Cleveland-based businessman Bernie Moreno, who has become the first Mercedes-Benz and Porsche dealership in North America to accept Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and other cryptocurrency options as payment options, is expanding its emerging company, Ownum, with New Randy Cole , Top Ohio management official.
Cole, who will leave his state job in Ohio, will become the executive vice president and chief solution officer for Onom, according to a report by Crane.
He has been tasked with leading the company's national expansion efforts, looking to hire software engineers, product managers, scrum engineers, business process engineers, data analysts, UX and UI designers, cloud engineers and quality assurance engineers.
Fintech develops blockchain solutions to store, record and retrieve government records.
The company targets a range of bureaucratic bottlenecks including digitizing cars across the country using blockchain-based solutions. Future applications may include license plates, as well as birth and death certificates.
Reports from Cleveland.com,
"The company has almost completed the development of a blockchain-based solution to record car addresses," Moreno said, adding that his job would include developing a strategy to work with county and state officials to implement the technology.
Moreno was on the front lines to turn Cleveland into Block Land, taking advantage of civil society leaders and companies in Cleveland to attract developers and entrepreneurs.
The Blochainen Open Solutions Conference was launched in December, an educational event attended by speaker Jerry Kyumu, vice president of IBM Blockchin Technologies. Jason Kelly, General Manager, IBM Blockchain Solutions. Joseph Lobin, founder of ConsenSys and co-founder of Ethereum; Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia; and Alex Tabscott, author and founder of the Blockchain Research Institute.
The Blockland 2 Solution Conference will be the focus of a forthcoming meeting on January 28.
Moreno hopes IBM to expand its operations in Cleveland.
One of the many blockchain initiatives supported by IBM, the Dubai Blockshine platform, was announced last October. It is the first government-approved cricket platform in the UAE.
Through IBM's cloud environment designed to digitize government processes and citizen services, the Dubai Comprehensive Program represents Ownum's goals in making governments more efficient, transparent and cost-effective.
Moreno, who is also an investor in Cleveland-based Votem, an emerging company focused on using blockchain technology to run online voting through mobile devices, says Ownum will offer its solutions to governments in Ohio, Florida and four other states.
Ohio Encrypted Ohio Crepto dot com launched late last year. The portal allows companies to pay certain commercial taxes using Bitcoin.