Certified Company Category: Impact or Sustainable Investment
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Warez is a digital library of goods chosen by the community, for the community. Members collaborate to create a catalog of goods that can be accessed, delivered, and stored back in the library on demand.
The Problem
The way we consume goods as a society is wasteful and inefficient, bad for communities and the environment, and most importantly falls short of the potential and promise of a digitally driven generation. In an era where millennials and younger generations represent the largest consumer class in human history, innovation in and focus on product features and functionality should be reflected in the distribution and efficient use of these goods. The carbon footprint of socially irresponsible distribution methods has implications that extend far beyond any one individual’s ordering patterns. But together, they pave an inevitably unsustainable path of waste, clutter, and excess consumption. Most homes are filled with overpriced, underutilized items, which take up space and collect dust for 99.9% of their shelf lives. Local communities are left spending unnecessarily on these single-use goods and lack access to disruptive common sense solutions to wasteful spending.Warez: A Revolutionary Solution
Warez is an on-demand library of goods voted on by local communities based on their unique preferences. Imagine being a click away from borrowing all the greatest tools, toys, luxury goods, and technology. Now imagine being a click away from returning them in time for the latest model to be released. Warez makes it possible for anyone regardless of income level to have access to amazing new goods within their local collection for the time that they need them and gone when they don’t.How it Works
Anyone in our Warezhouse area can visit Warez.Life , create an account and become a member of our community. All you need is an ID and a Credit or Debit Card to join. Members choose the membership level that best suits their needs. Membership level determines how many items and how many deliveries members can receive a month. Members can always add an a la carte order to their membership if they want more items that month. Once a Member, you can choose the items you want to borrow, select the best date & time for you, and have it delivered to your door or available for pick up. Borrowing can last as little as one day or as much as a week depending on the item and availability. We have intake and quality assurance systems along with optional insurance for members to feel at ease while they are using the items they love.Our Model
• DELIVERY. Warez generates revenue every time a physical item is moved across the community network.
• PURCHASE. Warez generates revenue every time a person becomes a monthly subscriber.
• INVENTORY. Warez increases in value every time a new in-demand product is added to our local library.
• USER BASE. Warez increases in value every time a new person joins to have access to our library of products.Why Now
The ‘Library of Things’ movement is a growing trend over the past 3 years in many countries. Worldwide, ‘Library of Things’ stores are popping up everywhere. But these businesses are still using the traditional brick-and-mortar model with little to no monetization structure and a trust model that does not scale. No existing Library of Things offers on-demand delivery service. Warez will be the first in the world to establish such a feature. In addition, Warez empowers members to vote and invest profits into new purchases for the Warez collection. These two breakthrough features establish an innovative new kind of ‘Library of Things’ service in the United States, and pioneer an innovative new wave of technology based product distribution.Furthermore Warez tackles carbon emissions, economic inequality, and impractical compensation in the current gig economy. Retail and distribution contributed 35% of all US carbon emissions in 2017. Amazon, FedEx, and UPS
deliveries emitted 19 million, 14 million, and 13 million metric tons of carbon respectively. If Amazon’s U.S. customer base were to use Warez instead, the U.S. would be 5% closer to achieving its 2030 goals in the Paris Climate Agreement; the equivalent of 14 coal power plants would be stopped. Furthermore, over 300 million metric tons of CO2 would be kept out of the atmosphere annually.Current statistics on U.S. economic inequality indicates a level of disparity our country has not witnessed since the Great Depression. Despite being the wealthiest nation on Earth, 43.5% of the U.S. population lives on the poverty line. The larger consumer economy giants are creating more problems than they solve. People globally are turning away from the malicious practices of larger platform providers that claim to be part of the sharing economy. Warez offers a collaborative, community-sharing solution designed to disrupt retail culture and leverage group buying power for societies across the country. This will massively increase disposable income and contribute to widespread economic development.
