Keynote Speakers

AMR EL ABBADI, DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA.

DEMYSTIFYING BLOCKCHAINS: DECENTRALIZED AND FAULT-TOLERANT STORAGE FOR THE FUTURE OF BIG DATA? (in collaboration with: Divy Agrawal, Mohammad Amiri, Sujaya Maiyya, Victor Zakhary)

Abstract

Bitcoin is a successful and interesting example of a global scale peer-to-peer cryptocurrency that integrates many techniques and protocols from cryptography, distributed systems, and databases. The main underlying data structure is blockchain, a scalable fully replicated structure that is shared among all participants and guarantees a consistent view of all user transactions by all participants in the cryptocurrency system. The novel aspect of Blockchain is that historical data about all transactions is maintained in the absence of any central authority. This property of Blockchain has given rise to the possibility that future applications will transition from centralized databases to a fully decentralized storage based on blockchains. In this talk, we start by developing an understanding of the basic protocols used in blockchain, and elaborate on their main advantages and limitations. To overcome these limitations, we will explore some of the challenges of managing large scale fully replicated ledgers in the context of achieving large scale consensus. Finally, we ponder over recent efforts to use blockchains in diverse applications.

Bio

Amr El Abbadi is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his B. Eng. from Alexandria University, Egypt, and his Ph.D. from Cornell University. Prof. El Abbadi is an ACM Fellow, AAAS Fellow, and IEEE Fellow. He was Chair of the Computer Science Department at UCSB from 2007 to 2011. He has served as a journal editor for several database journals, including, The VLDB Journal, IEEE Transactions on Computers and The Computer Journal. He has been Program Chair for multiple database and distributed systems conferences. He currently serves on the executive committee of the IEEE Technical Committee on Data Engineering (TCDE) and was a board member of the VLDB Endowment from 2002 to 2008. In 2007, Prof. El Abbadi received the UCSB Senate Outstanding Mentorship Award for his excellence in mentoring graduate students. In 2013, his student, Sudipto Das received the SIGMOD Jim Gray Doctoral Dissertation Award. Prof. El Abbadi is also a co-recipient of the Test of Time Award at EDBT/ICDT 2015. He has published over 300 articles in databases and distributed systems and has supervised over 35 PhD students.

DAVID GALINDO, HEAD OF CRYPTOGRAPHY, FETCH.AI.

ON THE NEED FOR FORMAL AND EFFECTIVE INTERNAL GOVERNANCE MECHANISMS IN PERMISSIONLESS BLOCKCHAINS

Abstract

With the birth and rise of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, and its advanced variant Ethereum offering added functionalities such as a smart-contracts, the concept of blockchain has been popularised. Blockchains are software artefacts that bring the promise of facilitating radically new governmental and commercial applications, mainly thanks to their nature as trust-enabling tools, to the extent that commentators have claimed that improved societal organisation forms will be possible thanks to them, where human corruption and instability will be reduced to a minimum. Taking into consideration this ar-reaching goal, we perform a critical examination of the following question: can existing blockchain communities mechanisms and procedures for collective decision-making (which we refer to as internal blockchain governance), live up to those ambitions? By building on scholar literature on governance and law, we argue that if permissionless blockchain systems do not build internal governance mechanisms founded on formalised and effective social mechanisms, then they are unlikely to be taken up at scale as a tool for social coordination, and are thus likely to remain, at best, a marginal technology. This is based on joint work with Prof Karen Yeung, University of Birmingham.

Bio

Dr David Galindo is currently Head of Cryptography at Fetch.AI, a digital economics and artificial intelligence startup based in Cambridge UK, and Associate Professor in Computer Security at the University of Birmingham. David has more than 15 years of experience in applied cryptography research, both in academia and industry. His work has been published in top academic venues in computer security and has been deployed by governments around the globe.

STEPHANIE HURDER, PARTNER AND FOUNDING ECONOMIST OF PRYSM GROUP.

ECONOMICS AND BLOCKCHAIN: BEYOND TOKENS

Abstract

In this talk, Dr. Stephanie Hurder will discuss why a holistic approach to economic design -- including insights from fields as diverse as social choice theory, game theory, contract theory, and market design -- is essential for blockchain organizations. Dr. Hurder will discuss how major tech companies such as Microsoft, Google, and eBay have leveraged these insights for over a decade to improve the performance of their marketplaces, and discuss areas of blockchain and economics that are ripe for future innovation.

Bio

Dr. Stephanie Hurder is a Partner and Founding Economist of Prysm Group, a firm that specializes in economic and governance design for distributed ledger-based projects. She is a frequent keynote speaker and lecturer on economics and DLT, including Consensus, SXSW, Polychain Capital, and the IBM Blockchain Accelerator. Her research on the economics of blockchain has been presented at Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley, DARPA, and the Federal Reserve of Cleveland. Dr. Hurder is an advisor to blockchain projects at the World Economic Forum, a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and the Internet of Things at USC, and a contributor to the MIT Cryptoeconomics Lab blog. Prior to co-founding Prysm Group, Dr. Hurder held economics research positions at MIT Sloan and Merrill Lynch. While a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group, Dr. Hurder was selected as an Ambassador to the BCG Henderson Institute and co-authored multiple publications on organizational effectiveness and design. Dr. Hurder holds an AB in Mathematics Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude, an AM in Economics, and a PhD in Business Economics from Harvard University.

