Badr Bellaj is a Blockchain Architect and the CTO of Mchain; a blockchain software company based in UK. He also acts as a consultant and a third-party expert, offering strategic and technical consulting for many companies and banks. Mr Bellaj is a co-author of a technical book entitled "Blockchain by Example".

Deploying Blockchain at Scale

The blockchain technology is becoming more and more popular nowadays. As a result, the transaction rate is growing rapidly, and therefore raising the challenge of scalability. This talk will illustrate how to design and deploy blockchain projects and protocols at large scale, through two examples (IoT and financial projects).

Hanane Boujemi is senior Internet policy expert with 15 years’experience in the economic and legal aspects of Internet Policy and Governance. She is the executive director of Tech Policy Tank providing market intelligence, policy analysis and bespoke advice on tech product deployment and tech services. Her work on Blockchain focuses on the policy and regulatory challenges deploying this technology. Mrs. Boujemi is a Trustee of ISOC's Blockchain Special Interest Group and is a member of ITU’s Focus Group on Application of Distributed Ledger Technology, and a member of All Party Parliamentary Group on Blockchain hosted at the UK parliament.

Policy and Regulatory Challenges to Deploying Blockchain Technology and DLT

Abdeladim Bousselam is a native of Tangier and has lived abroad since 2001. After an enriching mix of experiences during his studies, including roles like Business Engineer with Dell in France and Direct selling with the Southwestern Company in the USA, Abdeladim spent two years teaching and researching Marketing topics at the University of Lyon and another two years in the staffing industry in Switzerland.

Abdeladim joined Swiss Re in 2012 on the Graduate Programme as a Business Analyst before becoming a Project Manager in March 2014. In December 2015 he was appointed Underwriter Credit, Surety and Political Risk insurance responsible for Middle East, Africa and France. Within his extended role, Abdeladim has been involved in innovation and transformation topics including Blockchain application to the Insurance Industry.

Abdeladim received his Master's Degree in Business Administration from the University of Lyon III and completed further Executive Education modules at IMD Lausanne.

Perspectives for the Insurance Industry: Opportunities and Current Challenges

Advances in technology are affecting the insurance value chain and are reshaping the competitive landscape. According to the chairman of a leading worldwide Reinsurer "The insurance business currently operates in such a way that good risk does not actually get a good deal, we have to get closer to the risk [...] we cannot simply wait and hope for better times". DLT technology is being tested as a vehicle to make significant gains on operational efficiency, reduce the gap between risk and capital, improve information symmetry and shortening of the value chain. The industry is still scratching the surface but the journey has started!

Founder and CEO, Reda Cherqaoui has acquired professional experience in cybersecurity, ranging from banks to electronics. From an early age, Reda has helped big companies, such as Google, Hotmail, and Yahoo, Dailymotion, Cdiscount, eBay to fix vulnerabilities for free. He developed Facebook’s monitoring system “Agatha” in 2011 which exploited vulnerabilities in the social network to access accounts without password. This encouraged Reda to found Buglab, a platform that connects companies with a global network of expert cybersecurity researchers, to discover and fix vulnerabilities on their digital solutions and assets. To applaud his hard work, Reda won a French government program for international startups competition, the French tech ticket, amongst 70 contestants.

Cybersecurity on the Blockchain

Today’s computing environment is dynamic and complex. Demand for cybersecurity professionals exceeds supply as hackers develop ever more advanced schemes that target countless companies, both large and small.

Buglab will offer a unique, competitive, incentivized, and easy-to-use platform to address this widespread and growing business need. Buglab will assist companies, whether in IT, financial services, or in retail, to identify and mitigate cybersecurity gaps they may not (but should) know about.

The solution makes cybersecurity services accessible to even the very smallest enterprises that typically lack both the resources and budget to tackle cybersecurity vulnerabilities using traditional means.

Ghita is the co-founder and COO of UnitedCoin, a Miami based blockchain platform for international transfers. She has been into new technologies since 2015 where she was a consultant in Investment banking at IBM. Her financial background comes from the Magistère Finance at Sorbonne University and masters at ESSEC Business School Grande Ecole. With an international experience in Paris, New York, Singapore and mexico, she became a people and data inspired marketing leader with proven ability to drive business and growth in tech industry.

UnitedCoin or how to Democratize Digital Currency?

With the advent of Bitcoin and Blockchain, the entire world was introduced to decentralized computing. This distributed ledger provides many advantages over the older centralized systems, due to added trust and transparency but it is still inaccessible to 99% of the population because of all of the barriers of entry that comes with it.

This is UnitedCoin’s ambitious bid.

The Miami based startup founded by moroccans - UnitedCoin - provide cheap and instant transactions worldwide by using Blockchain Technology. Being fully regulated and insured helps UnitedCoin accomplish its vision to empower everyone with simple access to a beneficial financial system. They will tell you more about their journey and one of the most obvious use case of blockchain: international transactions.

