Kaream Badillo: from bank executive to builder in one year
Kaream entered Web3 knowing nothing, won the Tellus Ideathon, and a year later was hacking in Brazil and Argentina. Her story shows what an open door can make possible.
Kaream Badillo is from Chile's Metropolitan Region. “I am someone who likes to learn and have new experiences in a responsible and ethical way,” she says.
She used to be a bank executive and also managed some personal investments. “Money as a tool for freedom, and for choosing what to do with my time, was what moved me.”
She came to blockchain through Generación Vector 24, a program at USACH's Innovation Center where Web3 came up. What first caught her attention was learning that money is programmable and that Web3 is a decentralized, international system that runs alongside the traditional one.
The Future Is Cooperative
She encountered Stellar when she met Tellus, while she was new to the ecosystem. It was a group creating ideas and taking action, and the words on their T-shirt stayed with her: “The Future Is Cooperative.”
She met Bastián and Pau Koh. She says they treated her well without asking for anything in return.
She joined the ambassador program. Through the community, she heard about an Ideathon organized by Tellus. The call for the 2025 Ideathon sought ideas connecting Stellar to real problems; Kaream brought hers.
AhorroStellar
She presented AhorroStellar: an educational DeFi app where students save, support university projects with their stake, and build a reputation while learning DeFi safely. She wanted to address the problem of wanting to invest when you are young and have little money, while minimizing risk and fostering community.
“Winning felt more like curiosity than euphoria: I wanted to know what would happen next,” she says.
The builder moment had come on her first day encountering Web3. Although she had programmed before, that day she wanted to take it up again because the space was decentralized and she could create more freely. When she won the Ideathon, she focused and took it more seriously.
Brazil, Argentina, Malta
“I had my first international experience in Web3,” she says. “I learned that I had to get serious about programming to move forward on firmer ground. I came back with an expanded mind, motivation, and a reworked strategy for moving forward.”
Then came a residency in Argentina with Dev3pack, an international community of women in tech, and a Polkadot scholarship to take part in a hackathon and join its community. She applied to Dev3pack after winning the Ideathon: they assessed her profile and took a chance on her. Malta for English, now Switzerland, and soon Germany.
“What drives me is to keep having new experiences that give me something, to live my life, and to keep learning,” she says. The hardest decision was, and still is, sacrificing time to be productive, given the learning curve that comes with emigrating and immersing herself further in technology. Her Stoic maxim, she says, is that the only defeat is death.
In one year, everything changed together: what she knew, what she did, and the people around her.
What the path asks of her
“Tellus gave me a way into Web3 when I knew nothing, and a community where everyone is respectfully welcome,” she says. Chile's ecosystem, she says, needs more communities like Tellus: spaces that help and encourage people to progress without trying to control them.
That is the open door. Then she names what is missing.
“And objectively, there need to be more women. I'm used to it by now, but having to prepare mentally for the usual discomfort of harassment and denigration in male spaces when you want to take part in a real, technical way discourages women who truly want to build. That was not the case at Tellus at all; it was a very safe space, with genuine respect at every moment.”
And she names the price she paid.
“I gave up my stable, well-paid job, along with my comfort zone, because I was bored and needed new challenges,” she says. “I didn't hesitate. I've always preferred a life that is more complex but challenging for my personal growth. I know I'm starting over, that I'm still in the process, but whatever the outcome, I know I'll have new experiences, and whether I want to or not, I'll learn a lot. That's something I truly enjoy: being better than I was yesterday so I can give my best.”
For someone reading this in Chile who wants to try but has not quite dared, her message is simple: “It's better to try than to do nothing. What matters most is the desire to do it, and if you don't have it, the community helps you find it.” The door remains open.
