Ioanna (Joanna) Orlova is an activist, social scientist, and analyst with 12 years of combined international experience developing and implementing projects through stakeholder engagement. Growing up as a Russian-Ukrainian immigrant in predominantly low-income Latino communities in the greater NY/NJ area, her trajectory has always been geared towards addressing the fact that disadvantaged groups of people are often disproportionately excluded and negatively affected by existing systems and networks of support. Her career was thus influenced by a desire to understand the world’s power structure and started in marketing, risk data management consulting, and economic development research with companies FXCM, Santander Bank, SociosInversores, Fundación Mujer (The Women’s Foundation), IPREDE (Instituto da Primeira Infância-Early Childhood Institute), and her academic institutions Boston University (Kilachand Honors College and Questrom School of Business) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Micromasters in Data, Economics, and Development Policy). Among many things she conducted interviews with stakeholders and assessed documentation/procedures of Santander Bank’s US processes involving 14 systems in the retail and commercial branches that deal with assets of over $150 billion to ensure passing of the Fed’s paramount stress test, CCAR. She has also always advocated for accessible education and healthcare on local and global scales and has advised multiple programs, nonprofits, and individuals on actionable, data-driven insights. As the NYC Community Manager she will employ her zeal and tenacity to educate and engage community members - especially founders and developers- on how to use NEAR’s stellar blockchain technology and build high-potential projects with value-proposition for the benefit of our collective humanity.