Ghali El Kasri is co-founder & CTO of UnitedCoin. He has vast experience across several projects in multiple industries from entertainment, supply chain and voting. He leads a team of 15 developers and engineers working to create UnitedChain, which tackles blockchain speed and data privacy.

UnitedCoin or how to Democratize Digital Currency?

With the advent of Bitcoin and Blockchain, the entire world was introduced to decentralized computing. This distributed ledger provides many advantages over the older centralized systems, due to added trust and transparency but it is still inaccessible to 99% of the population because of all of the barriers of entry that comes with it.

This is UnitedCoin’s ambitious bid.

The Miami based startup founded by moroccans - UnitedCoin - provide cheap and instant transactions worldwide by using Blockchain Technology. Being fully regulated and insured helps UnitedCoin accomplish its vision to empower everyone with simple access to a beneficial financial system. They will tell you more about their journey and one of the most obvious use case of blockchain: international transactions.

Rick Kuhn is a computer scientist in the Computer Security Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He has co-authored three books and more than 150 conference and journal publications on information security, empirical studies of software failure, and software assurance. He co-developed the role based access control model (RBAC) used throughout industry and led the effort establishing RBAC as an ANSI standard. Previously he served as Program Manager for the President's Information Infrastructure Task Force committee on applications and technology and as manager of the Software Quality Group at NIST. Before joining NIST, he worked as a software developer for NCR Corporation and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He received an MS in computer science from the University of Maryland College Park, and MBA from William & Mary.

Rethinking Distributed Ledger Technology

Adam currently leads technology and development at both Blockscale Solutions and Blockchain Learning Group. He is a passionate engineer and educator, with a background in Mechatronic Systems and Software Engineering. He has been active in the blockchain ecosystem for several years and has been involved in a variety of initiatives spanning both software education and development globally.

His development experience includes projects varying from Decentralized Exchanges to Supply Chain to Land Registries with companies such as Oraclize and Blockscale Solutions in collaboration with several international development organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme(UNDP) and many local governments. He’s an active educator on blockchain technology, having led various workshops and courses reaching several hundred participants. Adam’s work has spanned exciting regions globally including Afghanistan, India, Thailand, Australia and North America.

Improving the People Trust in Land Registry: Cases of India and Mangolia

We believe blockchain will have a significant impact in the developing world, helping uplift the poor and marginalized.

This session features a look into the challenges of securing land ownership in India as well as sustainability issues that face Mongolia and their traditional nomadic lifestyle that fears extinction. This session will explore the current state of the land registry and cashmere value chain and introduce a blockchain powered platform aimed at addressing these issues through improved traceability, transparency, security and accountability.

Details of the platform and projects in Mongolia and India will be shared followed by applicability across industries and use cases.

Dr Diego R. Lopez joined Telefonica I+D in 2011 as a Senior Technology Expert and is currently in charge of the Technology Exploration activities within the GCTIO Unit. Diego is focused on network virtualization, infrastructural services, network management, new network architectures, and network security. Diego chairs the ETSI ISGs on Network Function Virtualization and Permissioned Distributed Ledgers.

More information at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr2lopez/

ETSI PDL – An Open Approach to DLT Operations

ETSI has recently started a new initiative focused on open mechanisms for the operation of Permissioned Distributed Ledgers, identified as the DLT with most relevant applications in the network industry and related verticals. The new PDL ISG is committed to analyze and provide the foundations for the operation of permissioned distributed ledgers, with the ultimate purpose of creating an open ecosystem of industrial solutions, fostering their adoption, and therefore contributing to consolidate the trust and dependability on information technologies supported by global, open telecommunications networks.

This talk will introduce how the ISG PDL will work to define open and well-known operational mechanisms, starting from already available experiences in the field of permissioned distributed ledgers, seeking with special emphasis for issues related to scale, security and automation.

Amr Mokhtar is a multidisciplinary networking and embedded systems engineer with 9+ years of experience in the computing & telecommunication industry. He holds BSc degree in Computer & Control Engineering, a professional diploma in embedded systems and recently a Master's degree of Electronic & Computer Engineering from Dublin City University. Amr is passionate about advanced technologies, smart systems and the Internet of Things.

Distributed Control Using Blockchain for Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT)

Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) domain allows robotic systems to execute more complex and larger scale operations with the aid of the extended compute and connectivity capabilities of the Internet of Things (IoT). Since the robotics become interconnected and heterogeneous, they inherit the traditional privacy, security and trust issues of the internet. Integrating them with the blockchain technology overcomes these drawbacks, but how the blockchain technology can enable a distributed control of robotics without infringing its real-time constraints?

