Zain Zaidi, 21
Founder and CEO, TransCrypts
Location: Fremont
Education: B.S. in electrical and electronics engineering from San Jose State University
Resume: Account assistant at a family-run company, intern at JP Morgan investment bank
Hobbies: Post pandemic: Hiking, mountain climbing, basketball, hanging out with his parents and sister. Pre-pandemic: Traveling to places in Turkey, Europe, Singapore and the Middle East.
Zain Zaidi is looking to transform how people apply for jobs via blockchain technology. The founder of TransCrypts, which hosts employment documents on the digital ledger system, argues that the current way of verifying employment documents is outdated and dysfunctional.
“There’s no good way of storing verified documents digitally,” Zaidi said. “If it gets on the blockchain, you can’t lie about it.”
The company aims to get important files such as college transcripts, employment, income verification documents and even Covid-19 vaccination passports uploaded to the blockchain, where they can be securely stored and accessible to whoever needs them.
“The potential for this is in a lot of different applications,” Zaidi said.
TransCrypts now has 45 beta customers, including Zoom and Urban Outfitters, and is raising money to grow its team and platform to expand beyond employment verification documents. Right now, the company has nine employees, most of whom work in software and cybersecurity.
“We don’t want people's medical records to get leaked on the Internet,” Zaidi said. “This would be a lot more secure and safe.”
He said he was motivated to start his own business by his parents. His mother is from Pakistan and his father is from India. His family lost their home during the Great Recession, which inspired him to pursue a role that could ensure greater financial independence and security.
“Both my parents are immigrants, so they didn’t even know the loans they were signing,” Zaidi said. “That kind of put in my mind, ‘Hey, I gotta get my family out of this cycle that we’re in.’”
The pandemic provided Zaidi a great opportunity to dedicate his time and energy into the new venture, which he founded last year.
“I had nothing else to do, so let me put all my time into this,” he said. “It slowly, but steadily, came alive.”
