Aleeza Howitt

Aleeza Howitt is an independent researcher working in the area of alternative currencies and government-independent universal basic income (UBI). She is also publisher of UBI Research. She is particularly interested in alternative currencies which structurally integrate UBI; we may call these “UBI currencies”. UBI is traditionally characterized as a form of welfare, but her research frames it as something more: a monetary policy tool. This distinction is important to make, as the question of how to define and create money is critical to the success of an economy. Aleeza’s interest is in engineering a currency to benefit the mass of humanity — by ensuring some sustainable level of UBI will be paid out to its members, in perpetuity. Her secondary interest is in using graph analysis of social networks as the basis for a decentralized identity system. As a researcher, Aleeza has met with and written about several UBI projects. She is an active member of the “Open UBI” community, an informal network of scholars and activists pursuing alternative UBI initiatives; she is also on the board of directors for the US Basic Income Guarantee Network (usbig.net). Additionally, she has been developing UBI Research as a collaborative space to publish research and syndicate content related to alternative basic income projects, as well as the related fields of identity and governance. In January 2019, she helped organize an Open UBI event in Berlin where several UBI initiatives were able to present their work (she presented on Project Greshm). In May 2019, she organized the first panel discussion comparing crypto and non-crypto approaches to UBI during NYC Blockchain Week. Aleeza is also cofounder of astroledger.org, an Ethereum-based crypto-collectible platform that raises money for space grants by letting you name stars.