2000
Max Burgio first met Michael Jackson. Michael discussed about his efforts to heal the world through music.
Celebrate healing the world
Stars to Heal is a global venture partnering with celebrities, professional sports teams, and international foundations to support worthy causes and charities worldwide through a unique blockchain-powered reward system enhanced by lottery draws.
We transform the traditional charity fundraising experience by creating an engaging way for the stars and fans to work together for social and environmental impact.
We collaborate with philanthropic leaders, iconic humanitarian artists, sports stars, and international foundations to leverage the power of celebrity and their fans to bring positive change and healing to the world.
Everyone is a true winner: the fans, the celebrity, and the charity.
Stars to Heal will run on StrongNodeEdge technology. A Node-as-a-Service software venture and innovations lab, StrongNode.io will provide a fast, secure, and scalable network for Stars to Heal. StrongNode is a Blockchain-enabled Edge networking technology which will ensure the transparency, integrity, and security of the platform creating a safe environment for celebrities and fans to focus on providing support for the people who will benefit from the charity projects.
Stars to Heal is the future of digital celebrity fundraising and philanthropy.
Our Story
2008
Max Burgio attended the 46664 Concert in Hyde Park, London as part of Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday. The concert is a way of saying thanks for the Free Nelson Mandela Concert at Wembley held in 1988. This event served as the catalyst for the inception of Max Burgio's idea for Stars to Heal - a movement that could merge the power of celebrities and lotteries for the greater good.
2008
Max Burgio met Frank Dileo, Michael Jackson's former manager, and they spoke about Lotto4Life.
2008
Max, Frank, and Michael talked about how LottoStars, a celebrity charity lottery managed by Frank Dileo, could be an amazing concept to revive and relaunch the Heal the World Foundation and also be an official sponsor for Michael's upcoming World Tour.
2009
Michael Jackson and Frank Dileo reached out to Paul Allen
2009
In Summer 2009, Michael Jackson passed away. The project was shelved for several months.
2009
By end 2009, Max reached out to his friend Paul Schindler, a famous entertainment lawyer, to seek support for the project by reaching out to other celebrities.
2010
Paul Allen confirmed support for the project.
2018
Yannis Lazaros, former senior manager at Intralot, officially came on board as a partner and lottery director.
2018
GiTech, a giant lottery provider, became a partner.
2019
Max faced a huge economic loss caused by an unfortunate circumstance related to the project.
2019
The lottery project was changed from a lottery for charity into a blockchain-powered business fundraising platform for non-profit charities enhanced by lottery draws.
2019
IBM showed an interest to be part of the project by building an innovative and exclusive blockchain platform.
2020
The COVID-19 pandemic halted some operations which caused a delay in the project.
2021
Max met with his lawyer friend Robert Hantman who connected him with StrongNode.io that expressed an interest to help build Stars to Heal. The new platform will revive the original concept, but evolving from a solely gaming-for-charity into a dynamic online donation to one's favorite celebrity foundation or charity where the donors also have the chance to gain rewards. The main sponsor will be Lotto4Life, which soon became LottoStars, and will be managed by GiTech.
2021
Stars to Heal is ready to heal the world again which has been my and my past partner's vision for years
Our Team
Max Burgio
Chief Executive Officer
Born from a well-known Sicilian family who’s famous for their Antique Art Galleries in Italy, Max’s business savvy was evident at the age of 16 when he started to work for the family business. By the age of 18, after his first trip to the F1 Grand Prix of Monaco and visiting at the famous Jimmy’s night club, Max had the idea to bring the VIP table service to the chic island of Panarea, scene of international VIPs and fashion models, which was missing a real night club. He then became a successful club owner. There he met a French financier who invited him to invest in a famous club in Paris which led him to take part in its historical night life hobnobbing with the celebrities, fashion icons and royalties in the club. When his family opened an art gallery in NYC, Max realized that it’s night life is missing the glamour of Paris. He opened up Float and accomplished something new with the Millennium “jet set”. This opened up several doors for Max and expanded his hospitality connections worldwide. At the same time, Max began his involvement with establishing an international platform to help multiple charities and good cause foundations to heal the world. Max started with Frank De Leo Lotto4Life USA which has since evolved into a project called Play4Life, an international for-profit fundraising powered by IBM Blockchain platform.
