INTERVIEWS

Podcast/Video Interviews by Stephen Ibaraki

A Chat with Peter Johnson: Futurist, Educator, Advisor, former Diplomat; Technologist; Impact-driven Entrepreneur; Founder, Ayadee Foundation; leads Ayadee Holding Corp.

This week, Stephen Ibaraki has an exclusive interview with Peter Johnson.

As a futurist, educator, advisor, and former US diplomat, Peter Johnson brings over 20 years of experience in diplomacy, finance, international development, and technology, coupled with high-level strategic analysis and relationship management skills. He founded the Ayadee Foundation, a think tank and educational program dedicated to leveraging technology for societal betterment. Additionally, he leads the Ayadee Holding Corp. (AHC), innovating in global supply chains carbon credits through Web 3.0 technologies as well as providing research and advisory services. The latest expansion of his work has been to focus his background in diplomacy, finance, international development and technology on futurist thinking and methodologies, disrupting traditional business models and advising leaders to use futurist thinking. His the goal is that by 2028 1,000 companies and governmental entities will follow future-oriented models.

Peter research and strategic advice has focused digital economy and futurism, with projects for with governments, UN agencies, and private companies. Recent analysis has been for the European Union, USAID and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. As well, at the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt, Peter is the West Asia and North Africa Network Driver, fostering responsible leadership and advancing the UN 2030 Agenda through connecting and empowering a network of over 2,400 leaders globally, with a focus on his current region.

Peter contributes to the blockchain, Web3 and entrepreneurship field as an adjunct professor, guest lecturer, and media commentator, advocating for a more equitable, inclusive, and technologically innovative world. As a technologist, impact-driven-entrepreneur, educator and a diplomat, Peter's passion is to develop technology to create impact and he is particularly focused around UN Sustainable Development Goal 12, Responsible Consumption and Production. Part of Peter's "why" is to use technology for transparency, as new business models for supply chains and production can connect producers and consumers, leading to a more equitable model of global consumption and production.

Examples of achievements by Peter in supply chains include AHC's signature tool, TRAK, a blockchain-based supply chain tracking tool, simple enough to be used in developing countries, with low energy usage and operability even in off-grid settings. TRAK is also the Stellar-based utility token that is used to power this system, with one token used for each point of data entered Ayadee Foundation Fellows launched pilots using TRAK to trace supply chains of textiles in Tunisia, Egypt and Mali, cassava in Liberia, coffee in Costa Rica and this has also been used to trace medical equipment from India to Canada at the peak of the COVID crisis, for which Peter was awarded the Sir James Woods Award for Community Development. Peter has also led the development of the Garment Chain system, based on the Casper blockchain, to use composable NFTs to trace not only garments but first the raw materials going into them, and to create a voting method through which tokens attached to garments would give voting rights to consumers who become part of a producer's supply chain. Peter has also done extensive advisory work about blockchain use cases for agribusiness and food value chains for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and through the Foundation has trained fellows to trace human rights issues in supply chains with blockchain-based tools and hosted a hackathon analyzing global food supply chains to seek ways to eliminate waste.

Experience as an educator

• Teaching how blockchain can be used to reach the UN Sustainable Development Goals for the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), done in cooperation with Gaia Education.
• Teaching innovation and entrepreneurship at the Mediterranean School of Business, also mentoring students on their own business ideas and acting as a judge in startup competitions.
• Guest lecturer on blockchain at the Estonian Business School, the Universidad de Tecnologia de El Salvador, Universidad Francisco Gavidia (El Salvador).
• Guest lecturer on international relations and international development at the State University of New York College at Geneseo, New York's Honors College, the University of El Salvador and the Universidad de Tecnologia Centroamericana (UNITEC, Honduras).
• Founding Professor of the Monica Herrera School of Communications Blockchain Academy, a blended program of blockchain basics and design thinking (El Salvador).
• Expert lecturer on Public Sector Executive Leadership, United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Madagascar, developing a program to be taught to senior level public sector executives, and later a second program for judges.

Past and Present Advisory Boards and Boards of Directors and Voluntary Leadership Roles:

• YPO People Action Network: Latin America Network Board Champion (2019) and currently incoming elected Engagement Officer (2024)
• Policy Advisor, Emerging Technology Committee, "Pete for America" presidential campaign (2019-2020)
• Past Chair of YPO Blockchain, Crypto-Assets and ICOs Subnetwork, formerly part of YPO's Personal Investing Network (2019), and previously Latin America Network Board Champion (2018)
• Lead, United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Working Group, Government Blockchain Association
• Board of Advisor, FinTech4Good (2019-2021)
• Executive Vice President and Member of Board of Director for Crypto and Blockchain Regulatory Task Force (CBRTF) (2018)
• Ambassador, ixo Foundation (2018-2019)
• Officer, Venture Capital and Private Equity for Africa (2009-2015)
• Board of Advisors, Mavuno, a grassroots NGO focused on smallholder farmers in the Goma region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (2014-2017)
• Voting Member, Stellar Development Fund

Mentorship:

• Startup Bootcamp Mentor, Stellar Development Foundation (Spring 2023)
• Knowledge Partner, Knowledge Impact Network
• Entrepreneurship Mentor, Venture Capital and Private Equity for Africa (2013-2015)

Early Career, Family and Education:
Peter is a former US diplomat whose work as a diplomat ranged from working closely with civil society to funding projects for youth entrepreneurship in the technology space to election reporting to monitoring what new technologies ISIS was using.

At the start of his career, Peter worked in finance at Citi-Banamex (Mexican subsidiary of Citi), S& Global Markets and the African Development Bank.

Peter is married and has five children, and places he's called home at some point in his life include Rochester (his hometown), Washington, DC, Santiago de Chile, Mexico City, Madrid, Bologna, Tunis (twice!), Freiburg im Breisgau, Munich and Berlin.

Peter earned his Master of Arts degree from the Johns Hopkins University Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in International Relations and International Economics, with concentrations in International Finance and Emerging Markets. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from the State University of New York College at Geneseo. He completed additional executive education programs at the Hertie School of Business, the Foreign Service Institute of the US Department of State and the Quantic Institute of Business and Technology.

Recognition for Peter's work in recent years has included:

• Association for Professional Futurests (2024)
• Invited to join Global Diplomacy Lab (2023)
• Nomination for Best Undergraduate Professor at the South Mediterranean University / Mediterranean School of Business (2021)
• Sir James Woods Award for Community Development (2021)
• Invited to join the International Fund for Agricultural Development Innovation Fund (2020)
• Top 100 FinTech for SDGs Influencers (2019)
• Named a Responsible Leader by the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt Responsible Leaders Network (2018) and later invited to take a leading role as a Network Driver (2022-present)
• Meritorious Service Award, US Department of State (2017)
• Superior Honor Award, US Department of State (2017)
• Academic honor societies including Golden Key International Honour Society, Omicron Delta Epsilon Internatinoal Economics Honor Society, Phi Eta Sigma National Honor Society, Sigma Iota Rho International Affairs Honor Society
• Eagle Scout