This speech will explore the potential of the blockchain in factoring in the trust, security, privacy and safety features into the structure of the robotic systems. And how a distributed decision-making framework can be leveraged by the use of the blockchain-based smart contracts.

Petar Popovski is a Professor of Wireless Communications with Aalborg University. He received his Dipl. Ing and Magist. Ing. degrees in communication engineering from the University of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Skopje and the Ph.D. degree from Aalborg University in 2005. He has over 300 publications in journals, conference proceedings, and edited books. He is featured in the list of Highly Cited Researchers 2018, compiled by Web of Science. He holds over 30 patents and patent applications. He received an ERC Consolidator Grant (2015), the Danish Elite Researcher award (2016), IEEE Fred W. Ellersick prize (2016) and IEEE Stephen O. Rice prize (2018). He is currently a Member at Large at the Board of Governors in IEEE Communication Society. Prof. Popovski is a Steering Committee Member of IEEE SmartGridComm and IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GREEN COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKING. He previously served as a Steering Committee Member of the IEEE INTERNET OF THINGS JOURNAL. He is currently an Area Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS. Prof. Popovski is the General Chair for IEEE SmartGridComm 2018 and IEEE Communication Theory Workshop 2019. His research interests are in the area of wireless communication and communication theory.

Communication Aspects of the Integration of Wireless IoT Devices with Distributed Ledger Technology

The pervasive need to safely share and store information between devices calls for the replacement of centralized trust architectures with the decentralized ones. Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) are seen as the most promising enabler of decentralized trust, but they still lack technological maturity and their successful adoption depends on the understanding of the fundamental design trade-offs and their reflection in the actual technical design. This talk focuses on the challenges and potential solutions for an effective integration of DLTs in the context of Internet-of-Things (IoT). We first introduce the landscape of IoT applications and discuss the limitations and opportunities offered by DLTs. Then, we review the technical challenges encountered in the integration of resource-constrained devices with distributed trust networks. We describe the common traits of lightweight synchronization protocols, and propose a novel classification, rooted in the IoT perspective. We identify the need of receiving ledger information at the endpoint devices, implying a two-way data exchange that contrasts with the conventional uplink-oriented communication technologies intended for IoT systems.

Ramesh Ramadoss received his Bachelor of Engineering degree from Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai Kamaraj University, India in May 1998 and PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder in May 2003. From Jun. 2003 to Dec. 2007, he was employed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Auburn University, Auburn, AL. From Jan. 2008 to Mar. 2012, he was employed as a Manager at FormFactor Inc., Livermore, CA. From Apr. 2012 to May 2015, he was employed as a Senior Manager at Microprobe Inc. (Acquired by FormFactor Inc.), San Jose, CA. From Jun. 2015 to Feb. 2016, he was employed as a Technical Director at Applied Nanostructures Inc., Mountain View, CA. Currently, he is the President & CEO of BitCasas Inc., Santa Clara, CA. He is the author or coauthor of 1 book, 4 book chapters and 55 papers. He has conducted R&D projects for DARPA, NASA, US Army, US Air Force, Sandia National Labs, and Motorola Labs. In 2013, he was elevated to the grade of IEEE Senior Member. In 2014, he founded the IEEE San Francisco Bay Area MEMS & Sensors Chapter. In 2017, he was elected as the Chair of the IEEE Santa Clara Valley Section, the world’s largest IEEE Section located in the heart of Silicon Valley. He is a Co-chair of the IEEE Blockchain Initiative. He is also the Chair of the IEEE P2418.1 Blockchain Standards Working Group.

IEEE Blockchain Initiative

Jason Rupe and Ramesh Ramados are the chairs for the IEEE Blockchain Initiative, which is an activity out of the Future Directions organization. The Initiative has several activities within various facets of the initiative: events, publications, education, standards, community development, special projects, and outreach. As IEEE members, you can participate in the initiative, and take advantage of what it has to offer at the same time. Jason will explain the work going on in the initiative and how you can participate. He will explain the purpose, direction, strategy, and accomplishments of the volunteer organization, and show how you can get involved.

Dr. Jason Rupe got his Ph.D. a long time ago, conducting research on large scale systems and networks for reliability and performance modeling. He taught quality control, reliability, and even a few software and electronics courses at various universities. He has worked at USWEST Advanced Technologies, Qwest Communications, Polar Star Consulting, Tenica, and as an independent consultant to the IEEE. In these companies, he has had titles including technical staff, senior technical staff, and director; but he has always been the companies’ expert on reliability and quality. In these roles, he has been able to design or help design several networks for the government and private sector, assure broadband deployments are profitable and reliable, design solutions that meet targeted service level agreements, design and test network solutions for high reliability, and invent a few cool things too. He is heavily involved in the IEEE, in various roles at conferences, on the IEEE Reliability Society ExCom (elected), as a co-chair for the IEEE Blockchain Initiative, and as chair of IEEE Denver Section. Currently, he is the Principal Architect for Proactive Network Maintenance at CableLabs, where he is the champion for all opportunities to help the industry improve service reliability for the cable industry. He holds two patents, and is working on a bunch more.

