Founder stories

Miami NFT Week started as Gianni D'Alerta's idea: a conference and festival where locals and visitors alike could learn about NFTs together, in a way that reflected Miami's diversity.

Together with co-founders Ted Lucas and Erik LaPaglia, he turned it into a three-day event at Mana Wynwood. It ran for two editions, in 2022 and 2023, and hosted more than 300 speakers. In the 2023 downturn his message was simple: "Now's the time that real people build." Press at the time called the crowd "one of the most diverse yet at a technology conference."

In 1994 Ted Lucas founded Miami's Slip-N-Slide Records, home to Trick Daddy, Trina, Plies and Rick Ross. He later turned to technology as a way to close the Black and Brown wealth gap, and founded the non-profit TechNolij to support women and minorities entering tech.

At Miami NFT Week, his focus was making sure local Miamians had a seat at the table in the city's tech moment.

Erik LaPaglia is a serial entrepreneur who moved to Miami from Palo Alto early in the city's "How can I help?" moment, and quickly became an evangelist for its tech scene. Before web3 he built companies in business consulting, advertising, real estate and film production, served on more than a dozen boards, and became known for turning struggling companies into healthy ones. He was an early member of the JPEG Morgan NFT group, and an angel investor and advisor to many web3 projects.

At Miami NFT Week he opened the first day of 2022 on the main stage, and helped shape the 2023 program around four pillars: culture, metaverse, enterprise and web3. He has spoken at SALT, NFT.NYC, Paris Blockchain Summit, iConnections and NBA All-Star Weekend. Today he is Managing Partner at NextTech Ventures, focused on tokenizing real-world assets.