure so as I said the impact token is our base token that will be the the value token that purchasers will buy in order to fund projects once we go beyond that and we now have what we call a Jen credit it may not be a token in the traditional sense or a coin it's a credit that allows us to transact with the ledger that way we can know about these people one of the greatest opportunities that we feel that we have in the marketplace is identity and reputation you have a billion two people who don't have a connection what if we could learn about those billion too and understand how they use power and where they use power so Jen credits kind of off chain management that you're doing you write to the ledger for in term util access right for that Tran action I got to ask you about things like spoofing why can't I just take your energy this is where the tokens become interesting because I mean it should solve the spoofing problem well right and you know energy energy needs to be passed down copper it's got to go on a wire that doesn't mean somebody's not going to cut the wire and bootleg it and all that stuff smoothing is not going to be the problem in this case it is a physical connection that needs to be made our smart meters allow for us to turn on or off let that connection by the user right if he doesn't pay you don't forget it yeah you know there's vandalism they're stuffed all over the world and we have methods in place to try and mitigate that as much as possible you you saw our platform that we're building we're tokenizing our media business amazing you liked it was good thanks for the plug there I was an aspirin and we were talking last night about our you know generational gap between us and our kids and you have your son here and your son's working with you my sons Alex working with us we have a young team as well I want you to talk about someone who's so experienced in the business you've done a lot of variety adventures from you know film to entertainment technology us older veterans it's the polite way to say it have seen the movie before they've seen the waves this is a huge way but this wave is gonna be can surf a few of them hang ten on our boards but this wave is really gonna be powered and led by the younger generation what's your thoughts share your vision of the role that the younger generation has to take here and what makes them capable in your mind okay so I'm gonna answer that question two ways first of all I'm so enamored with what the younger generation is trying to do with this corruption let's change the existing paradigm and make something better that's what blockchain allows for all sorts of industries goods and services right it's gonna be amazing what these guys come up with that's one of the things I love about doing this thing right I'm an old guy and I get to hang around these young people makes me feel young again yeah but the other thing that we have and I think you share it as well as we have to offer to these young guys experience right it's not like we're gonna go out to a market that we don't know about and try and explore it for success you know I've been in the renewables business for ten years delivering projects to 35 countries I got my boots on the ground I got my hands dirty doing this for 10 years now and I think the other part of that building this project and making it successful is the team that we've put together behind it we have an advisor who advises presidents dr. Michael Dorsey that's really important that's valuable that he understands the global marketplace the way he does the other one is Vinay Gupta who has been in blockchain since the 90s and has always wanted to work in the developing world with a block came distributed ledger technology that's really important I think I want to just double down and we amplify that point this is not a young man's game only exclusively it's such this markets attracting alpha entrepreneurs older veterans because as you said earlier it disrupts every vertical that's right so experience and mentorship bringing people together that can help that's right celebrate the disruption that's right driven by the young guys cool I love that but it's not like Zuckerberg made this one comment oh if you're not under the age of 30 then you don't know such delivery he got his ass handed to him on that but in this case this market is open and willing to learn and the disruptions the mission that's right and this team matters that's our experience the makeup of your board makeup of your advisors since a roll for everybody look experiences capital right it is its own virtual currency having been in all these countries having worked with presidents having worked in the 90s you know since the 90s and what that is valuable it's intangible but it is valuable dan I think we just invented a new category in the ico category an advisor tokens [Laughter] cottage industry believe tokens anyway but imagine if you could actually measure an advisor yeah the quality of adviser and the roles that they play absolutely as a token that's coming up next in our our next I see oh hey I really appreciate what you're doing I love how you work with your son father-son team you recognize the role of how the generations can shift together love it love your mission thank you thanks for sharing the news coverage here in Puerto Rico been here on the island all week getting the best stories the best people sharing them with you were open content that's the cube doing our part here at coin agenda for one day we're not gonna be you tomorrow go to Vegas just came back from watching unbound great stuff John let me give you the the URL if you don't mind no problem please if you want to go learn more about us impact PPI calm great job impact PBA calm is the cube live coverage here in Puerto Rico more after this short break