Genesis Block announced last week that it was “transforming from a local startup on a mission to build the entrepreneur class into an intelligent business network powered by technology and innovation to fuel growth.” Genesis Block CEO Girard Newkirk conducted this interview to share more insights on Genesis Bridge and what’s next for the company.

GB: Last week Genesis Block announced that it was transforming into an intelligent business network powered by technology and innovation. Could you explain this transformation in more detail?

GN: Sure. Well we started out driven by our vision to build the entrepreneur class and to demonstrate that entrepreneurship is a pathway to promote economic prosperity and social reconciliation in our communities. We learned many lessons over the last 2 years through observations, experiments and our fully integrated approach to training small business owners. Evidence revealed a lack of technology systems and data structure to support the growth of what we call the “diverse economy. My background is in technology and I have always had a vision to use tech as a mechanism to lower barriers to prosperity. We love our community and we are naturally collaborators so in this process we have built a business network of over 900 members. This network includes local small businesses, early stage companies and trade partners but we also have global corporations, large organizations and government agencies that need to increase the resiliency in their supply chain and are in desperate need of trade partners. So we have been contemplating for months on how can we leverage the latest technologies to transform this into an intelligent business network that can really drive a much larger impact in sourcing, procurement and supply chain resiliency.

GB: What is the “diverse economy” and could you elaborate on your observations?

GN: There is enormous goodwill and intent across the board as it relates to supplier diversity, intentional programs to diversify supply chains and financial inclusion. The challenge we believe is that until organizational data becomes more accessible and we have more collaboration on shared data structures technologies such as AI, blockchain and machine learning will not be applicable. The diverse economy will lag and collective efforts won’t deliver the impact that were all hoping for. This means diverse owned businesses will find challenges with financial inclusion, staying competitive in the marketplace and building the capacity to scale their companies. On the other hand, large organizations will not have the resiliency in their local supply chain to support their supplier diversity strategies and governance expectations from shareholders and communities. We have spent the last 2 1/2 years in the sourcing, procurement, supplier diversity and technology space so now we are ready to provide solutions for our network members.

GB: What is Genesis Bridge Technology?

GN: Genesis Bridge Technology provides solutions to simplify inclusive sourcing, supply chain management and sustainability reporting. The aim is to streamline the procurement process for large organizations and give diverse, small businesses access to greater transaction opportunities. We have had hours of conversations and interviews with procurement leaders and the stale, unstructured databases are a big impediment to expanding opportunities to partner with diverse owned businesses. We believe that organizing stakeholders into a collaborative and data driven network is critical to sustainable success. Genesis Bridge empowers members of the network with visibility to manage spending, build resiliency and source locally diverse owned businesses.

GB: What is the mission and vision of Genesis Bridge?

GN: Our mission is to leverage technology as a bridge to connect prosperity to all. We have a vision to build a collaborative platform that connects an intelligent business network organized to promote sustainable growth.

GB: Could you describe some of the technologies that will be used and how they will be deployed?

GN: Absolutely. Genesis Bridge will merge our collaborative network with the latest pairing technologies to increase business transaction opportunities for small and diverse owned businesses. In order to get a better idea of how we should implement technologies for automation, we need more data and structuring. We are developing a pilot with several large organizations focusing on a variety of challenges but we aim for the pilot to:

1. Develop dashboards that provide visibility and transparency in sourcing supply chain and create opportunities for diverse-owned businesses.

2. Build regional talent workforce pipeline and locally sourced supplier diversity network for large organizations and municipalities.

3. Organize a network of business collaborators using intelligent insights to drive transaction activity

We understand that an organized system that streamlines procurement, ensures trust and verification for trade partners and provides transparency is necessary for a productive supply chain for trade partners.

GB: What are some of the benefits that Genesis Bridge will provide for prime contractors, corporations, governments and state large organizations?

GN: There are many challenges that large organizations are facing in efforts to build
more inclusive sourcing operations and adding resiliency to their supply chains. Genesis Bridge will provide a centralized system for certification management, trust verification and vendor pairing. Our vision is to build an organized system for verification of potential trade partners and use technology to share insights along the entire network. Genesis Bridge also provides a framework for relationship building amongst trade partners.

GB: What is next for the company as technology becomes the focus?

GN: We have some very exciting news to announce this week so stay tuned. We have several products that are launching this summer and again we can’t wait to share some BIG BIG news so stay tuned for an announcement related to clean energy and
technology.