About me

  • I’m a proud American-Egyptian, raised in Miami, Dubai, & Chicago.

  • Tweet under @ahmedzifzaf about Blockchain & World events.

  • Share blockchain insights & career updates on Linkedin.

  • Traveled to 85+ countries & understand English, Arabic & Spanish.

  • B.A., Special Honors in Economics, University of Texas at Austin.

  • M.B.A., Stanford University.

Some things I believe

  • Kindness is a superpower.

  • Life today is better than the past.

  • The World deserves better leaders.

  • Freedom of travel & expression is an inalienable human right.

  • My life is dedicated to building a more free, connected, and global world & working in blockchain helps achieve those goals.

What I do

  • Head of Crypto Partnerships at Worldpay.

  • Advise the UN on blockchain via the Algorand Foundation Humanitarian Payments Council.

  • Active investor in technology: early stage, public equities, and blockchain tokens, including my friends start-ups & VC funds.

  • Write about technology, travel & new ways the world can work.

Topics that interest me

How can new technologies can improve the world?

  • Blockchain, AI, & FinTech, are massive disruptors to our capitalistic/consumerism driven world today, I believe they can be a force for good if deployed correctly.

  • At the heart of every technological improvement are the humans driving its implementation, I read the biographies of many of these leaders as a means to understand their motivations.

Where to travel to expand your worldview?

  • My family are nomads at heart & its had a tremendous impact on my life. My grandmother grew up hitchhiking Europe, my mother will hit 150+ countries visited by 2025, my father & grandfather have operated companies across Europe, South America, Africa, and the Middle East.

  • Through my own travels, I gravitate towards visiting historically significant locations, especially those with ‘Double History’.

What are alternative ways the world could work?

  • Challenging the status quo should be the mindset of every able bodied human. It’s this tension that creates positive change.

  • We should conceptualize how the world could operate differently, the more backgrounds, mindsets, and experiences that contribute towards this body of thought - the better.

Royal Portuguese Reading Room, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Books that influenced me

  • Confessions of an Economic Hitman, John Perkins

  • The People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn

  • The Motorcycle Diaries, Che Guevera

  • Monarch of the Square, Mohammad Al Zifzaf

  • Respect Sir, Naguib Mahfouz

  • Why I Write, George Orwell

  • The Stranger, Albert Camus

  • Gun, Germs, & Steel, Jared Diamond

  • Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography

  • The Alchemist, Paulo Coehlo

Favorite genres

  • Classics/Epics

  • Biography

  • Satire

  • World History

  • Economic Theory

Travels: 85 countries & counting