Sunny Ray talks with Anne Connelly about her journey from humanitarian aid to blockchain education. Anne describes working with Doctors Without Borders in the Central African Republic, where she manually distributed cash salaries in dangerous, resource poor conditions. That experience exposed her to how inefficient and unsafe traditional money systems could be, and when she discovered Bitcoin in 2012 she immediately saw its potential to fix these problems. She later launched one of the first nonprofit bitcoin donation programs at Dignitas International, met early Toronto bitcoin community members through Gerald Cotten, and worked alongside Vitalik Buterin at Ledger Labs. Anne also shares her time at Singularity University, where she now teaches, and explains the 10x mindset used to solve global problems. She discusses several early stage blockchain startups that were ahead of their time, and her current passion project, a graphic novel teaching African children about blockchain. The conversation closes with reflections on longevity science and whether future generations might reverse aging.
From carrying cash through jungles for Doctors Without Borders to teaching kids about blockchain, Anne Connelly shares her unconventional path into crypto.
Before you discovered Bitcoin, what was your background and how did you end up interested in it?
My pre blockchain career was in humanitarian aid. I worked with Doctors Without Borders in a pediatric malnutrition program in Central African Republic, living in a village with no water or electricity. Part of my job was carrying cash through jungles and checkpoints to pay 200 staff twice a month. That experience showed me how inefficient and unsafe our money systems were, which is why Bitcoin resonated with me so strongly later on.
How did learning about Bitcoin change your perspective after that experience?
When I learned about Bitcoin in 2012, the first thing I thought was imagine if from Europe we could just click a mouse and transfer bitcoin into the cell phones of our staff worldwide. It wasn't just about efficiency, it was about safety, both for the international staff carrying money and the national staff who had to pick it up in cash.
How did you end up launching a bitcoin donation program and getting into the Toronto community?
I started one of the first nonprofit bitcoin donation programs at Dignitas International in 2014. I had to convince my CEO it was a good idea even though bitcoin dropped by half right after we launched. To find donors, I reached out to Gerald Cotten, who introduced me to the Spadina Avenue meetups, and that's how I got to know the Toronto scene.
What made you leave a stable fundraising career to pursue blockchain full time?
In 2015 I was offered a huge promotion raising 60 million dollars with a team of 15 people, but I couldn't get excited about it anymore. I turned it down even though it took a year to find a blockchain job. I eventually worked at Decentral, then Ledger Labs with a small crew that included Vitalik, before joining Singularity University.
What is Singularity University and what did you take away from it?
Singularity is an innovation hub, think tank and education center focused on exponential technologies like AI, VR and biohacking. Their philosophy is shifting from 10 percent thinking to 10x thinking when solving global problems. I ended up starting a legal blockchain company there, though we were way too early for the market to adopt it.
What are you working on now?
My biggest passion right now is a graphic novel teaching kids about blockchain, made with an artist named Chief Nyamweya out of Nairobi. It follows a young African woman who learns about blockchain and rebuilds her broken community. We're giving it away for free, mobile first, with a goal of reaching over a million kids on the African continent, plus an animated motion comic.
Do you believe humans will eventually reverse aging, as Singularity thinkers predict?
I one hundred percent think it's happening, the question is whether it happens in our lifetime. I believe it will happen, but more for the next generation than for us. You can already do gene editing with tools like CRISPR, but editing something out of a newborn is very different from editing it out of an 80 year old.
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