Yannis A. Lazaros
Chief Gaming Officer
A motivated Business Development, IT and Gaming Operations for 20+ years, Yannis is the Managing Director of Lotto4Life since December 2016. His experience spans five continents in terms of various aspects of Business Development and Operations in Gaming. He is credited for his operational excellence based on strong analytical, financial, and compliance IT background.
Paul Schindler
Celebrity Legal Advisor
Paul D. Schindler is the Senior Chair of the New York Entertainment and Media Practice. Paul and Allen Grubman established a law firm in May 1974 and were joined shortly thereafter by Arthur Indursky. Together they formed the law firm of Grubman Indursky & Schindler, P.C. Over the years, Paul Schindler has served as counsel to numerous award-winning, multi-platinum musical artists, producers, record labels, and various types of entertainment companies.
Robert Hantman
Chief Legal Officer
Founding partner of Hantman & Associates, Mr. Hantman specializes in civil-commercial – including FINRA and SEC matters – and selective criminal litigation. He has served as counsel to both public and private companies and was outside counsel to the Colombian Consulate for over 14 years.
Mr. Hantman has successfully handled countless high-profile cases, including law suits involving Montel Williams, the New York Yankees (jury verdict of over $1 million dollars), Steven Seagal, Trump Model Management, Rick Ross, Fabio, Next, Ford Model Management, Next, DNA, Magic Johnson, One West, Don King Productions, Rampage Jackson, Vladimir Klitsko, Shelly Finkel, “Snooki”, Gary Shaw, Danny De Vito, Anna Nicole Smith, Pro Elite, Lighthouse Financial Group, John Thomas Financial, and many others.
Vera Futorjanski
COMMITTEE CHAIR
Vera Futorjanski is on the Expert Group on Digital Platforms for the World Economic Forum, an Innovation Expert at the UN, and a Responsible Leader at the BMW Foundation. Most recently, she was Director of Innovation for the global Venture Capital firm 500 Startups in charge of corporate innovation in the Middle East and Russia. Prior to joining 500Startups, Vera was with the Dubai Future Foundation, where as well as being the head of global communications, Before joining the Prime Minister’s Office, Vera was with Rocket Internet Berlin. She serves as a Global Ambassador for Vital Voices, a Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright NGO that works with women leaders. Vera completed her MSc at the London School of Economics. Vera has lived in 10 countries and is fluent in five languages.
Nico Losito
Ambassador
IBM Vice President driving the “IBM Technology Unit” that includes the following business of IBM Italy: Software, Hardware, Cloud, Security, Professional and Technical Services, Channel Ecosystem and Digital sales.
Nico Losito is an experienced executive with a demonstrated history of successful results in digital transformation, exponential technologies and services industry. Nico is also deeply skilled in Enterprise Software and Cloud, IT Strategy Transformation, P&L Management.
Boris Becker
Sports Star Ambassador
Boris Franz Becker is one of the most successful tennis players of all time. At the age of 17, he was the youngest player to have won the Wimbledon men’s singles championship. He was also the first unranked player and the only German ever to have won this title. Becker also won five Grand Slam championships, 13 Masters Series titles, three Open era finals (ATP Tour Finals, WCT Finals, Grand Slam Cup) and the Olympic gold medal in doubles.
Since his retirement, Becker has been engaged in expanding his chain of business, the Boris Becker Sports that sells tennis equipment and apparel.
Stars to Heal is incubated and powered by the StrongNode Team
Daniel Saito
Co-Founder &
Chief Executive Officer
Daniel is an internationally recognized serial entrepreneur and a renowned figure in Japan’s tech scene. He brings well over 20 years of entrepreneurial experience to the team. Daniel has worked for numerous Fortune 100 companies notably, NTT Docomo R&D where he authored hardware, software, and protocol specifications for encrypted communications.
Colin Charles
Chief Technology Officer
Colin Charles is a Consultant at Codership, the makers of Galera Cluster. Previously, Colin was on the founding team of MariaDB Server, and has been around the MySQL ecosystem including being an early employee at MySQL, and worked actively on the Fedora and OpenOffice.org projects. Colin has been a MySQL user since 2000.