IEEE Blockchain Initiative

Jason Rupe and Ramesh Ramados are the chairs for the IEEE Blockchain Initiative, which is an activity out of the Future Directions organization. The Initiative has several activities within various facets of the initiative: events, publications, education, standards, community development, special projects, and outreach. As IEEE members, you can participate in the initiative, and take advantage of what it has to offer at the same time. Jason will explain the work going on in the initiative and how you can participate. He will explain the purpose, direction, strategy, and accomplishments of the volunteer organization, and show how you can get involved.

Pindar Wong is the chairman of VeriFi (Hong Kong) Ltd, a discreet Internet financial infrastructure consultancy and founder of Hong Kong’s Smart Contracts Initiative that pioneered the ‘Belt and Road Blockchain’. He is a Bitcoin protocol enthusiast and volunteers to help organise ScalingBitcoin.org. He co-founded the global blockchain research network 'Bsafe' and organised Coala‘s first Blockchain Workshop in Asia. Previously, he co-founded Hong Kong’s first licensed ISP in 1993, was the first vice-chairman of ICANN, chairman of the Asia Pacific Internet Association (APIA), alternate chairman of Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), elected trustee of the Internet Society and Commissioner on the Global Commission on Internet Governance.

Mutually Assured Cooperation: Rethinking the MAC Address for the IPv6 Machine-to-Machine Economy

Since the invention of the Bitcoin protocol 10 years ago, blockchain and cryptographic hardware wallets are now emerging in mobile device such as HTC's Exodus 1 and Samsung's Galaxy S10. These devices are primarily designed where we are still driving the economy and at the center of traditional economic models of value creation. However in a world enabled by blockchain technology, the Internet of Things, IPv6 and low-latency 5G networks, a different digital economy is now possible. In this crazy world, machines become the center of new economic models, driving new forms of value creation and exchange. Enter the machine-to-machine economy where KYM (Know Your Machine) plays a pivotal role in identifying end-point integrity. Based on the Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI) portion of the traditional 48-bit MAC address, could rethinking the use of the universal/local (U/L) bit in the modified 64-bit Extended Unique Identifier (EUI-64), and the IEEE defined16-bit 0xFFFE field, hold the key to unlock a future of 'Mutually Assured Cooperation'?

Konrad Wrona currently holds a Visiting Professor position at the Military University of Technology in Warsaw, Poland. He is also a Principal Scientist at the NATO Communications and Information Agency in The Hague, The Netherlands. Konrad Wrona has over 20 years of work experience in an industrial (Ericsson Research and SAP Research) and in an academic (RWTH Aachen University, Media Lab Europe, and Rutgers University) research and development environment. He has received his M.Eng. in Telecommunications from Warsaw University of Technology, Poland in 1998, and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from RWTH Aachen University, Germany in 2005. He is an author and a co-author of over sixty publications, as well as a co-inventor of several patents. The areas of his professional interests include broad range of security issues - in communication networks, wireless and mobile applications, distributed systems, and Internet of Things. Konrad Wrona is a Senior Member of the IEEE, Senior Member of the ACM and a member of IACR.

Use of Blockchains for Military Applications

Blockchains offer an interesting solution to some of the security challenges encountered in military applications. They are particularly attractive in the scenarios, where it is difficult or even impossible to establish a common root of trust, e.g., in the context of civil-military collaboration, where military organizations need to build trusted information exchange infrastructure with various types of civilian governmental and non-governmental organizations, local communities, commercial companies and private persons. This talk discusses what are the possible advantages of using distributed ledger technology within the military operations and what are possible use cases for such use. In particular, it describes how blockchain can be used to store metadata describing information collected from the IoT devices owned by the federation members as well as crowdsourced from sensors belonging to private users.

Sajida Zouarhi is an Engineer and a Blockchain Architect @Consensys. She is also a Computer Science researcher and co-founder of HellHound, a protocol enabling blind computation on encrypted data in a decentralized environment. She is President of the eHealth and Blockchain Think Tank and a technical advisor on the board of several Blockchain projects. As the founder of the Kidner Project, she collaborated with WHO to help prevent Kidney Trafficking using Blockchain technology. She is an international Hackathon Mentor, Jury and Organizer with the Blockfest that she co-founded in 2016 in France.

Privacy By Design through Blind Computation and Blockchain Technology

This presentation will cover the challenges and opportunities regarding privacy in our current information systems. It will explain how by leveraging cryptographic methods (Blind Computation) and Blockchain technologies we could build a better internet. We will see how Privacy By Design should be implemented for Web 3.0 and what real life use cases these technologies can unlock.