Kaja Wasik, PhD, previously co-founded Gencove and Variant Bio that collected one of the most comprehensive and diverse human health and genetics databases in the world. There, she implemented the first benefit-sharing model in biotech: 4% of the company’s equity and 4% of its revenue were returned to partner communities. Kaja is now focussing her efforts, and experience in research and data governance, on protecting our critical infrastructure – nature. Kaja holds a PhD from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and maintained an active academic profile as a visiting scholar at Princeton University and adjunct professor at the J. Craig Venter Genomics Institute.