Gil Bashan
Chief Product Officer
Gil Bashan has 15+ years of success spanning across different disciplines in the tech space and non-profit world. He is a blockchain evangelist who believes that world problems can be solved with technology. He loves finding solutions to business problems and is doing so at Adobe, where over the last 9 years he has been working with some of the largest global brands and agencies such as L’Oreal, Barclays, 3M, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, AllState, and many others. He is an Engineer Manager at Adobe, but has held many roles across the business and technology side of the house, through IPO and acquisition of TubeMogul Inc. Before Adobe, he was Technology and Digital Media Manager at Our City Forest, an Urban Forestry non-profit, greenifying our concrete jungles.
Craig Edelman
Chief Financial Officer
Corporate CFO Craig Edelman previously managed over $20B in global M&A at PwC before he oversaw $1+ billion in sales for leading consumer companies Mr. Coffee, Crock Pot, and The Clorox Corporation. He graduated from Wharton 1995 and Cornell Graduate School in 2000.
Carmen Campo
Chief Marketing Officer
LDJ Capital Director for Corporate Communications and Media Operations. She has worked for and with global brands like Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Intertek, Levi’s, Marks & Spencer, JCPenney, Nordstrom, Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Disney, McDonald’s, Forbes, Wall Street Journal. She is a media, communications, and social media marketing specialist for almost a decade with The Soho Loft Media Group and sister holdings The Soho Loft Productions/Conferences, Victoria Global Communications, and Times Impact Publications.
Zivago Lee
VP TECHNICAL OPERATIONS
Zivago has 20+ years of experience in node systems engineering and node network operations with his roles at SoftAware Networks Inc. (acquired by Digital Island for $438M), leading programs on datacenter buildouts for the 2008 Beijing Olympics with Ticketmaster and at Zynga (ZNGA). Zivago has recently been leading DevOps/SRE teams and is currently at SPIN Scooters, a Ford subsidiary, providing micromobility solutions.
Evan Kubes
VP ESPORTS MANAGEMENT
Evan Kubes is the President of Rumble Gaming and co-founder of MKM Group, recognized as Canada’s first and one of the world’s most influential law firms dedicated to esports and content creators. Evan is considered a thought leader in the industry, often featured in publications like Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, and Global News. He has also been recognized as a top influencer manager and esports agent by Business Insider.
Brandon Sivret
VP FOR COMMUNITY OPERATIONS
Retired US Airforce Major and Intelligence Officer Brandon Sivret is also the General Manager for OGL.tv and a game developer. During two deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia, he served as an advisor to the NATO and Gulf partners in close coordination with the Office of Vice President Biden.
Brandon serves as Executive Officer for a 5000 US Military gaming community – MilitaryGamers.com – where he often games with both his parents. An interview of them airs in the new #DieHardBirdie documentary Fall 2021.
Lionel Iruk
Legal Officer, North America
Lionel has been involved in international asset development projects throughout the Continental United States, Europe, and South East Asia since 2008. His practice focuses on international wealth management, corporate structures, international business compliance, immigration law, corporate, tax, Financial Technology/ Bitcoin Law, Gaming, and issues affecting non-profit organizations and charitable institutions.
Rafael Angelo Padilla
LEGAL OFFICER, ASIA
Rafael Padilla is a commercial lawyer who specializes in financial technology, crypto assets, and blockchain. He works with many of the blockchain projects and financial technology startups in the Philippines and the Asia Pacific, serving their legal, regulatory, and compliance requirements. He is also a special consultant of the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone Authority (APECO) on financial technology and digital assets. He co-founded the Blockchain Association of the Philippines (2018), a non-profit group that represents the interests of the local blockchain community, and the Fintech Philippines Association (2017). In 2019, he co-founded Block Devs Asia, Inc., a professional association of blockchain developers. He authored the book “Fintech: Law & First Principles” published by Rex Publishing in 2020.
