Digital Disruption & My Cashless Class W /Dawn Thomas

Class is in session in the latest episode of the Sunbeam Chats Podcast, I am chatting with Dawn Nelson a Vice President and Entrepreneur. She is the Founder of My Cashless Class. 

From sciences, to business to a hybrid career path; she transitioned into many sectors along the way, and now operates in the Fintech, Tech and the  Entrepreneurship sector. 

We chat about her transitions and pivots along the journey, her mindset and the situations that caused her to jump into new sectors. She spoke about retooling and reskilling and advocates for people to not "pigeon hold" themselves in one area, but to explore their passions and gifts. 

Dawn spoke about her move to TTIFC now the National Payment and Innovation Company of Trinidad and Tobago, where in her current C-Suite role she is Vice President of Financial Sector Transformation in Trinidad & Tobago. She spoke about their mandate, projects, role and the work they are doing within Tech and Fintech ecosystem in the Country. 

She spoke about the processes and path to implementation of tech enabled  services in the public sector in the Country; a large path she said is about making people become digitally comfortable.  

Her path to entrepreneurship was not "planned" per se, however she always lived and operated in the realm of advocating for disruption. She spoke about how the idea came to her for My Cashless Class, which was triggered from a situation with her son. Where her "digital nature" prompted her to think about a solution for the said pain point she encountered. 

Dawn says My Cashless Class is the "Amazon of the school sector". She discussed how it works, the service offerings, who are the target markets and the pain points it is solving. She spoke about how she resourced her team, building out the solution and how they took it from idea to MVP (Minimum Viable Product) in phase one of the roll out.  

In essence, My Cashless Class is a platform and solution which offers the exchange of financial transactions for goods and services digitally. It provides the persons and entities within the school ecosystem; convivence and ease of doing business digitally, via a cashless safe and secure solution.

We chat about scaling beyond the Classroom, where Dawn talks about her vision for the business and solution; to take it beyond boundaries, industries and sectors. Her intention is to innovate in underserved spaces.  

How does Dawn show up in spaces to make an impact? She spoke about embracing knowledge and adding value in the places and spaces that she was in.  She said that we must have the mindset of grabbing opportunities when they present themselves, learn from it and then share it. 

Dawn is a digital disruptor, she advocates for becoming digitally comfortable, because the future and even now requires us to adopt this nature. So that we become digital citizens in this ever evolving world.