Wisdom From The Women Leading The Blockchain Revolution, With Chao Cheng-Shorland of ShelterZoom
Networking, of course, is one of the most important things anyone can do to both help each other and learn from what works and what doesn’t. With all the virtual tools available today it can be easier to attend events that you wouldn’t have been able to travel to before. It may take a little extra effort to reach out afterward by email instead of striking up a conversation in person, but it is worth it.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Chao Cheng Shorland.
Chao Cheng Shorland is the co-founder and CEO of ShelterZoom, a leading blockchain-based, smart-document SaaS provider. This year she was interviewed by The New York Times about ShelterZoom’s blockchain technology that was used by a Vatican library to preserve manuscripts. Chao was named Female Innovator of the Year in 2019 by Women World Awards.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you share with us the story of how you decided to pursue this career path? What lessons can others learn from your story?
After founding this company five years ago I feel like I’ve grown so much in such a short amount of time. The whole entrepreneurial journey has certainly been one of working long hours, but I have met so many heads of organizations from around the world that it has shown me new ways of thinking and inspired me to no end. I’ve also been amazed at how things I have done in the past which wouldn’t appear to be relevant to running a global blockchain company are proving to be useful.
Can you tell me about the most interesting projects you are working on now?
We recently launched Document GPS–the first blockchain email extension that lets you track your attachments and turn off access to them, even if someone else has opened your email. Our next rollout will be a plethora of enhancements, including the prevention of screenshots of your files to provide even more security.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
One of our advisors from Japan, Mr Okada, is a mentor and an inspiration to me. He has had so much success in business with SoftBank and Alibaba as well as many other companies. He has always guided me in the right direction. As one example, we have had plenty of interest from social impact initiatives and we try to work with as many as we can. But he has consistently had a good sense for which ones will make a true impact and which ones will take up too much of our staff time and energy. There’s a saying in Chinese which roughly translates as when you need it, a wise man will come to help you. Mr Okada is that person.
What are the 3 things that most excite you about blockchain and crypto? Why?
Blockchain will be what makes the next digital era a safer place to transact and communicate, which opens up an infinite number of possibilities for what we can achieve. This can mean secure peer-to-peer transactions can happen on a wider scale and the risk of phishing scams can be decreased. I also see a direct path for how blockchain can reduce carbon emissions from digital clutter by relying on the Single Source Of Truth™ model, which reduces the need for attachments. Blockchain and web3 privacy protocols can also make a social impact by providing a tool for oppressed societies or individuals to get information to the right people without risking their own physical safety.
What are the 3 things that worry you about blockchain and crypto? Why?
Picking up on the previous point, I worry about the environmental impact with both carbon emissions and the physical infrastructure required to store all the terabytes of data we send around the world. Estimates show the amount of CO2 emitted from the unnecessary attachments sent each year amounts to the equivalent of a passenger car driving over a 1,000 miles. If we approach blockchain the right way we don’t need to go down this path. We could also see many people lose money due to the volatile nature of some crypto, but if stablecoins become accessible to enough of the population we don’t have to go down that path either. I also worry about all the misunderstandings and misinformation about blockchain. Even though it made its name through bitcoin mining, blockchain use cases go far beyond crypto and even though it is thought of as a public ledger there are ways to maintain privacy in the blockchain world.
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How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world? Can you share a story?
One of our early successes was our collaboration with the prestigious university Pontifical Oriental Institute within the Vatican. Throughout history the victors have tried to destroy the literature and historical records of the people they conquered, reducing vast troves of knowledge to mere ash and dust. POI is using our blockchain technology to preserve historical manuscripts, some of which are the only surviving copies in the world. Some of their sacred texts include founding documents of Syria or the only known collection of newspapers from one of the tumultuous time periods in Russian history. With blockchain authentication we can preserve vital documents and make them accessible to more people around the world.
As you know there are not that many women in your industry. Can you share 5 things that you would advise to other women in the blockchain space to thrive?
Networking, of course, is one of the most important things anyone can do to both help each other and learn from what works and what doesn’t. With all the virtual tools available today it can be easier to attend events that you wouldn’t have been able to travel to before. It may take a little extra effort to reach out afterward by email instead of striking up a conversation in person, but it is worth it.
Blockchain is going to open up entirely new avenues for revenue growth and some of them might look different than what we are used to. Creativity needs to be part of the conversation so entirely new ideas can come to the forefront and make the world a better place.
There’s a lingering belief from the first few tech eras that for a company to be successful it had to deliver something that was splashy. As a result, there’s a temptation for founders (of any gender) to try to catch the next big wave. We’ve now reached a point where big profit can be found in delivering solutions that aren’t ‘sexy’ but have huge demand. For example, infra tools, whether it is blockchain infrastructure or tools that underpin the web3 world, is where we will see some big success stories.
Blockchain has been embraced by the luxury goods market and it would be easy for women to stay away from this arena for fear of being belittled because some of the name brands are associated with being too feminine, and somehow that gets associated with lacking substance. I won’t call out any brands specifically but this is an example of where women can’t be afraid to go where the momentum is just because there’s a prior negative connotation in a completely different context.
As the saying goes, look for the helpers. There are many good guys working in this field and they can be some of our biggest supporters. Whether it is through formal mentorship programs or more informal support networks it is worth looking to all the ones that are working to balance the gender ratios for help in this field.
Can you advise what is needed to engage more women into the blockchain industry?
We’re seeing more academic curricula come together so if someone wants to pursue this topic as part of a degree there needs to be more information about what programs are available and what their different strengths are. We also need to make it known that many jobs in the future will have blockchain as part of the role so you can have other skills or areas of expertise and still be a part of this exciting technology.
What is your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share a story of how that had relevance to your own life?
As I write this I’m in Geneva, Switzerland where there is a wealth of blockchain growth and numerous large-scale organizations who are interested in using our technology. When I started ShelterZoom I wouldn’t have thought I would be having these high-level meetings after only two years of our products being on the market. I’m reminded of the quote by Albert Einstein, himself a Swiss national, who said: “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” If I had not been curious about all the opportunities and ways to use blockchain for managing the documents that we build our lives upon, ShelterZoom would not have entered into the partnerships we have today.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
Making secure technology more accessible to more people is what will make the world a better place. Whether it is streamlining the transfer of health records while maintaining privacy, making it easier for low-resource populations to conduct business, preserving the world’s history, giving oppressed people a means to show the world the conditions they’re subject to or any of the other hundreds of positive things that emerge from accessible tech, this is what will improve society at scale.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Connect with me on LinkedIN or go to ShetlerZoom’s website to learn more about our solutions.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chaocheng-shorland
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.
