Empowering Economic Growth Through Tech Innovations with Angie Jones
Technology meets economic empowerment in this episode featuring Angie Jones, Global Vice President of Developer Relations at TBD, a Block division. Angie sheds light on the role of decentralized technologies in shaping the future of digital identity and cross-border payments. Her journey from software engineering to a leadership role in tech innovation illustrates her profound impact on the industry. This episode offers valuable insights into how technological advancements are driving economic growth and changing the financial landscape. Angie's expertise and unique perspective make this a must-listen for anyone interested in the cutting-edge intersection of technology, finance, and innovation.
About Angie
Angie Jones is the Global Vice President of Developer Relations for TBD, Block’s new business unit focused on decentralized technologies. She is an award-winning teacher and international keynote speaker who shares her wealth of knowledge at software companies and conferences all over the world.
As a Master Inventor, Angie is known for her innovative and out-of-the-box thinking style which has resulted in 27 patented inventions in the areas of metaverses, collaboration software, social networking, smarter planet, and software development processes.
Show notes:
(00:25) Introduction to Angie Jones and Her Role at TBD
(01:25) Angie’s Recognition in a USA Today Crossword
(02:50) Career Journey and Transition into Developer Relations
(06:04) Block’s Mission and Services in Economic Empowerment
(10:09) Convenience vs. Decentralization in Technology
(16:49) Innovations in Cross-Border Payments
(25:01) Decentralized Tech Stories and Reflections on Tech Innovation
(30:22) Challenging Tech Industry Norms and Global Perspectives
Links Referenced:
TBD: https://www.tbd.website/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/techgirl1908
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angiejones/
Block and Circle are teaming up to onboard crypto's next billion users
TBD, the crypto focused arm of Jack Dorsey’s Block, is partnering with Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, to unleash the power of stablecoin payments onto the next billion crypto users.
In this episode of The Scoop, Circle’s Chief Revenue Officer Kash Razzaghi and TBD’s Chief Operating Officer Emily Chiu discuss their new partnership, and explain how their companies’ synergy is going to make it easier to move value back and forth between crypto and the real world economy.
According to Chiu, the crypto industry is lacking a way to exchange crypto for real world items:
“The minute you nexus upon the real world and commerce in the real world, you need to solve these really hard problems that haven't yet been solved in the space. That's what TBDex does, and we see USDC and stablecoins as a critical bridge for facilitating these transactions.”
One of the first use-cases will be a remittance function that enables payments between the US and Mexico, a corridor that sees billions flow a year.
TBD hopes its digital identity solution will put users in control of both their identity and data as well as who they share it with. As Chiu explains, these digital identity solutions will hopefully promote global economic empowerment:
“Regardless of what identity you have, you can create a self-sovereign identity wallet regardless of who you are, there's no intermediary and you need permission from in order to start transacting and engaging with the global economy.
Episode 95 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded at live at Converge with The Block's Frank Chaparro, Circle's CRO Kash Razzaghi and TBD's Co-Founder & COO Emily Chiu.
Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.
This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Tron
About Tron
TRON is dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet via blockchain technology and decentralized applications (dApps). Founded in September 2017 by H.E. Justin Sun, the TRON network has continued to deliver impressive achievements since MainNet launch in May 2018. July 2018 also marked the ecosystem integration of BitTorrent, a pioneer in decentralized web3 services boasting over 100 million monthly active users. The TRON network completed full decentralization in December 2021 and is now a community-governed DAO. | TRONDAO | Twitter | Discord |
Block’s Mike Brock on 'Web5' and the role of digital identities
Block CEO Jack Dorsey has called 'Web5,' a decentralized identity platform under development by TBD, the Block's blockchain arm, "likely our most important contribution to the internet."
In this episode of The Scoop, TBD lead Mike Brock explains how Web5, whose name is a play on the idea of connecting Web2 and Web3, aims to reimagine the way trust is established and maintained, and how digital identity can connect the emerging decentralized financial system to the existing real-world economy.
Hardcore crypto proponents dream of creating a fully decentralized, trustless system. But Brock says there are some practical problems with transacting in such a world:
"Are you going to go and buy a gold watch from an anonymous online merchant and then send them a non-reversible payment for $10,000 and just hope that it gets drop-shipped to you?... We can't build an economy around that. We have to have a way to authenticate with the real world."
That's where the Web5 platform comes in. Brock describes it as a "messaging layer that ultimately allows you to establish secure transactions, with negotiated social trust."
Users of Web5 are in control of both their identities and their data — something Brock believes will facilitate a new way for the developing decentralized economy to connect with known, verifiable actors in the real world:
"We're trying to build on-ramps and off-ramps from the real world — fundamentally, that's what digital identity ultimately gets you."
Episode 74 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded live at The Block headquarters with The Block's Frank Chaparro and TBD Lead at Block, Mike Brock.
Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.
This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen
About Chainalysis
Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.
About IWC Schaffhausen
IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com
Why TBD's Mike Brock Is Skeptical That Decentralized Applications Will Become Popular - Ep.337
Mike Brock, general manager of TBD at Block, discusses how TBD’s yet-to-be-released DEX is structured, explains why he thinks decentralized solutions do not necessarily need blockchains, and tells the humorous story about how Jack Dorsey convinced him to start working on a Bitcoin project. Show highlights:
what TBD is and what its relation to Block (formerly Square) is
how TBD differs from Spiral, another Block-based Bitcoin firm
how tbDEX works and why building on-ramps and off-ramps to crypto is so important
who will be supplying the liquidity for tbDEX
why Mike is passionate about creating digital identity infrastructure
how tbDEX will incorporate digital identity tooling into its protocol
what Mike thinks about Vitalik Buterin’s misgivings concerning tbDEX’s design
why Mike fell down the rabbit hole (thanks Jack Dorsey)
what lessons Mike learned at CashApp that he is using at TBD
which stablecoin TBD will be working with
why Mike is not a believer in DeFi
why tbDEX (or, seemingly, other TBD products) will not utilize tokens
Thank you to our sponsors!
Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021
Beefy Finance: https://beefy.finance
Cross River Bank: https://crossriver.com/crypto
Galaxis: https://galaxis.xyz/
Episode Links
Mike Brock
Twitter; https://twitter.com/brockm
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-brock-9030813/
Introduction to TBD: https://twitter.com/brockm/status/1415795490914856961
TBD
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tbd54566975?lang=en
GitHub: https://github.com/TBD54566975/tbdex-whitepaper
Whitepaper
https://tbd54566975.ghost.io/introducing-tbdex/
https://tbdex.io/whitepaper.pdf
Careers: https://block.xyz/careers?search=tbd
Other
Origin of name: https://twitter.com/TBD54566975/status/1424818221652324355
Vitalik’s reticence: https://cryptopotato.com/vitalik-buterin-tells-how-jack-dorseys-tbd-might-build-the-bitcoin-dex/
Other Topics
Spiral (lightning development). Brock helped set up Spiral.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/spiralbtc
Website: https://spiral.xyz/
CashApp
Impressive BTC revenue: https://decrypt.co/93793/block-bitcoin-earnings-cash-app-hit-nearly-2-billion-q4
Lightning network: https://blockworks.co/cash-app-integrates-lightning-network-for-bitcoin-payments/
Aaron Levie
https://twitter.com/levie
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Mythos of Testing with Angie Jones
About Angie
Angie Jones is a Java Champion and Senior Director who specializes in test automation strategies and techniques. She shares her wealth of knowledge by speaking and teaching at software conferences all over the world, writing tutorials and technical articles on angiejones.tech, and leading the online learning platform, Test Automation University.
As a Master Inventor, Angie is known for her innovative and out-of-the-box thinking style which has resulted in more than 25 patented inventions in the US and China. In her spare time, Angie volunteers with Black Girls Code to teach coding workshops to young girls in an effort to attract more women and minorities to tech.
Links:
Applitools: https://applitools.com
Black Girls Code: https://www.blackgirlscode.com
Test Automation University: https://testautomationu.applitools.com
Personal website: https://angiejones.tech
Twitter: https://twitter.com/techgirl1908
Why yes, I do have a patent on a time machine
You can find Angie's blog here, catch her on Twitter here, and connect with her on LinkedIn here.
You can check out Applitools and learn about the visual AI system it uses for testing here.
Our lifeboat badge of the week goes to Alex Klyubin for explaining: What is the difference between Jar signer and Apk signer?
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Testing testing 1 2 3
This week we chat with Angie Jones about all things testing. We’ll cover unit testing, visual testing, end-to-end testing, and more!
Join the discussion
Changelog++ members save 3 minutes on this episode because they made the ads disappear. Join today!
Sponsors:
Raygun – With Raygun Error and Performance Monitoring you have all the information you need at your fingertips to quickly find and fix errors and performance issues across your tech stack down to the line of code. Get started with a free 14-day trial, head to raygun.com and join thousands of customer-centric software teams who use Raygun every day.
Micro – Micro is reimagining the cloud for the next generation of developers. It’s a developer friendly platform to explore, search, and use simpler APIs for everyday consumption all in one place. They’re in early development building out the first set of APIs, and they’re looking for feedback from developers. Signup and get $5 in free credits.
Sentry – Build better software, faster with Sentry’s application monitoring platform. Diagnose, fix, and optimize the performance of your code. Cut your time on error resolution from hours to minutes. Use the code PARTYTIME and get the team plan free for three months.
Featuring:
Angie Jones – Website, GitHub, X
Emma Bostian – GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Nick Nisi – Website, GitHub, Mastodon, X
Show Notes:
Help us play Frontend Feud (and enter to win a free t-shirt) by taking the survey!
Test Automation University
Mocha
Chai Assertion Library
Which tests Should I Automate talk by Angie
Selenium WebDriver
Cypress
React Testing Library
Jest
Enzyme
Kent C. Dodds
Atomic Habits
JUnit
Supertest
Nock
Cucumber
do you want to start a youtube channel together called javascript
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!
S11:E2 - Why all developers should understand the basics of testing (Angie Jones)
In this episode, we’re talking about testing code with Angie Jones, Senior Developer Advocate at Applitools, and former Senior Software Engineer in Test at Twitter. Angie talks about how she got into testing, some of the testing and problems she had to solve while working at Twitter, and why all developers should understand the basics of testing.
Show Links
Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor)
Applitools
C++
Test automation
Java
Software widget
Library
Heuristic
Pair programming
Faker
Application programming interface (API)
Boolean expression
Test Automation Frameworks
Codebase
Unit testing
UI (User interface)
Code review
Test Automation University
JavaScript
Debugging
React
Ministry of Testing
Conditional
For loop
Data structure
Language-agnostic
Angie Jones
Angie Jones is a Senior Developer Advocate who specializes in test automation strategies and techniques. She shares her wealth of knowledge by speaking and teaching at software conferences all over the world, as well as and leading the online learning platform, Test Automation University. As a Master Inventor, Angie is known for her innovative and out-of-the-box thinking style which has resulted in more than 25 patented inventions in the US and China. In her spare time, Angie volunteers with Black Girls Code to teach coding workshops to young girls in an effort to attract more women and minorities to tech.