Warez is a Dagda certified Social Impact Corporation. The Dagda Certification Program gives wealth and asset managers peace of mind that they are investing responsibly. Dagda’s comprehensive program certifies that the corporation meets the social impact or sustainable company standards of Dagda criteria.
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Dagda Whitepaper: Warez-Case-Statement.pdf
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Company Presentation: Warez-Deck.pdf
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Bios:
Michael Sessa
CEO | Warez
Michael Sessa serves as our CEO and oversees Warez’s strategic partnership efforts. Sessa has operated several successful startups. He previously
worked as a financial advisor for Merrill Lynch. He currently serves as an advisor to the Central Florida Tech Alliance on Blockchain initiatives
and oversees their Mentorship Program, which pairs established executives with new startups in their field to ensure startups are getting the right
information and avoiding unnecessary mistakes along the way.
Sessa ran The Orlando Beach Bus in 2010, a transportation & logistics company that provided campus services to University of Central Florida
students to get to and from Cocoa Beach safely. The company promoted not drinking and driving through various events on campus and
worked with the University’s department of transportation, securing an exclusive contract with Colstar Transportation to receive busses as
needed to ensure the most availability to students.
He Holds a Bachelors in Economics from Rollins College and has studied Housing markets, Economic Arbitration, and Chinese Language at the
Shanghai University of Finance and Economics in Shanghai, China.Blair Erickson
Chief Technologist | Warez
Blair Erickson is a technologist and creative director whose work spans fields from digital communities, interactive virtual worlds, to virtual reality
experiences. He wrote and directed the Netflix released thriller Banshee Chapter, the first feature film in history released in a virtual reality format on
Oculus Rift. Recently he created a 50-ft virtual city touch screen experience for Cisco Systems, a #1 charting mobile game CineMagic, and a special
virtual reality prototype of a blockchain-based community that would become Warez presented exclusively at the SIGGRAPH conference in 2016. Blair
first got into Bitcoin in 2011 with his friend and Retronyms founder, Dan Walton. 2 years later, the first conversations about how to create a digital society
called Warez began.
As the Creative Director of the Omnicom Group interactive technology agency Millions of Us, Blair built virtual communities and interactive experiences
for clients like Google, Facebook, Nike, Warner Bros, DreamWorks, and Sony Playstation. He crafted an alternate reality Webby honored live-action
thriller online for Fox's "Terminator" series. His campaign won the LACP Spotlight Award for a first-of-its-kind campaign bringing a World Wrestling
Entertainment invasion into the digital society of Gaia Online. It's still written about as a business case study in books like Changing the Game.
Before his stint as creative technologist, Blair worked in entertainment production. He created several early hit viral videos for YouTube in 2007. He also
worked writing and producing television episodes for SciFi, Discovery Channel, and E! Entertainment Television. While studying Electronic Media at
Carnegie Mellon University, he did independent research studying Building Virtual Worlds under the late renowned bestselling professor Randy Pausch.Scott Martin
CFO | Warez
Scott Martin is a finance and management consultant working in the Central Florida area. Scott graduated from the University of Central Florida with a BA
in Accounting and went on to pass the CPA exam shortly thereafter. After starting out in government in accounting and systems design he launched his
own firm and has been working with small to medium local businesses for over twenty years in such verticals as eCommerce, music, consumer packaged
goods and technologies. He is currently working with growing tech firms as well as established businesses who are looking to do social good. While not in
meetings or working spreadsheets he is scuba diving, wake boarding and working on his vintage 63 VW Beetle.Daniel Walton
Lead Backend Developer | Warez - Ethex.Market
For over a decade Dan has been an owner and co-founder of one of San Francisco’s most innovative and successful app developers, Retronyms. Beyond
their smash hit audio recording and music generation apps, he has expanded into new cutting edge realms with Retronyms Labs. Their experience in
advanced geolocation helped make Warez’s early mobile ordering system a smash hit real live customer tests. He first got into Bitcoin in 2011 and helped his
friend Blair Erickson protect his investment from the Mt. Gox crash.
