The BEN Team

Erick Pinos is the President of the Blockchain Education Network (BEN). Erick is also the Americas Ecosystem Lead at Ontology Network, a public blockchain project focused on decentralized identity and data. Erick has a BS in Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he was the President of the MIT Bitcoin Club, as well as a researcher at the MIT Digital Currency Initiative.

Antonio is the past president of Gator Blockchain Club and a 2020 graduate of Warrington College of Business at U of F. With a proven talent for aligning business strategy, Antonio worked for over a year at Oracle Inc headquarters, as part of the ISV BDC Team. He now focus in enabling students in developing nations to acquire educational opportunities in blockchain technology. In his free time he enjoys sailing.

Jeremy Gardner (born January 20, 1992), is an American serial entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist based in Beverly Hills, California. He is primarily known for his early investments in Bitcoin, the CryptoCastle brand, and as a co-founder of Augur. His early investments in cryptocurrency made him a self-made millionaire. He was previously the founder and CEO of MadeMan, a men's skincare cosmetic company featured in publications Maxim, The Daily Front Row, and Wealth Magazine.

Ba Minuzzi is the Founder & CEO of UMANA, Inc, and the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Venture Studio and U House of Funds. At BEN she is our CFO.

Dean graduated from the University of Delaware, while simultaneously leading two global non-profits in addition to several startups. Jumping into bitcoin in the summer of 2013, Dean accelerated a global grassroots blockchain education movement on university campuses across the world. A believer in “power to the people”, Dean uses non-orthodox strategies (swarmwise) for leading decentralized organizations which focus on empowering individuals to take local action on a global initiative. Born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware; Dean now lives in Amsterdam to work with APG, the largest pension company in NL, working on the future of pensions and life-security. When not in the office, you can catch him hosting meetup groups and grassroots blockchain initiatives.

Jinglan Wang is a blockchain career professional and the founder of Optimism, a blockchain-based protocol that enables developers to build and deploy decentralized applications (dApps) on Ethereum. She is a leading figure in the blockchain industry and has been instrumental in driving the development of the technology.

Mel Vera is a Colombia native raised in New York City. After graduating from Babson College, her degree in Environmental Economics inspired her to start Atlus, a nonprofit based in Medellin focused on reducing youth violence and unemployment through blockchain, AI, and ecology education. After serving as Executive VP for the Blockchain Education Network and aiding Business Development at Injection Protocol, Mel began directing Ecosystem & Education and later became director of Community & Communications at DoinGud, an NFT platform empowering creators and social impact organizations. While her time at DoinGud Mel founded NFTclassroom.org a non-profit focused on reducing the socio-economic gap by teaching minority students about NFTs, art, and financial literacy.