Sinclair Matthew Skinner (born May 31, 1969) is an American engineer, human rights activist, political adviser, serial entrepreneur and former elected official in Washington, D.C. He is a Bitcoin and Blockchain Technology evangelist and an advocate of the advancement of African communities in relation to the African Diaspora. He holds a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Howard University and is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. Skinner was first elected to public office in 1998 as an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner in Washington, D.C.’s Ward 1 neighborhood. He is currently the co-founder and CEO of Pan African Bitcoin startup Bitmari. Early life Born 1969 in Great Falls Montana and raised by his father, a US Air Force officer, and his mother, a dedicated housewife. In 1987 he enrolled in Alabama’s Tuskegee University, he was eventually elected President of the University’s Student Government Association. In 1993 the Skinner led a student protest of the “oppressive and misguided policies common at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU’s)”, and organized African-Americans throughout the south in HBCU preservation efforts and demonstrations. Skinner's campus activism would force him to leave Tuskegee University and transfer to Howard University to continue his goal of becoming an engineer. Activism In the summer of 1995 while at Howard, Skinner helped organize students nationally for the Million Man March, the largest all male march ever held in the United States with an estimated million African-American men in attendance. While at Howard, Skinner and Nik Eames worked with civil-rights giant Lawrence Guyot, who encouraged them to get involved in local politics in Washington, DC, ultimately leading them to run and win positions as advisory neighborhood commissioners—while still students. After graduating from Howard University, Skinner purchased a former crack house across the street from Howard, and organized his neighbors to help eliminate drug trafficking on the block. In 1999, Skinner opened the Georgia Avenue Kleaners which eventually grew to a chain of four locations. The dry-cleaners was not a financial success, but Skinner's success and reputation as a philanthropist grew within the Washington, DC African-American community. In 2005, Skinner led a group of Howard University students and area residents in an effort to paint over gang-related graffiti in the neighborhood with a mural depicting Black historical leaders on a Howard University-owned wall near Howard's Georgia Avenue campus. The wall–which several university students and residents had complained about for years–took two weeks