After nearly 33 years at IBM, Paul diMarzio is energized by his role as marketing director for the InterWork Alliance (IWA) and the work he’s doing to grow the ecosystem. “After 36 years in the industry, I feel like a kid again. This is a lot of fun, it’s a great place to be,” he said. NNT spoke with diMarzio for episode 34 of the Neo News Today podcast.

After roles with IBM as a programmer, software engineer, product designer, and program director, diMarzio had become interested in blockchain but couldn’t find a suitable position within the large company. He left and has since held roles with Digital Asset, the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA), and now the IWA. About his current role, diMarzio said:

The one thing I love to do personally is understand really cool technology at a deep level. I am an engineer by training. I love learning the technology, then expressing it back to people. [The IWA] gives me the ability to look at everything going on. Eventually, our members are going to build that product, on various platforms, then I’m going to get to talk about them. I mean, what’s cooler than that?

diMarzio has found a mission in bringing competitors together to further a useful technology. It is the spirit of collaboration among industry participants that appears to drive his interest in propagating the vision of the IWA.

I see a lot of collaboration. You look at some of the members, they’re fierce competitors out on the marketplace, but when they come together under the IWA umbrella, they’re all working for a common good. You try to raise all the boats by making one thing that works very well.

Examples of industries that have joined or had conversations with the IWA include the financial sector, transportation, and real estate. On the interest shown from various industries, diMarzio said, “Any vertical has the same problem. They want to create contractual obligations across things of value, and they want to use this tokenized space for it. They want to do it in this cohesive way, that everybody else is using together.”

Through its members, the IWA is aiming to set the stage for this tokenization via a business-down approach, as opposed to a technology-up tactic. diMarzio said:

That’s one of the really cool things I like about being here, [we] just set a structure. We provide help. When the members come in, they set the terms as to where they want to go. [A] member lead organization means that everyone has an equal say. So, every member has one vote, regardless of size or longevity. [Everyone] gets a vote, gets to say what [they’re] going to do, and it’s all going to be based on the collaborative efforts.

The full interview can be found below:
https://youtu.be/dzBZWuYy6B0

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