Despite its resonance across cultures and the backing of influential figures, UBI faces significant hurdles in policy and international collaboration. As Head of Product, I address the widespread interest in Universal Basic Income (UBI) and its sluggish adoption by governments worldwide. My role is to lead a team in designing and developing a technological solution, and implement a blockchain-based basic income.

A complementary money system called Circles, based on individualized cryptocurrencies and a social graph of trust between these currencies. Our money system was made to distribute money in a way that can, over time, lead to greater access to wealth while functioning like a globally accessible Universal Basic Income.

As Head of Product for Circles UBI, I was crucial in facilitating and executing the design of our platform, as well as overseeing the development, enhancement, and overall success of the Circles Wallet.

My work was a critical force here: shaping the product's UX and visual design, mapping local economy and collaborating with aligned stakeholders, ensuring we stayed mission-aligned as our audience grew, revealing and meeting user needs, while remaining competitive in the evolving landscape of cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies.

This product was one of the first I organized from scratch - building the initial design and development teams, bringing the project to launch through organizational transitions, and supporting ongoing maintenance after its release. Doing this meant wearing many hats, from Head of Product to Product Manager, Product Design Lead, Change Manager, and finally Product Advisor. As Product Director I brought on many of our core hires, including our Dev Leads, and was central in initializing our administrative team, alongside various contract design hands. As the Principal Product Designer, I was often a one-person team, which meant leading and organizing brand development, graphic design, user research and testing, iterating on UX/UI design, coordinating with developers for implementation, and sharing materials with stakeholders. I am beyond grateful to have had the opportunity to try on so many hats, however, I would not recommend that one person wear all of them, as ultimately limited capacity can lower work quality and lead to burnout. This project was formative in my career and the culmination of deep learning in product leadership and design, cryptography, economics, and computational design. Beyond the technical complexities, I learned about organizing open-source volunteer labor, hiring people for nearly every role, giving hard feedback, managing multiple transitions, and launching a groundbreaking product. I am proud to have stewarded Circles and seen it flourish.