Sajida Zouarhi
Forbes Women 2019 • Top 10 Women to Follow in Tech in 2019 (#FrenchTech) • Women in IT Awards Ireland 2018 - Finalist for "FUTURE CIO OF THE YEAR" • Top 6 Women Blockchain Influencers (#FrenchTech)
SHORT BIO
Sajida Zouarhi began her career in 2014 as a research engineer at Orange Labs and the Computer Science Lab of Grenoble on critical data transmission across complex and heterogeneous networks. In 2015 she co-founded the Kidner Project, a privacy-preserving distributed matching system for kidney transplants.
She worked as a blockchain architect with leaders in the field such as Consensys where she co-founded HellHound in 2018, a decentralized blind computation platform. In 2019 as the youngest executive board member, she became chief technology strategist of Nomadic Labs, a Tezos core R&D center. In 2020, she created Philea, a DAO-based platform leveraging DeFi for sustainable social impact. In all her projects, Sajida strives to achieve her vision of Web3: reconciling transparency and privacy to create a web that is economically fair and respectful of the user-citizen's rights.
As a pioneer of the blockchain ecosystem in France and an internationally recognized blockchain expert, she was named by Forbes Top 40 most influential women in France in 2019.
BIOGRAPHY
Sajida Zouarhi is a Blockchain Architect and a Technical Consultant.
She is a french Engineer with 6 years of experience including 3 years as a Research engineer at Orange Labs (Telecommunications) and in the Computer Science Lab of Grenoble (LIG).
She then worked for 2 years as a Blockchain Architect at Consensys, a US blockchain company leader in the field, where she focused her research on Critical data management and on her project HellHound, a Blind Computation platform for private data that she co-invented.
Between 2019 and 2020, she was the Chief technology strategist at Nomadic Labs, a French laboratory working on Tezos Protocol. She worked closely with the Tezos Foundation to develop the French ecosystem (startups, researchers) around Tezos and structured the Technical Due Diligence pipeline.
Sajida is the co-founder of multiple projects in the Blockchain Ecosystem:
Le BlockFest (Blockchain festival and hackathon running since 2016), La Chaintech (French blockchain association that is now merged into ADAN) and the eHealth & Blockchain Think Tank. She is one of the founding board member of the ADAN (Association for the Development of Digital Assets).
She has been contacted by the WHO to help preventing Kidney Traffic with Blockchain and she is the founder of the Kidner Project. This project created in 2015 aims at creating a worldwide decentralized matching platform for kidney paired exchange by using blockchain & economic paradigms to improve the effectiveness & fairness of the transplanting process.
She started in 2018 her instagram project Looking For Satoshi, mixing her travels (15+ countries, 10K+ kilometers) and blockchain anecdotes to inspire more people to join the crypto space, especially women.
She co-authored the chapter about Basic cryptography techniques for SSI in the book Self-Sovereign Identity: Decentralized Digital Identity and Verifiable Credentials published by Manning.
She is the author of the Blockchain Canvas: a tool that has been used since 2016 by several projects & organizations all around the world such as the Healthcare Data Institute, Orange, and ESILV (Engineering school in Paris) for blockchain training.
Sajida is an International Speaker and was named one of Top 10 Women to Follow in Tech in 2019 (#FrenchTech), Top 40 Forbes Women in France 2019, Top 6 Women Blockchain Influencers (#FrenchTech) and nominated for the Women in IT Awards Ireland 2018 (finalist for « Future CIO of the year »).
MEDIA
"In the second episode of our podcast "La belle audace", we meet blockchain architect Sajida Zouarhi, 27. Who reminds us that making a mistake is not that bad when you get started."
"Sajida Zouarhi is one of the rising figures of blockchain in France. An innovation that promises to be as revolutionary as the Internet."
Full interview
(IN ENGLISH)
"Sajida Zouarhi is a pioneering woman in the field of blockchain, the recipient of multiple awards including the Women in IT awards of Ireland, a co-founder of a life-saving blockchain project, a blockchain architect, and much more. She will be in Riga speaking at the Digital Freedom Festival at the invitation of the Ambassador of France and French Institute in Latvia. "
"The 10 women to follow in Tech" (2019)
"TOP 40 Forbes women" (2019)
PODCASTS
"Dans cet épisode nous recevons Sajida Zouarhi, ingénieure blockchain pour le géant américain Consensys. Elle développe Kidner Project, une plateforme mondiale permettant de trouver des compatibilités entre donneurs et receveurs de reins. Elle est également derrière Looking for Satoshi, un compte Instagram sur lequel elle partage les initiatives blockchain les plus intéressantes qu’elle a découvert au gré de ses conférences autour du monde.
Sajida Zouarhi est une vraie role model, c’est-à-dire qu’elle peut inspirer des vocations dans la blockchain. On pense notamment aux jeunes femmes qui pourraient redouter de mettre les pieds dans un milieu parfois très masculin."
pictures
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CONFERENCE & INTERVIEWS
Some are in english, some are in french.