Diederik Van Der Reijt
CAPITAL MARKETS
Diederik is an entrepreneur and investor with over 18 years experience in finance and start ups. He has invested in over 25 companies with several successful exits. Diederik has successfully raised for public and private companies in a wide range of sectors including sustainable water solutions, technology platforms, security, wearables, consumer devices, and cannabis. He has a focus on maintaining high Environmental, Social and Governance standards in the portfolio companies he invests in. Diederik is a passionate advisor and mentor to young entrepreneurs. He has Built his global network by living on 5 different continents over the last 20 years. He supports philanthropic causes including cancer research and access to the arts for children.
Rika Nakazawa
COMMUNICATIONS
Rika has worked internationally for over two decades in senior executive roles on strategy, business development, and marketing with Fortune 500 companies – NVIDIA, Sony, Accenture, American Express – and Silicon Valley startups. She is a technology industry veteran and has served on multiple venture boards in next-generation computing and artificial intelligence ecosystems. senior leader, entrepreneur, investor, and frequent public speaker on technology-powered business transformation. Currently, she is the CEO and Founder of BoardSeatMeet, Inc. a Silicon Valley, social impact venture, focusing on diversifying the board room, and is also Vice President and Client Partner at Conduent, a $4B revenue global BPO provider to Fortune 100 companies. Rika Nakazawa grew up in Japan and moved to the US initially to attend Princeton University and is trilingual in Japanese, German, and English.
Eliza Hayashi
PAYMENT SERVICES
Eliza has more than 10 years diverse leading management professional experiences in the Financial Services / Technology industry. At MasterCard, she worked as a program manager in charge of loyalty (Japan/ China/ Australia) and as a marketing manager in charge of sponsorship and digital marketing. At JCB, a top 1 market share credit card company in Japan, she had a rich working experience in business development for the Japan market (B2B, B2C) and overseas (North America and Middle East – B2B)
Natalia Sokolova
INVESTOR RELATIONS
Natalia brings over 15 years of entrepreneur experience and strong strategic relationships in both domestic and international arenas. She is a second generation Single Family Office. Her family office was founded in early 90s, with a primary focus in Oil & Gas in Europe and Russia. Ms. Sokolova founded SGG World LLC (Strategic Guidance Group) in 2006. She is very active in the family office world and in 2018 Natalia entered the world of gaming and esports and in 2019 together with the founder of WHAM Gary Kleinman, Natalia founded Skinz.gg – a platform dedicated to the lifestyle and wellness of gamers.
StrongNode Advisors
Craig Sellars
Founder of Tether
Craig Sellars leads the development of global blockchain innovations as the inventor of the stablecoin, the digital US dollar on top of the Bitcoin blockchain as a founder of Tether, the world’s most broadly traded cryptocurrency (now acting as an informal advisor since his departure in 2016) and as the Chief Technologist of Bitcoin’s Omni Layer, a protocol which supports the creation, movement and exchange of digital assets. His current development focus is on the creation of open-source decentralized identity protocols and applications.
Manmeet Singh
Vice-Chairman of Cardano Foundation
As Vice-Chairman of Cardano Foundation and Blockchain Europe, Manmeet is a beacon in the blockchain industry. On both fronts and as Managing Partner of Blockseed Ventures Ltd, Manmeet is a renowned prime mover and builder of the decentralized economy, mentoring and investing in teams and businesses that define the adoption and advancement of blockchain applications and technologies. Manmeet brings cultural sensitivity and business wisdom to the team based on his decades of experience in finance, education, investment, and mentoring businesses getting into China and Asian as well as European markets.
Yasin Qureshi
FOUNDER NAGA & VARENGOLD BANK
Yasin founded Europe’s largest social trading platform, NAGA. It went public June 2017 on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and successfully made a crypto offering for $50M. NAGA´s shareholders are China’s largest private conglomerate; FOSUN ($95B Market Cap) and one of Germany´s oldest bank Hauck & Aufhaeuser (founded 1796).
Previously 2007, he IPO’d Varengold Bank AG and ran it as Germany’s youngest bank CEO. Its offices were in London, Dubai and Hong Kong. Today he launches Aqua Digital Rising, a data analytics company, focused on trading the value of athletes and celebrities.
Testimonials
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Stars to Heal is pioneering a new fundraising platform for charities and humanitarian projects worldwide by integrating blockchain technologies.