About Ivy

Hello friend or possible friend!

Ivy Astrix is a remarkable example of the human ability to thrive even in the midst of chaos. She has an incredibly diverse background of interests and accomplishments that makes her a valued thought leader in areas such as web3, cannabis and psychedelics. Her experience spans being a cannabis industry executive, senior technology architect, and independent journalist.

Media

Ivy has been featured in print media, and is also an experienced public speaker and panel moderator. She has been interviewed and been a featured panelist by organizations like the Canadian Securities Exchange, Deloitte, and COP26. She often speaks at cannabis and psychedelic industry conferences on the topics of regulatory matters, career paths, and diversity as it applies to the LGBTQ+ community within the cannabis and psychedelic industries.

Print

Pride during a pandemic - https://ca.style.yahoo.com/pride-in-the-pandemic-covid-was-kick-out-of-the-closet-224931911.html

LGBTQ2IA+: What The Legal Cannabis World Needs Now Is More Inclusion https://kindmagazine.ca/article/lgbtq2ia-cannabis-inclusion

How Psychedelics Help with Gender Identity and Transition - https://doubleblindmag.com/psychedelics-transgender/

Compassionate Psilocybin Access, a Callback to Medical Cannabis Regulation? - https://cannabisandpsychosis.ca/compassionate-psilocybin-access-a-call-back-to-medical-cannabis-regulation/

Speaking

Moderator, Social Challenges of The Psychedelic Movement -

Panelist, Breaking Into the Psychedelic Industry

Professional Experience

Ivy has 18 years of experience in the tech industry, ranging from industrial automation development to solutions architecture and information security. She has been a long-time advocate for medical cannabis and activist for repairing the harms of the drug war. In 2018, she contributed to a presentation that was made to the Canadian Senate on behalf of the Cannabis Trade Alliance of Canada. She developed a reputation as an accurate and insightful independent journalist, often live-tweeting cannabis industry conferences.

In that same year, through a DM sent to a Twitter connection who just happened to be a CEO, Ivy made the jump from tech to the burgeoning legalized cannabis industry and joined Tantalus Labs. She quickly rose to an executive position, being named Vice President, Regulatory Affairs in under a year. In this capacity, she managed the company’s regulatory and compliance portfolio’s, managed government relations with all levels of local, provincial, and federal governments, and architected the company’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) program. One of her key accolades was acquiring one of Canada’s first ‘sensory testing’ licences for Tantalus, which allowed producers to administer cannabis products in the R&D phase to trial participants.

Ivy’s other interests include community building and the emergent web3 space. She created and curated the Clubhouse ‘Testflighter’ community of the platform’s first 10,000 users, has worked with the Burning Man project to create their first cultural impact wiki, and is a core member of an emergent DAO (to be announced soon!)

Transitioning During A Pandemic

Ivy has known for a long time that her true gender was that of female, and in March of 2020 she came out publicly via a blog post and tweet. Her story involves utilizing psychedelics to help unchain herself from years of having a false gender imposed upon her.

Subsequently, she has added trans issues to her activist portfolio, and has been featured in outlets such as KIND magazine, Double Blind magazine and Yahoo News.

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People

Veteran of being very online, cannabis and psychedelics expert.