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The 2024 London Blockchain Conference (LBC) took place on May 21-23, featuring hundreds of exceptional speakers worldwide in the blockchain and future tech space. The London Blockchain Conference (LBC) smashed its goal of confirming at least 25% female speakers, including an enthusiastic Conference Chair, Lilly Douse.
Douse, who wears a variety of hats, describes herself as an entrepreneur, impact speaker, master of ceremonies and podcast host in the blockchain, tech, artificial intelligence (AI) and fitness space.
I had the pleasure of spending three consecutive days with Douse at the LBC, kicking off each early morning with a friendly hello in the hotel gym, followed by pre-conference chats in the LBC hair and makeup room and passing each other throughout the day on the LBC main stage.
Douse and I also met up at the Women in Blockchain panel event, which took place on the eve of May 22nd, an London Blockchain Conference side event designed to bring like-minded women together outside of the hustle and bustle of a busy conference.
While at the Women in Blockchain event, on behalf of CoinGeek, I had the pleasure of catching up with Douse to get her thoughts on welcoming more women into the tech space and her experience as the LBC Conference Chair.
We started the discussion with the Women in Blockchain panel event, diving into why it’s important to host and attend events of this nature to advance the blockchain industry.
Douse expressed how much fun she had on the night, citing the beautiful energy and “feminine touch” radiating throughout the room.
“We need to see things from different perspectives and I think if we just see it being one-dimensional, it’s never going to work. So we need to get more women involved,” she shared.
Douse pointed out that women make up approximately 50% of the population, so if we’re not including women, we are missing out on a huge part of the population that we need to reach.
She indicated women aren’t always pro-risk, or at least less so than men, and can find it hard to get involved in industries that are regarded as riskier.
“We don’t want to push ourselves outside our comfort zone,” said Douse.
“I think if we can try and bring more women into the industry and show them that you don’t need a specific degree…you don’t need to have a special background. You just need to believe in technology, believe in change, and really just want to see a different future,” she said.
“These sort of events are promoting that,” Douse added.
Moving on to the Londone Blockchain Conference, when asked about her experience chairing the main stage, she described it as “amazing.” In addition to introducing big names such as Steven Bartlett and Scott Galloway, she was impressed with the caliber of the attendees in general, all with a spirit and willingness to work together despite being competitors in some cases.
“We’re a community,” she said.
“In blockchain, that’s what we’re all about. We want to create this better world that we want to live in. And that’s what we’re doing,” she said.
“I think London Blockchain [Conference] is a big proof of that, as a mixture of people. Everyone’s been so kind, so nice. And that really is important because it makes my job much easier,” Douse added.
It was clear to anyone who saw Douse on stage that she is passionate about blockchain and the future tech that goes along with it. I was curious to know what excited Douse about the blockchain world in the first place, especially seeing as her degree is in chemistry and previous work experience in finance.
“For me, being part of something that changes all the time keeps me on my toes. I want to be challenged,” she shared.
“I see the changes, I see the progression. I sit there on a daily basis, and someone’s telling me an issue, and I think we could even use AI, blockchain, we could tokenize, there’s something we could do within our industry to make that better,” said Douse. “If you keep on seeing that, it’s incredible what we can do.”
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