New Ethereum talks, every Monday. The week's conference uploads by event, in your inbox.

Loading player…

Open Conversations: Can We Bring the Campus Economy Onchain? (Fernanda Tello)

Funding the CommonsMon, Mar 9, 2026, 12:00 AM

Universities already have their own economies, from scholarships and food stipends to student jobs and informal markets. In this conversation, Fernanda Tello, economist and founder of CriptoUNAM, talks about exploring what it would mean to support these everyday flows with blockchain. Fernanda shares how CriptoUNAM emerged at UNAM, Mexico’s largest public university, and how her team is experimenting with wallet and market tools designed specifically for student life. Filmed at the Funding the Commons Builder Residency, Buenos Aires, November 2025. Relevant Projects CriptoUNAM: https://criptounam.xyz/ Funding the Commons: https://www.fundingthecommons.io Thank You to Our Sponsors Protocol Labs: https://www.protocol.ai human.tech by Holonym Foundation: https://human.tech/ Stellar Development Foundation: https://stellar.org Drips: https://drips.network Octant: https://octant.app NEAR Foundation: https://near.foundation Logos: https://logos.co

Transcript

What I always tell them is, think about what you do, that is, how would using technology help you? Don't try to adapt to blockchain, try to adapt blockchain to what you do, and that's what we do in the community. I am Fertello Fernanda Tello, I am a Mexican economist, I am a founder of a community in Mexico called Cryptoam, which is the one on my t-shirt. We started building a community specifically to discuss technology and blockchain topics within UNAM. UNAM is the largest university in Mexico and one of the most important in Latin America.

Many young people are too digital, that is, they use technology for everything. At the university they receive many scholarships, sports scholarships, food scholarships. So, we are currently working on a wallet for university students, a market system that will channel the economic flow that exists in universities through blockchain, because as time goes on, the resources they receive become very volatile due to inflation in different countries. I came here to Funding the Commons through BF. and the Stellar Foundation.

The truth is that BF, since coming into my life in February, has done a very important job for me, not only professionally, but also personally, because it has opened up these kinds of opportunities where I always say that you do n't need to know everything, but you do need to have that desire to keep learning and keep improving. No.

Automatic transcript — names and jargon may be misspelled.