Team

Meet the core team behind PLP.

Maya Brooks, Founder & CEO - Tech Futurist / Product Builder / Pop Culture Enthusiast

TW: @mayatalkstech

Maya is an Award-Winning Product Manager, Educator, Speaker, and Entrepreneur in New York City. An ex financial analyst turned web developer turned product manager, she’s spent the bulk of her career at the intersection of Fintech and EdTech leveraging her product, technical, and operating expertise. Currently, Maya is an MBA Candidate at Harvard Business School and is building Privy Photos, a blockchain-enabled platform to protect content from leaks and abuse. Maya is also the Co-Organizer of Blockchain NYC, the largest local meetup of blockchain enthusiasts in the New York Area (10K+ members) where she develops programming around Web3 Consumer Tech & Diversity & Access. Maya earned her Bachelor’s degree in Economics from New York University and holds professional certifications in Web Development, JavaScript, Python, Blockchain, and Cybersecurity. Distinguished fellowships include The Harvard Business School Arthur Rock Summer Fellowship and the Gitcoin Kernel Block Fellowship (Block 7).

Maya started her career at JPMorgan on the Commercial Banking credit underwriting and sales teams working with companies with $20MM-$2B in revenue. After a brief stint as a developer, she made the leap to startups in 2018 as an Associate in the Barclays Fintech Accelerator powered by Techstars. Most recently, Maya was a Sr. Product Manager at IFundWomen, a startup funding marketplace for women-led businesses. As hire #4, she built and scaled thoughtful and intuitive products & experiences to empower female founders. Maya has deep knowledge of the startup landscape for early-stage businesses and a deep appreciation for coaching and knowledge sharing. As such, she has counseled over 100 early-stage entrepreneurs on how to build revenue generating MVPs and taught thousands of people to code via General Assembly and COFFEE & CODED LLC, which she founded in 2018.

Aureliano Alarcon, CTO - Tech Artisan / Architect of Ideas / Explorer by Nature

Tw: @aurealarcon

Aureliano Alarcon is a Tech enthusiast, Developer and Blockchain enthusiast in Caracas Venezuela. He started his career working for Digital agencies like Wikot and DLB group managing several projects for Oreo, Hasbro etc, and later joined Gameloft / Ubisoft in Buenos Aires Argentina to work as E-commerce Deployment Manager. He then transitioned into working with clients in different projects like Evenseg creating Jano, a web base venue live ticket system that were used in some private events in Miami, FL.

In 2018 he joined Benelli Bike (Keeway Motors China) to develop a worldwide payment system including several payment gateways for latin America alongside principal technologies such as Stripe and PayPal.

In addition Aureliano has been an active leader/member on several communities like electronic music community and Pokemon go. With this knowledge it has been natural to him to participate actively in the ETH based web3 community working for companies such as RTFKT (NIKE) as a backend/blockchain Developer in 2021 and MUBI Inc as blockchain senior developer in 2022. Inspired by the capabilities that blockchain could bring, he is constantly creating new ideas and protocols like his personal project “Proof of Ownership” that will help prove the ownership of any asset stored in a remote wallet.

Michael Kirsanov, Senior Engineer - Disruptive Technology Enthusiast / Kurzweilian Singularity Advocate / Lofi-listening metalhead

Tw: @lofimichael

Michael Kirsanov is a lifelong entrepreneur, technology researcher/developer, educator, advisor, and process disruptor in Wisconsin. Having started in decentralized finance with his first purchase of a KNC Jupiter miner in 2013, he later transitioned to entrepreneurship and materials/technology R&D with an aggressive bias for human-oriented status quo disruption leveraging his passion for science.

In addition to formal academic research in blockchain, IoT, AI, and AR/VR (University of Wisconsin Milwaukee - M.S. in I.T. Mgmt. + M.B.A. with Bachelor’s degree in Finance), Michael’s prior ventures include verticals in polymer engineering, personal cosmetics, mobile applications development, wearable devices solving loneliness (incubated out of Harvard’s I-Lab), e-commerce, and financial literacy software.

Michael has additionally served as technical advisor for startups in DevOps, Web3, IoT, and AR/VR. He operates his own developer mentorship group (with a current cohort of 5 developers ranging from junior to senior industry from all around the world), and often indulges the philosophical works of Aurelius, Camus, Nietzsche, and Lao Tzu.