Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Chooses Malta For His New Blockchain Company
Silicon Valley tech wizard Steve Wozniak, best known for co-founding Apple along with Steve Jobs, has announced he has co-founded a Maltese blockchain-based company.
The company, Efforce, has designed a platform intended for people to profit from their energy savings. Companies willing to undertake energy efficiency projects will be linked to investors interested in purchasing blockchain-based tokens that represent energy savings.
Wozniak announced his latest business at a press conference in Castille this evening held to launch the second edition of the DELTA summit, the Maltese government’s annual digital innovation summit.
“As an engineer, the most important thing for me is efficiency, how to get more from less, be it less code or less energy,” Wozniak said. “I’ve got involved with very very few companies but I get approached a lot. I like doing things personally and I joined this company because they’re into efficient techniques for ongoing businesses. If you save money on energy that means more profit, which is good for the world. If we manage to use less energy, it will also be good for the environment.”
Fellow co-founder Jacopo Vanetti said that discussions with Wozniak commenced a few months ago and that they chose Malta as their base after analysing several jurisdictions across the world.
“Malta seemed like the perfect fit; it’s the most open-minded country we’ve found in the world and it’s very open to embrace new technology from a practical concept,” he said. “Everyone was ready to help us when we came here.”
It was great talking over the phone to @stevewoz to thank him for choosing #Malta as home for his new #blockchain based company -JM @SilvioSchembri pic.twitter.com/UBnbCqoBc2
— Joseph Muscat (@JosephMuscat_JM) July 18, 2019
Parliamentary secretary for the digital economy Silvio Schembri hailed the new company as the fruit of the government’s vision to attract blockchain-based companies.
“We went into uncharted territory on blockchain and we’re now paying for our courage in going into areas that other countries tried to avoid,” he said. “Malta decided to lead and not to follow. Maybe we were taken with a pinch of salt at first but we’ve now proven that meant what we said and that were open for business.”
“We didn’t stop with blockchain either but wanted to look forward into fields like space mining, IOT, big data and game development. This is the present, not the future and we want to live the present and provide a better life for our citizens.”
Cover photo: Left: Steve Wozniak and Silvio Schembri launch Efforce; Right: Steve Wozniak with fellow Apple co-founder Steve Jobs
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