Senior Policy Analyst, British Columbia Energy and Mines Digital Trust Project
Graduate Program in Public Policy, Administration & Law, Master of Public Policy, Administration and Law (MPPAL) 2016

Tell prospective students a bit about the work you do.

Working collaboratively with the British Columbia Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation, the United Nations Framework on the Convention on Climate Change, Yale University Open Lab and various natural resource sector participants, BC is using distributed ledger technology to build decentralized verifiable credentials to monitor and enhance sustainability reporting. As a Senior Policy Analyst, I work to interpret and apply legislation and regulation to build governance documents for decentralized systems. The goal is to enhance trust between the public, resource extraction efforts, and government regulatory bodies using the best technology available.

In addition, I am currently working as a compliance and policy researcher for several technology start ups exploring tokenization of real estate on the blockchain. The vision is to allow retail investors access to fractionalized shares of property while building a system that would allow owners and investors to interact and vote on property ownership through a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization).

Tell prospective students a bit about how your studies at York helped you to get where you are today.

The Masters in Public Policy, Administration and Law program gave me the opportunity to study governance, policy, law, and the foundations of human democracy. This experience allowed me to understand the legislative process as it currently exists in Canada, but also gave me exposure to how governance in general ought to work in a fair and just society. Beyond government as we know it today, the world is changing to increasingly include digital governance that will shape how human beings interact with technology, particularly digital identity. Through professors encouraging me to question current systems, learning how to evaluate programs and policies, and working directly with public administration professionals at York, I have been able to apply these lessons and ideas to contribute my small part in shaping how the technology of the future will interact with Canadian society.