Evelyn Hytopoulous, Chief Operating Officer of Web3 Pro, good morning. Before embarking on your professional career, you studied economics and econometrics. What drew you to these particular fields?
So, I have always loved mathematics. Why? Because there’s an answer. In a world full of so many questions, for math, there’s an answer. But as I was, you know, going through my studies, really getting interested in physics, it was missing the human element and I discovered economics, which for me really bridged the gaps between the scientific world and the human world. And the other amazing thing about economics is it is not an exact science. It is our attempt to utilize mathematics to explain the human condition, how we behave, and how our world works. And it is also something that is a constantly evolving frontier. You’re always searching for new answers because humans and societies are always changing, and that is why I loved economics and econometrics. Like, at a base level, economics is the study of value and value exchange, which is natural for humans to do. We see something, we assign a value to it. Of course, that’s subjective, but this is something that has existed all through time.
And economics goes beyond that to study market mechanisms. So, what does that mean? It’s, you know, how we exchange values. First, we started with bartering, and then moved onto precious metal coins, and finally paper money, and now we’re exploring this brand-new frontier and economics is following that and looking at the power of digital currencies—whether that be your bank account, money that you never hold in your hand, or even cryptocurrency. The other part about economics that I love is that social aspect. When we’re looking at the study of economic justice, how to create systems that are fair, and beyond that, what really motivated me to really dive into this area was a course I took on issues in African economic development. Utilizing the study of economics to analyze how we can build simple, scalable tools that make people’s lives better, and rid the world of these economic disparities that have existed for centuries during and following colonialism.