ZebPay creates history with the launch fo the world’s first women-only decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).
When Rahul Pagidipati took over as the Chief Executive Officer of Zebpay, he had a clear vision about how he wanted to run the company. “Ohana” was the word he introduced- meaning “family” in Hawaiian. Rahul and his Chief “Ohana” Officer, Vikram Rangala, together made it their mission to transform Zebpay into the happiest workplace.
Zebpay’s leadership has always promoted feminist culture at the company, which is rare in much of society but particularly in the crypto space: Indian women account for only about 5% in the crypto space and/or market. A survey conducted by a Reddit user in October 2017 found that 96% of Ether users are men, and MyEtherWallet reported that 84% of their wallet holders were male. So the need to raise our numbers is necessary not just for women but for the space as a whole. Zebpay’s efforts to combat this discrimination in the form of the worlds first functioning womens only DAO is not just a step forward, it is a leap forward. This DAO, conceived and prototyped by Zebpay’s VP of Research and Development- Prashanth Irudayaraj, is built on the Aragon platform and powered by the Ethereum network.
A Decentralised Autonomous Organisation is a blockchain-based system that enables people to coordinate and self-govern themselves mediated by a set of self-executing rules deployed on a public blockchain, and whose governance is decentralised (i.e. independent from central control). In simpler words, a DAO allows an organisation to be run by its own people by ceasing the concentration of power in the hands of just the leadership. This is done by giving every employee a voice in the decision making process and only allowing approval only on the basis of a majority vote.
Zebpay’s Women’s DAO is simple enough to understand: anyone can initiate a proposal, put forward a formal vote through one of the womens DAO members, and the vote will pass if it achieves 60% consensus on the womens DAO. New members can only be admitted into the DAO if a majority of the existing members agree to vote them in. The point? To give a voice to the historically underrepresented gender and as a result empowering the organization as a whole. Besides, concentration of power in the hands of women has historically given better results. The female leadership style also contributes to the benefits of diversity: women are better able to deal with difficult personal relationships, they pay closer attention to people’s needs, they are inclined towards the prevention and solution of conflicts (it is not a co-incidence that it was New Zealand that handled the coronavirus epidemic most tactfully), they more readily share views with other people and make efforts to reach agreements, and they monitor and give feedback more intensively. Providing women with decision making capabilities would represent a dramatic change to the status quo dominated by male representatives. As competent and talented women are abundant, this change would produce a better operation system, yielding positive effects on the quality of business.
For an innovating force to be truly disruptive it has to embrace the whole of the population. A market that excludes half the population of the world cannot be a sustainable market. For businesses to truly benefit from the myriad backgrounds in the global economy, they must make room for everyone in their companies and empower them to speak up. Companies must take bolder steps to create inclusive cultures so women, and all employees, feel supported at their workplace. What is disconcerting to see is that there are fewer women in tech now than ten years ago. Women are discouraged for one reason or another from entering the field. Collaborative steps such as this will give women the push they need from the system. Thank you to Zebpay for taking a step towards eliminating the heavy patriarchal badges that women in tech have carried since inception.
Maria Shaikh, Data Scientist – Zeblabs
