Derick Smith

Derick Smith is the co-founder of Ipso Microelectronics, a company developing a high-speed, trusted computing platform that uses blockchain to achieve many of its features.

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Derick Smith started his career as a mainframe programmer some thirty years ago, and gained experience across a broad range of technologies including mini computers, mid-range UNIX hardware and PC platforms. He worked in many programming languages, including low level Assembler, technical Pascal, C and Java, and 4GL / RDBMS systems like Four Seasons, Progress4GL and Remedy ARS. In Europe he was working in smart card initiatives, which led him into the payments arena, and he consulted extensively to banks and the card payment networks on the newly established EMV standards, and the burgeoning contactless card technologies. He sat on the ISO committee formulating the file structure standards for contactless cards – ISO14443.

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In 1998, seeing the opportunity in the growth of wireless, he founded one of the first developers of mobile point of sale terminals M.POS. This company successfully penetrated the Chinese market, and was the first foreign company to pass China Unionpay type approval for a mobile payments terminal and transaction switch.

Exposure to the dynamic business environment in Hong Kong prompted him to start a diversified group of companies, Sinoafrique, which included telecommunications, manufacturing, commodity trading, trade finance, and mining. The company was eventually sold to a private consortium in 2006.

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Returning to his native South Africa, Derick then built a venture in the prepaid industry, leading him to a consulting role in the establishment of a US based Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) in 2012.

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In 2013 Derick relocated to Costa Rica to set up a reforestation venture. During this time, he became interested in the world of blockchain, and has been immersed in investigating the technologies and the opportunities presented.