Aya Miyaguchi and Virgil Griffith Join Etherisc Advisory Board
ZUG, Switzerland, March 5, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Etherisc, the global decentralized insurance platform for collectively building insurance products, has announced today two members of the Ethereum Foundation team joined its advisory board in support of Etherisc's real-world applications built to protect victims of natural disasters.
The two new members, Aya Miyaguchi and Virgil Griffith, who both joined the board in a personal capacity, discovered the importance of Etherisc while looking for examples of blockchain companies that have impactful working products. They highlighted Etherisc's use of smart contracts for "parametric" insurance, whereby predetermined weather parameters trigger immediate payout to policyholders if there is, for instance, a hurricane in Puerto Rico or a drought for rice farmers in Sri Lanka.
"Parametric insurance could be the next killer app on Ethereum," said Griffith, who has a PhD in computation and neural systems from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and heads Special Projects at the Ethereum Foundation. "I heard what Etherisc was doing in Puerto Rico and Sri Lanka and had to learn more, so I flew from Singapore to Berlin to meet the team. I was blown away by Etherisc's progress leading the field of decentralized insurance. Now I am excited to lend my support to one of the most innovative projects there is on Ethereum."
Blockchain technology provides the insurance industry with first-of-their-kind efficiencies and automation that enable parametric insurance to expand beyond its niche in the global market.
Etherisc's decentralized insurance protocol removes the need for traditional, slow-moving, expensive insurance policies by using a library of smart contracts to record transactions in a secure and transparent manner. The technology takes the middleman out of the insurance equation, dramatically reducing the cost of household and small business policies. In addition, the protocol automates premium calculations and claims payouts so policies are faster and cheaper than traditional insurance procedures. This has led to Etherisc implementing products in partnership with global entities such as Aon and Oxfam.
"Etherisc is an impressive example of where the Ethereum blockchain is being used for working products that are making a difference in the lives of communities that would remain underserved without this technology," Miyaguchi, who is the Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation, said. "Etherisc has shown it runs and operates a smart contract-based risk transfer that is actually in production."
The advisors' news follows Etherisc's release of source code for its Generic Insurance Framework to enable the quick and easy deployment of working insurance products on its decentralized platform.
"At this key time in our development, we are honored to welcome this new support from such renowned advisors whose understanding and knowledge of the blockchain industry is unparalleled," Etherisc Co-Founder Stephan Karpischek said. "We are proud to count on such an engaged board of advisors with a perfect range of expertise needed to build our platform for decentralized insurance products."
The new members round out the Etherisc Board of Advisors, which is made up of blockchain experts and industry pioneers: Ron Bernstein, Paradex/Coinbase; Jake Brukhman, CoinFund; Tobias Noack, Aon Commercial Risk Solutions (Germany); William Mougayar, JM3 Capital; Ralf Glabischnig, inacta/CV VC; and Daniel Zakrisson, Hardfork.
New Etherisc advisor Virgil Griffith and Etherisc Co-Founder Stephan Karpischek are available for an interview.
About the New Advisors
Aya Miyaguchi is the Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation and is an adviser to positive-impact projects such as OmiseGo. Previously she was the Managing Director of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken in Japan.
Virgil Griffith works on Special Projects at the Ethereum Foundation. He has a PhD in computation and neural systems from Caltech (the California Institute of Technology).
About Etherisc
The winner of the Blockchain Oscar 2017 for the most innovative blockchain startup, Etherisc is the first fully-compliant insurance platform to utilize blockchain technology to make the purchase and sale of insurance more efficient; cut out the middleman; eliminate insurer-customer conflict by offering insight into the claims process and instantly paying out valid claims; democratize access to reinsurance instruments; and encourage industry innovation through an 'open access' platform that will allow other types of risk pools and products to be developed. For more, visit etherisc.com.
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SOURCE Etherisc
