My name is Ioannis Rafail Florokapis, I study Economics and Statistics at Williams College in Massachusetts, graduating this fall, and I am originally from Thessaloniki in Greece (pictured above behind me is the "White Tower", Thessaloniki's landmark). I am 24 years old.
I am a currently on a gap year, working on my new Data Science Marketplace startup called 'Algora', together with my partner Klejdi - I will be posting updates here and seeking feedback from the community once we make some good progress (also have some thoughts in relation to the blockchain and would appreciate everyone's input). I am also trading full-time, mainly FX, on my own (very very modest) account; in fact, just recently I converted the base account away from the fiat dollar currency and into bitcoin and ethereum, and just bought Steem Power! So you can say I am a new crypto enthusiast and investor (in my humble beginnings) and of course a proud new Steemian!! I have also been taking Russian lessons for 3 months now and will be continuing with my learning moving forward! I am super excited to become a member of this incredible community (I have been browsing Steemit quite extensively thus far, really learning a ton from everyone, before making my present first post now). I would like to share with you some information about my background as well as highlight how I hope to bring value to the community and hopefully engage with everyone. Thanks so much in advance for taking the time to read this.
My Story
I was born and raised in Thessaloniki and went to an American highschool, Anatolia College, in my town, where I completed the International Baccalaureate, tying for the highest graduating grade in Greece in 2011 (guess I was nerd ha). At the time of high school I thought I wanted to study medicine (little did I know), but with the global financial crisis hitting Greece hard and the constantly deteriorating situation back home, greatly affecting financially both my family and all my fellow countrymen without exception, I realized from a young age I had to pursue my dreams abroad. Greece is unfortunately too small for my aspirations anyway. I took a gap year and was fortunate to land a research internship at the Nephrology Division of Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School at the age of 18, conducting biomedical research there for 6 months in Dr. Anna Greka's lab, while also applying to US colleges. I was very fortunate to get accepted to Williams College with a full scholarship, and that's where my life started to change.
*Below is a picture with a Williams alum of the older generation during our Homecoming - staring at the future?! :D
I was very lucky to be raised in a great family that I love more that anything in the world, I have two older sisters, Anna and Maria, that I absolutely adore, and a new family member, my brother-in-law Michael, who is a Greek-American entrepreneur and possibly the most awesome guy I've ever met, I am so happy I have a brother now! In fact, I maintain the trading account together with Michael, I got him hooked in the crypto space as well, and we are both super excited to have invested in Steem, Bitcoin and Ethereum! Anna and Michael are living a little outside of Boston and I visit them often! My sister Anna is a pharmacist, got her Pharm.D in Germany, did research at Harvard herself and currently is making her steps towards a great career in the US. I am really happy to have family both back home in Greece and in the US, which I have come to call my second home after so many years there. *Here's a picture with my sisters and Michael, and one with Anna when she visited Williams (we look alike a lot, don't we?!)
My first entrepreneurial endeavors
During my freshman year in college, when I dived deep into the liberal arts education regime (taking courses as diverse as Neuroscience, Arabic, Philosophy and Math over the years), I co-founded my first tech company InteracTiV, an online social multimedia interactivity platform (basically starting as a browser plug-in overlaying metadata on top of multimedia content online on sites like Youtube, Vimeo, Netflix etc.) Through offering social media-based interactions on top of the multimedia content our goal was to crowdsource user interactions, namely in-video tags and comments, and use them to create an in-video search engine (ex for commercial products monetization and granular market research) and reverse-engineer automatic content recognition software. We kicked it off well, winning $5,000 at a business plan competition at Williams, meeting with some top execs at Viacom and Allen and Co. and getting a small investment from an alum, while being accepted to incubators. *Here's a pic from the competition award, on my right as you see the pic is Klejdi Banka, my current co-founder for Algora. And another one in a suit, being an adult and all :D
Unfortunately, the journey ended my sophomore year with one of the partners showing his true colors, embezzling the money we had raised and fleeing (big early lesson on doing proper due diligence and picking the right partners...!).
Moving forward, over the next years I worked at a shipping company in Athens, Greece, called Starbulk (the biggest US-listed dry bulk carrier), gaining an invaluable insight into the value chain of the maritime transportation industry. In fact, I think the blockchain can do wonders for the shipping industry and upend the way business is done there (as with every field) - I will be making a post here sharing my thoughts on the blockchain applied to the shipping industry.
My junior year I became interested in the space of peer-to-peer (micro)lending, and had an idea for a social media integrated, originally location-based, p2p microlending mobile app called 'SpotMe'. It was a great idea and got some VC interest, but usury laws in the US prevented me from achieving it. That's when I started learning more about the blockchain, which could offer a viable framework to create this, but it was hard to kick it off the ground then in terms of technical development (and hey, what do you know, today we have blockchain-based startups like "Suretly" - with the crowdvouching model - and BitBond, so I guess I'm late there, although SpotMe). It's awesome to see this application starting to flourish though!
Starting my trading career
Last summer I did a discretionary and algorithmic trading internship at Gelber Group, a Chicago-based proprietary trading firm, getting my first big experience in the space. My training was in Chicago and then I worked at the New Jersey office in Cranford. I traded mainly forex, but also stock index futures and commodities, I was in fact also trading the night of Brexit and that was INSANE! What an experience.. I learnt a ton at Gelber Group and would highly recommend to anyone thinking about a career in trading to consider working at a prop trading firm first as either an algorithmic or discretionary trader, before perhaps embarking on their own (as I have done).
* This is the only picture of me I found being in front of the trading screens in Chicago (must have been super early I kinda look horrible lol) + here's the view of NYC I had every morning around 6am at the Exchange Place PATH station in New Jersey before going to the office (lowkey I took the picture myself!!)
Both trading and entrepreneurship share the attribute of asymmetric risk-reward (when done properly), with just a small amount of capital and the opportunity cost of your time being at stake, with the potential rewards being outlandishly higher, and basically these two are my passions and what I hope to being throughout my life. I am of course just making my first baby steps and have so much to learn. And now I want to bring both together under the umbrella of what I believe is the greatest invention since the creation of the internet; the blockchain.
My interests and how I hope to bring value to our Steemit community
I spend the majority of my time reading and learning on technology, science and finance. I am a theoretical physics and neuroscience enthusiast and I love exploring intersections between these fields and the consciousness mechanics stemming from the spheres of mysticism and eastern spirituality. I am a big soccer fan (my city's team is PAOK FC) and I like DJing (I love tropical house and EDM music). I am here on Steemit to learn and grow as an entrepreneur and as a person and hopefully create value for the community.
I will be authoring posts and curating content, articles and research relating to business-entrepreneurship, technology, science and finance and of course everything all around the crypto space and the blockchain. I am also thinking about starting to share my trading setups with everyone for FX and crypto trading (would also help me better formulate my ideas and establish accountability). I would appreciate everyone's feedback on what would interest you the most. I hope to bring in fresh ideas and perspectives to the community and I will do my best to actively engage with everyone and post awesome content for everyone to hopefully learn something new. I myself have been learning so much everyday on Steemit, thank you for this everyone!!
I am ready to embark on this beautiful journey with you. Thank you kindly in advance for your support and friendship.
Much love Steemians!