Building his software company into innovative new technology, Retronyms Labs created augmented reality and location based apps Dokobots and Seek n
Spell. More recently they released cast.market, a tool to connect podcasts and advertisers, now the largest ranking and analytics website for podcasts.
Their latest project is the breakthrough fully decentralized blockchain exchange Ethex.Market. Ethex.Market is currently live in beta and gaining new traders
and market share daily.
Dan holds his Bachelor of Science at Ohio State University in Computer Science and Engineering. He’s spent over a quarter century in signal processing and
software development. His experience with C,C++, Python and Javascript have meant he’s always working with the latest cutting edge frameworks and
technologies across the stack. He’s continually built and shipped successful apps for the past decade.Dan Kaltenbaugh
Lead Frontend Developer | Warez
Dan Kaltenbaugh is a United States Air Force veteran and software engineering specialist with extensive experience in website design, development and
programming. Following his role as USAF Division Chief in Baghdad, Iraq, Dan managed KC-135 Air Operations for United States Pacific Theatre. He currently
owns Dijatek, Central Florida’s best software development corporation.
Kaltenbaugh served as Division Chief and Military Senior Site Lead for Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center, Baghdad, Iraq. He advised Iraqi Air Force on Air
Operations and Air Traffic Control. Trained personnel on Airfield operations and management. Assisted in set-up of first-ever Iraqi Air Force Weather School.
He was promoted by Senior Leadership to run the Operations Division of the entire Baghad facility after being on-site for only 2 weeks.
Holding over 15 years of combined experience in software development, information technology, training and strategic management. Served as lead
developer and facilitator for the Air Force Innovation course, ‘What is Innovation?’ USAF software programmer and Aimpoint Construction Systems Analyst
for classified, Nuclear Single Integrated Operational Plan targeting database. He also served as a USSTRATCOM programmer utilizing Java, C languages and
Visual Basic.Kia Mia
Community Outreach Leader | Warez
Kia serves as a Community Development Manager for SunBlock, a Central Florida based organization for growing local education on
blockchain technology. Her work growing community locally and social outreach has been invaluable in the early stage growth of
Orlando’s blockchain community. Kia has been advising the Warez team on strategic community building for the past 2 years while
holding live local events to spread technological education and awareness.
Kia served in Information Technology Support for the United States Army Network Enterprise Technology Command. After her service in
the military, Kia worked as a social media activist building online political movements and media organizations on Facebook. She helped
grow independent media ventures from a few thousand impressions to millions of viewers weekly during the 2016 election year. She
mastered audience growth by leveraging viral sharing on social media and building audiences through streaming content.Adrian Herbez
Senior Engineer| Warez
Adrian Herbez has served as a software engineer creating digital societies, real time chat applications, and incredible workflow tools for internal project
teams. He helped shape and code the initial prototypes for Warez, even developing the VR prototype interface for the SIGGRAPH presentation. Currently he
serves as a Staff Engineer for Lumosity’s innovative educational technology branch Lumos Lab.
As a software engineer for Google, Adrian built real time chat communication tools to run across the web and onto mobile devices. He worked with Linden
Labs developing critical software tools for the virtual world community Second Life. He served Sony Playstation’s engineer for developing their virtual
community Playstation Home. Also worked as the Lead Gameplay Engineer for web game powerhouse KIXEYE.
He’s spent time training others in his course on C++ Game Programming Instructor for the Academy of Art University. Adrian holds a BFA from Carnegie
Mellon University and a Masters in Arts, Computation, and Engineering from the University of Irvine.Stephanie Riggs
Creative Consultant | Warez
Stephanie Riggs is a former Walt Disney Imagineer, and interdisciplinary content creator focused on directing narrative-driven interactive and immersive
social experiences. She began researching and developing human computer interaction in the 1990s, and her projects have been featured at SIGGRAPH
and E3. Stephanie serves as creative director for social brand experts Refinery29 where she continues to push the boundaries of social experiences and
technology. Stephanie is committed to increasing diversity and access to immersive technology as a mentor for Facebook/Oculus’ "VR For Good” program.
