Maria Mateo Iborra is the co-founder of the IBISA Network. Maria has a background in telecommunication engineering and has been working for 15 years in satellite communications in the space industry. In parallel to that she has also co-founded several companies and start-ups and experienced both successes and failures. Since 2015 she discovered blockchain and was excited by its transformational capabilities. In 2019 she co-founded IBISA which stands for (Inclusive Blockchain Insurance using Space Assets), a platform that enables micro insurance for weather related risks in agriculture in developing countries.

 

What is blockchain?

For Maria the fundamental point of blockchain is that it solves the double spending dilemma for peer to peer transaction. In an internet world you can send data more than once but you can’t send money more than once in a blockchain world. With blockchain we can evolve from the internet of data to the internet of value. This enables two trust less parties to be able to perform a transaction of value without intermediaries.

 

From space and satellite communication industry to blockchain

Maria is very passionate about technology and the impact it can have in our society.  During her 15 years in satellite communication she has done a lot of work in the field across the world and has seen first-hand the massive impact of bringing internet or television to non-connected population.

For Maria blockchain is the next evolutionary step. She recognises that it will take a long time for mass adoption but it is similar to opening the world to the internet of value. The ability for people to transact around the world in a peer to peer manner is very powerful.

Maria was interested by Bitcoin in its early days, but it was the launch of Ethereum in 2015 that peaked her interest in the actual blockchain technology.

 

About the IBISA Network

IBISA Network’s mission is to enable agriculture insurance, for agricultural entrepreneurs, everywhere and in an easy manner. To achieve, that IBISA leverages technology and data to build innovative and commercially viable protection products together with its local partners.

IBISA is here to fill a gap, which is not touched by traditional insurers, for providing insurance to small scale agriculture. Whilst there has been a lot of innovative solutions developed for this market, no one has yet developed a commercially viable model.

IBISA’s approach is to partner with local mutuals, insurers, and micro-finance institutions and provide them with a platform and tools to provide their customers with weather related risk protection.

The IBISA platform is a full stack from underwriting to policy handling, customer administration, and loss assessments. IBISA’s partners can now have a platform to provide commercially viable and scalable protection.

 

About the small-scale agriculture market

Risk sharing, mutuality, is an ideal model for high frequency, low severity events. This is the case for small scale agriculture where you have every three or four years a drought and the insured amount is small as the premiums the farmers pay are also small – high frequency and low severity.

According to the World Bank there are approximately 500 million smallholder farming households that produce between 70 – 80% of the world’s food. The insurance market potential to covering the basic needs,