Exclusive: ‘Humanitarian Hero’ – Sofie Blakstad, hiveonline in “Swashbucklers 2020”

Some people in the world are simply good people. Sofie Blakstad is one of those. She’s used her fintech powers to bring a better life to those in the far corners of the world who need it most.

Using block chain to open the markets for everyone
We first noticed Blakstad for her “seriously bad-ass” (quote from Ali, our editor in chief) public speaking, where she stole the show at the Paris Fintech Forum. Since then, we haven’t been able to tear away from her incredible, life-changing work. Not all heroes wear capes, but Blakstad’s so good, we think she should start.
Blakstad describes her career as, “Unlikely, Interesting and Pioneering”. And we couldn’t agree more! Beginning with nearly thirty years of building and transforming banks, she threw a curveball in 2016. Leaving it all behind, she founded Hiveonline.

Hiveonline is on a mission to help underserved communities by bringing access to capital, credit and markets. In their own words, it’s “Blockchain without the bullsh*t”. As CEO and founder, Blakstad runs the ship. The company empowers entire communities to jump-start their local economies and participate in the market.

We asked about her greatest achievement, and she pinged back with, “I guess launching vsla.online has to be up there, which is our African-focused community finance app for savings groups, built on blockchain. It overcomes many of the challenges in rural Africa, being multilingual, designed for low literacy users, very low data use, very tolerant of dropped signal and works on any browser-enabled device”. Could she even be any better?

What else can we expect to see from Blakstad?
When she’s not busy saving the world, Blakstad can be found writing books. Her second title “Fintech Revolution”, co-authored with Rob Allen, was named one of the top fintech books of all time. Yeah. She just casually dropped that in the conversation, while we scrambled around to pick up our jaws off the floor.
Oh, and as a side note … she also advises the (deep breath now…) UN’s Digital Finance Task Force, Network for Greening the Financial System (Central Banks), G20 and the G7 on innovation and blockchain for sustainable finance. Uh huh. Pretty serious stuff there.

Over the coming months, Hiveonline has some humongous humanitarian plans in the pipeline. Watch this space. They’re providing the Red Cross with some much-needed research, which will hopefully facilitate a Distributed Ledger Technology solution to help NGOs to make more impact. This blockchain business will also be expanding to Mozambique and taking on the challenges of conflict, colonialism and climate change in Nigeria, Kenya and Zambia, among others. Team Hiveonline!
It’s an exciting time for Blakstad and we wish her all the best of good luck. In the meantime, we asked her to share her most brutal advice for the next fintech trailblazers.

“If you have a great idea and a passion, do it, but talk to a LOT of customers first, listen to what they say and learn from them”, she confides. “You will work incredibly hard, and not get paid, nobody is as interested in your idea as you are and nothing will come for free. Ask for help wherever you can and don’t be too proud to ask for advice. Find a place where you can be part of a community, I honestly don’t think we’d still be around if it wasn’t for the Copenhagen Fintech Lab.”
Nothing if not humble. Sofie Blakstad, what a legend.

This article was published in Swashbucklers 2020, Page 27