She’s co-founder of the AR/VR Academy NYC, and co-leads research at Yale University's Blended Reality Lab.
Stephanie has worked with Intel, Disney Creative Entertainment, Walt Disney Productions, HBO, and GoogleVR. Grounded in traditional narrative techniques,
Stephanie is a New York Times Critic’s Pick director for her documentary The Standbys. She produced Blair Erickson's award-winning immersive digital 3D
feature thriller Banshee Chapter with Zachary Quinto.
In 2015, Stephanie was invited to film Barack Obama's historic speech in Nairobi, Kenya in 360 and set the world record for the number of people in a
simultaneous VR experience with The Nantucket Project. Her VR documentary, "Kanju" had its world premier at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival.
Stephanie holds degrees in Directing (Drama) and Human-Computer Interaction (Computer Science) from Carnegie Mellon University. She was invited to
the first class of the Masters of Entertainment Technology program at CMU, is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and an Andrew Carnegie Society Scholar.Bill Booth
Backend Developer | Warez
Bill has served as a backend software engineer creating massive database projects and incredible workflow tools for enormous corporate operations. He
worked to craft the initial code and server side development for the Warez platform, developing the interface for the earliest stage prototype tests. Currently
he serves as a Principle Software Engineer for Autodesk.
Previously Bill served as Cloud Systems Engineer for gaming giant ngmoco. He spent four years developing from Lab Engineer to managing Quality
Assurance as a Tools Engineer.Shaayann Khalid
Business Development | Warez
Shaayann Khalid was recently tapped as a consultant for GE Healthcare developing a business plan, marketing and launch strategy, and adaptable
blueprint for one of the world’s first-ever symptomatic cancer care clinics in the United States. He was invited this past January by the United Arab Emirate’s
Prime Minister’s Office to represent his alma mater in the Global Universities Challenge at the World Government Summit in Dubai, where he helped build
global visions for the future.
Shaayann’s constructive and energetic leadership style contributes to a culture of servant-leadership at Warez, and his commitment to creating meaningful
change with the best interests of the people at heart makes him an invaluable member of our team.
Shaayann holds B.A. degrees in both Business Management and Economics from Rollins College in Winter, Park, FL and a Masters of Science degree in
International Health Management from Imperial College Business School in London, UK.John-Paul Walton
Blockchain Development Leader | Warez
JP Serves as our Senior Developer and has over 20 Years of UX Design and Development for mobile, web and desktop. He has developed design
systems and processes for a wide variety of industries including enterprise scale production management, and compliance tools. JP Has helped
define some of the leading digital media and audio apps on the app store. JP is passionate about creating rich digital experiences that enable,
empower and delight. He has Blockchain and Dapps and experience with Blockchain related financial products, crypto-trading platforms, and
related apps. JP continues to pioneer design patterns for human-user Blockchain interactions, transaction flows and applied experience creating
desktop and mobile apps. He has designed and shipped one of the first fully functional web3 decentralized applications.
JP is an experienced analyst of crypto-economic incentives and tokenization and has served as a Blockchain panelist at SF Design Week 2018 w/
IDEO, Coinbase, Consensys.
JP holds a B.S. and Master in Arts in Visual Communication Design from Kent State University.Zach Saul
Senior Development Advisor | Warez
Zach is a Co-founder of Retronyms. Zach specializes in location-based entertainment and complex algorithm audio app development.
Zach focuses on the science of complex networks, including social networks, small-scale features of graphs, graph motifs, node authority,
modularity, degree distribution, graph theory, multivariate statistics. His programming skills include cross-platform C++, GUI programming, and
lower level systems programming (audio, video, network). He also has extensive experience working with python and perl web programming. His
specialties: social entertainment software, including audio, video and web.
Zach holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Davis.