Interledger Salon

Interledger Foundation

The Interledger Salon, hosted by the Interledger Foundation, offers our community a quarterly curated discussion. We invite some of the most inspiring individuals in our ecosystem who share our passion for building a more equitable financial world. This platform allows these individuals to host panels encouraging vibrant conversation, and idea exchange, and support collaborative organizing.

Episodes

  1. Is Financial Education and Understanding the Key to Financial Inclusion?

    29 APR

    Is Financial Education and Understanding the Key to Financial Inclusion?

    Financial education is often positioned as the high-positioned missing link to financial inclusion, but does understanding money matter if you don’t have fair access to the financial system? In this episode of the Interledger Salon, host Sheena Allen, a serial entrepreneur and fintech founder, is joined by Evan Leaphart and Ronaldo Hardy to examine the role of financial education and the limits it reveals in advancing financial inclusion. Drawing from their experiences building, funding, and operating financial tools for underserved communities, the conversation interrogates whether education empowers participation or unintentionally shifts responsibility away from flawed systems. Together, they explore how trust, access, infrastructure, and incentives intersect with financial knowledge, and where education alone falls short. This discussion asks whether financial inclusion begins with teaching people how money works or with redesigning the systems that determine who money works for. Host: Sheena Allen: tech founder, entrepreneur, international speaker, and media creator with a decade of experience building companies across technology, fintech, and digital media. [https://www.sheenaallen.com/] Guest: Evan Leaphart: fintech entrepreneur and the founder of Kredit Academy, a platform focused on financial education and credit-building for adults and children. His work centers on embedding financial capability into everyday life through partnerships with financial institutions and community organizations. [https://www.evanleaphart.com/] Ronaldo Hardy: CEO of Balance Financial Wellness and a former credit union CEO with deep experience in financial coaching and leadership development. He works at the intersection of financial wellness, behavior change, and community-based empowerment. [https://ronaldohardy.com/] The Interledger Salon is presented by the Interledger Foundation Theme music: “Summer Instrumental” by NazAlakai, from the Tribe of Noise (Tribeofnoise. com). The Interledger Salon is hosted by Future|Money Podcast, produced by the Interledger Foundation, and is licensed to the public under CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons License

    58 min
  2. Unlocking Possibilities: The role of Open Payments in African speculative fiction

    18/12/2025

    Unlocking Possibilities: The role of Open Payments in African speculative fiction

    The diversity and innovation of the early internet have settled into a weird monopolistic set of apps that cater to the average American or European. Which is great if you’re an average American or European, but not especially helpful for anyone slightly more diverse. And, if you’re African, you lose out in ways that range from things that feel like casual ignorance all the way to outright hostility. In this episode of the Interledger Salon, three African speculative fiction creators, Gavin Chait, Dilman Dila, and Cheryl Ntumy, discuss their experiences and frustrations of publishing while being African, joined by Jeremiah Lee from the Interledger Foundation, as we assess the state of open payments and our hopes for widespread adoption of the standard. Host: Gavin Chait: Marseille-based South African economic migrant, data scientist, researcher, engineer, sometime-traveler, and African speculative-fiction author. His novels tell stories of migration, climate change, and the founding mythologies of communities in transition. Gavin Chait and Why Thawk Mastodon: @GavinChait@wandering.shop Guest: Cheryl Ntumy: Ghana-based SFF author and founding member of Petlo Literary Arts, a non-profit that develops and promotes creative writing from Botswana. She is also a founding member of the Sauútiverse Collective, an African speculative fiction collaborative world building project. Cheryl Ntumy Dilman Dila: Ugandan writer, film maker and a social activist. His books include Where Rivers Go To Die, which was shortlisted for the PKD Awards (2024), his films include, “What Happened in Room 13”, has been watched more than 8 million times online. He is currently working on his third feature film, about decentralized governance. Dilman DilaMastodon: @dilmandila@mograph.social Jeremiah Lee: a tech lead with the Interledger Foundation, supporting its grantees in building an open, global payment network. He previously worked on data infrastructure at Stripe, hardware integrations at Spotify, and web APIs at Fitbit. Jeremiah Lee Mastodon: @Jeremiah@alpaca.gold The Interledger Salon is presented by the Interledger Foundation Theme music: “Summer Instrumental” by NazAlakai, from the Tribe of Noise (Tribeofnoise. com). The Interledger Salon is hosted by Future|Money Podcast, produced by the Interledger Foundation, and is licensed to the public under CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons License

    1hr 12min
  3. Practising financial inclusion in the Global South

    19/11/2024

    Practising financial inclusion in the Global South

    Welcome to the third iteration of the Interledger Salon, hosted by Smriti Parsheera, Research Ambassador at the Interledger Foundation. This session features a discussion on financial inclusion with James Ogada from the Busara Center in Kenya and Dr. Susan Thomas from the XKDR Forum in India. The dialogue explores financial inclusion as more than just access to financial services—it’s a means to enhance economic resilience and well-being for individuals and households. Participants discuss innovative, locally tailored approaches to financial services, emphasizing the importance of behavioral insights and robust consumer protection frameworks. The conversation highlights the value of interdisciplinary collaboration and the need for innovative, context-specific solutions to boost financial inclusion across diverse regions in the Global South. For more information about Susan Thomas’s work with XKDR Forum, visit their website. To learn about James Odaga and the Busara Center for Behavioral Economics, check out their website. You can find more information on Smriti Parsheera’s research Ambassadorship for the Interledger Foundation on our community forum, where she posts her updates. The Interledger Salon is presented by the Interledger Foundation Theme music: “Summer Instrumental” by NazAlakai, from the Tribe of Noise (Tribeofnoise. com). The Interledger Salon is hosted by Future|Money Podcast, produced by the Interledger Foundation, and is licensed to the public under CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons License

    1hr 5min
  4. Interledger on Campus

    18/11/2024

    Interledger on Campus

    In this episode of the Interledger Salon. We focus on the Interledger Foundation’s work on campus involvement and partnerships with universities. Our guests, Dr. Allan Davids of the University of Cape Town, Dr. Andrew Mangle of Bowie State University, and Interledger Foundation’s CEO and President Briana Marbury, discuss the challenges and successes of integrating open payments into university curriculums. The conversation highlights the importance of education in expanding digital financial inclusion. The episode also explores the program’s evolution at Bowie State University and the University of Cape Town, including the development of a one-week intensive open payments program and the Hackathon, which resulted in innovative use cases by participating students. We hope you enjoy our discussions on digital financial inclusion and the future of payments. Please like and subscribe to the Interledger Salon hosted by Future|Money Podcast. For more information on the grant process and requirements, please follow this link The Interledger-NextGen Higher Education Grant will accept project considerations for a project length of up to 12 months and for funding up to USD 50,000 to cover work on the proposed project and any costs associated with event participation, training, or software development. Interested universities can submit their letter of intent via Submittable. The Interledger Salon is presented by the Interledger Foundation Theme music: “Summer Instrumental” by NazAlakai, from the Tribe of Noise (Tribeofnoise. com). The Interledger Salon is hosted by Future|Money Podcast, produced by the Interledger Foundation, and is licensed to the public under CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons License

    51 min

About

The Interledger Salon, hosted by the Interledger Foundation, offers our community a quarterly curated discussion. We invite some of the most inspiring individuals in our ecosystem who share our passion for building a more equitable financial world. This platform allows these individuals to host panels encouraging vibrant conversation, and idea exchange, and support collaborative organizing.