Nicolás Balestrini on Post-Covid New Data-Generators and Associated New Challenges

Nicolás Balestrini of Carnes Validadas tells us about stimulating the use of open-source software.

First of all, how are you and your family doing in these COVID-19 times?

Nicolás Balestrini: Not very good, we had Covid cases and issues in the family last 2 months. But everything else, doing good.

Tell us about you, your career, how you founded Carnes Validadas.

Nicolás Balestrini: I’m a Biologist and self-studied in technology and crypto skills.

How does Carnes Validadas innovate?

Nicolás Balestrini: We are disruptive in all ways, or we try to be. First of all, we were born as a virtual company. Everything is done in the distance. We are 9 people in our team, and everyone is in a different city in Argentina.

We stimulate the use of open-source software; from the beginning, we use apps that believe in security and privacy (Telegram, Linux) and blockchain apps and dapps. We work like a horizontal company, with votes in telegram groups and cryptos as payment methods.

How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how are you coping?

Nicolás Balestrini: Covid pandemic did not affect us as a working team and startup, but indeed affected us in investments, which were delayed.

Did you have to make difficult choices, and what are the lessons learned?

Nicolás Balestrini: Not really. We could manage really well as a digital company with online videocalls, online work, and chat apps.

What specific tools, software, and management skills are you using to navigate this crisis?

Nicolás Balestrini: All of them! jajaja. We have to use all possible tools because different people use or prefer different tools.

Videochat is an example: We have to use Zoom, Meet, Chime of AWS, the Microsoft tool. All of them. And we prefer Jitsi because it is open-source. But normally, we use Meets.

Then, in tools, we used Slack, Trello, WhatsApp, Discard, but we ended making a lot of workgroups in Telegram. Easier for now.

So, people willing to work in Carnes Validadas need to be good with technology, and that is a very important point to see how the future is modulating new generations. But you have to make a lot of space for Nature also.

Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?

Nicolás Balestrini: Big companies like IBM, others of the blockchain community with a lot of resources. We, as LATAM startups, have to be innovative, create better products easier. Understand the people and companies with whom we work.

Your final thoughts?

Nicolás Balestrini: As we all know now, Covid has accelerated 5 years in technology adoption of the less techno people. It is like the Pragmatics and Conservatives (early majority and the late majority in the technology adoption graph) adopted much faster than the existing technologies.

Now, we have to work in standardize them and work with new ones, like blockchain, because a lot of digital data is being generated, and now it is the time of giving the power to the users, working in privacy, in inclusion, and empowering the people, the data-generators.

Your website?

https://carnesvalidadas.com