GIL PEREZ, SAP SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, HEAD OF DIGITAL CUSTOMER INITIATIVES.

ENTERPRISE BLOCKCHAIN IS TRANSFORMING THE GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN TODAY !!

Abstract

In this talk, Mr. Perez will describe the Enterprise Blockchain journey over 100 companies embark on with SAP across Agriculture, Seafood, CPG, Pharma and Retail in the last 36 months. From initial innovations concepts, thorough pilots to live production systems compliant to FDA regulations. What are the challenges that each industry/company faced? what were the drivers for the transformation and lesson learned? Where are we today? and how far are we from Blockchain becoming an integral part of any modern supply chain solution?

Bio

Gil Perez is SAP Senior Vice President, Head of Digital Customer Initiatives. Gil is a member of the SAP SE executive team and has lead SAP global Blockchain efforts across all of SAP Products & Innovations teams. Gil has over 20 years of experience in enterprise software and new product introduction for multiple vertical industries while working at SAP and numerous startups. Gil brings a rich and diverse background as a co-founder, investor and senior executive in 5 companies which were acquired. Three of the five companies were acquired by SAP AG. Gil is based in Palo Alto, CA

SARABJEET (JAY) SINGH, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTS AT ORACLE.

BRINGING ENTERPRISE TO BLOCKCHAIN—MOVING FROM SCIENCE EXPERIMENT TO BUSINESS MAINSTREAM

Abstract

You hear about blockchain, IoT, and artificial intelligence at every turn, but how much is hype and how much is real? These technologies offer the potential to fundamentally alter the arc of business, jobs, and society at large. Blockchain offers the promise of increased trust and accountability; IoT enables unprecedented connectivity between devices, machines, and people; and artificial intelligence delivers prediction with precision. In this session explore the impact of these exciting technologies for businesses and learn about their value to enterprise applications. You will also hear about customers that are using blockchain, IoT, and AI to transform their businesses today.

Bio

Sarabjeet (Jay) Singh is a Senior Director of Products at Oracle, responsible for PaaS offerings in the area of Autonomous Cloud, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and IoT. He has over 19 years of industry experience in Software Development, Product Management, and Marketing working in companies such as VMware, Pivotal Software, Cisco Systems, SunGard Availability Services, and many venture-backed Startups in SF Bay Area. He holds an MBA from Haas School of Business, U.C. Berkeley, M.S. Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech, and B.Tech from NSIT (University of Delhi, India).

EREZ WAISBARD, RESEARCHER AT BELL LABS.

BLOCKS OF TRUST – USING THE BLOCKCHAIN TO BUILD TRUST IN IOT

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) carries a big promise, to improve our lives through numerous connected devices. At the same time, it also presents new security challenges. One of the biggest challenges for the Internet of Things (IoT) is the establishing of trust as the traditional PKI model does not fit with the heterogeneous IoT ecosystem. Another big challenge arises from the questionable security of many of these devices that are becoming targets of choice for numerous exploits. Exploits that leads to compromising the networks to which they connect. In this talk we will show how the blockchain can be used to build a new distributed trust model that answers these challenges.

Bio

Dr. Erez Waisbard is a researcher at Bell Labs. His main research interests include: Blockchain technology, IoT, Privacy, Networking and Algorithms. Before joining Bell Labs Erez was a security architect at Cisco\NDS where he specialized in IoT security and content protection. Erez holds a PhD from Bar-Ilan university and M.Sc from the Weizmann Institute of Science.

INGO WEBER, DATA61, COMMONWEALTH SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH ORGANISATION (CSIRO), SYDNEY.

Software Architecture and Engineering for Blockchain Applications

Abstract

Blockchain is a novel distributed ledger technology, which has attracted a wide range of interests for building the next generation of applications in almost all industry sectors. The broad range of applications is made possible by smart contracts, which transform a blockchain system into a general compute platform. For this new paradigm and technology platform, we investigated its impact on software architecture and engineering practices. Our starting point for this investigation was the question “what do architects and engineers need to know about blockchain to make good use of it?” In this keynote, I will cover the main insights from this work, recently summarized in the book “Architecture for Blockchain Applications”, Springer, 2019.

Bio

Dr Ingo Weber is a Principal Research Scientist & Team Leader of the Architecture & Analytics Platforms (AAP) team at Data61, CSIRO in Sydney. In addition he is a Conjoint Associate Professor at UNSW Australia and an Adjunct Associate Professor at Swinburne University. He has published around 100 refereed papers and two books. A third book, “Architecture for Blockchain Applications”, will be published by Springer in late 2018. The AAP team led by Dr Weber tackles major challenges around applications based on Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies, approaching the topic from the areas of software architecture and engineering, business process management, and dependability.