YOU ARE INVITED TO ATTEND THE DURHAM BLOCKCHAIN CONFERENCE 2018
Pioneering blockchain action in the North-East
10th February, 10am-5pm + Networking Drinks
Durham Business School, Room MHL403
Mill Lane, Durham - DH1 3LB
VISION
Entrepreneurs Durham envisages this conference as the spark of the creation of an interconnected hub of blockchain enthusiasts in the North East. The UK is the digital capital of Europe, according to Tech Nation 2017, and it’s on a north-facing trajectory, with Newcastle home to 22% of the UK’s high growth firms, and 211 start-up births in the past year. The vision of this conference is to show that neither geography nor gender (nor anything else) can stop us from being ambitious and creative about the future. Blockchain has the potential to facilitate the creation of more secure, distributed and transparent systems, ranging from finance to identity, aid to governance, healthcare to the environment, and beyond. We welcome students, developers, entrepreneurs, SMEs and larger companies from all over the North-East and Scotland to build a blockchain community. Utilise this pioneering technology both to generate creative and innovative business and solve entrenched global problems.
MISSION
With blockchain and cryptocurrencies a confusing controversy in the news, it’s difficult to get the facts straight. The mission of this conference is to inform about blockchain’s successful use cases to date, its exciting potential for the future, and to facilitate critical insight into its toughest challenges. The morning will entail an introduction to blockchain, the evolution of cryptocurrencies and a focus on its possibilities in the financial sector, while the focus of the afternoon is blockchain’s applications and potential for social impact, supply chains, identity, governance, and the environment. With a range of prestigious speakers delivering presentations and feisty panel debates, a developers’ workshop, sponsors’ trade stands, plenty of networking opportunities, not to mention the 200 curious minds of fellow attendees, it will be an engaging, challenging and inspiring day.
Pioneering blockchain action in the North-East
10th February, 10am-5pm + Networking Drinks
Durham Business School, Room MHL403
Mill Lane, Durham - DH1 3LB
VISION
Entrepreneurs Durham envisages this conference as the spark of the creation of an interconnected hub of blockchain enthusiasts in the North East. The UK is the digital capital of Europe, according to Tech Nation 2017, and it’s on a north-facing trajectory, with Newcastle home to 22% of the UK’s high growth firms, and 211 start-up births in the past year. The vision of this conference is to show that neither geography nor gender (nor anything else) can stop us from being ambitious and creative about the future. Blockchain has the potential to facilitate the creation of more secure, distributed and transparent systems, ranging from finance to identity, aid to governance, healthcare to the environment, and beyond. We welcome students, developers, entrepreneurs, SMEs and larger companies from all over the North-East and Scotland to build a blockchain community. Utilise this pioneering technology both to generate creative and innovative business and solve entrenched global problems.
MISSION
With blockchain and cryptocurrencies a confusing controversy in the news, it’s difficult to get the facts straight. The mission of this conference is to inform about blockchain’s successful use cases to date, its exciting potential for the future, and to facilitate critical insight into its toughest challenges. The morning will entail an introduction to blockchain, the evolution of cryptocurrencies and a focus on its possibilities in the financial sector, while the focus of the afternoon is blockchain’s applications and potential for social impact, supply chains, identity, governance, and the environment. With a range of prestigious speakers delivering presentations and feisty panel debates, a developers’ workshop, sponsors’ trade stands, plenty of networking opportunities, not to mention the 200 curious minds of fellow attendees, it will be an engaging, challenging and inspiring day.
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10AM 10:15AM 11AM 11:45 12 Midday 12:30 - 1:30 1:30PM 2PM 2:30PM 3:30PM 4PM 4:20 5PM 5:15PM 5:30PM |
THE DAY
Welcome and Introduction Anna Murphy, Head of DBC Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies: Intro Rob Knight, Founder of Mattereum Panel Discussion: Cryptocurrencies and ICOs: Where are we now? Rob Knight, Founder at Mattereum, Liam Gill, MSc student and CEO of Ichor Technologies, Matthew Macwhilham, Founder and President of Newcastle University Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Society, Duncan Sperry, Exec Chairman of GBD Solutions, Simon Montford, Founder and CEO of WEB3IOT and founder of Ethereum Meetup Edinburgh. Student Entrepreneurship Blockchain and Financial Inclusion Humaniq Networking Lunch Blockchain: Trade Finance and Smart Contracts Kevin Gill, CTO of IBM Blockchain Your Own Bank David Henderson, Co-Founder and CFO at Sweetbridge Blockchain for Social Impact Robert Greenfield, Global Development at ConsenSys Blockchain, Identity and Governance: A conversation Tee Ganbold, Blockchain for Enterprise and Governments at Consensys, and Rob Knight, Founder at Mattereum Tea and Coffee Can Blockchain Empower Humanity? Arnaud Saint Paul, Exec Chairman at The Give Foundation Radical Social Entrepreneurship: Think System-Level Change: Michael Strong, founder of FLOW (e-presentation) Thanking the Sponsors, Speakers and Participants Networking Drinks |
Meet the speakers
Robby Greenfield
Instructor, Technical Workshop on Solidity Robert is a Technical Director at Consensys, the leading firm within the Blockchain and Cryptocurrency markets. He serves as the organization’s Blockchain for Social Impact CTO, helping the firm consult and develop blockchain projects within Fortune 100 companies and multinational NGOs. Prior, Robert has spent his professional career at Goldman Sachs, Teach for America, and, most recently Cisco Systems. He also founded Nomsy, a dietary restriction platform aiding consumers with niche content to better maintain their dietary lifestyle. Robert received his B.S. in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is very involved within his community and is the Vice President of the Silicon Valley graduate chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., a member of 100 Black Men, and Chair of the Board of Directors of the African American Community Service Agency – the oldest Black managed non-profit in Silicon Valley. Robert is also the Blockchain Curriculum Director for StreetCode Academy, a hack-hustle-design focused non-profit that teaches students of color in East Palo Alto how to code, grow businesses, and expose themselves to the tech industry and emerging technologies. |
David Henderson
Blockchain, Supply Chains and Interest-Free Loans David is co-founder & CFO of Sweetbridge, a blockchain-based economic framework and alliance that transforms the supply chain and logistics collaboration through a fast, fair and flexible value exchange - unleashing working capital for the benefit of all participants. He is involved in both funding the Alliance and company growth as well as seeking supply chain finance solutions on intersection with the blockchain to create efficiency and liquidity for partners and members, from incumbent to start-up. David has spent the last 10 years in Finance, Audit and Accounting working as a qualified accountant. Prior to this he spent two decades at the intersection of Logistics, Control and Technology growing a cloud-based supply chain technology solutions company serving the World’s largest companies. He set up European operations from start-up to final PE exit at a significant multiple of revenues. His extensive experience in risk management and the leadership of business process re-engineering spans global enterprises such as The Coca Cola Company and PWC. David’s international career spans Europe, South America, Africa, USA. He has consulted for some of the world’s largest companies as well as for smaller SMEs in supply chain finance. Having worked in developed and emerging markets, his broad business experience and focus has always been on improving profitability and how supply chain financing can work for both the bottom line and the customer experience. David has a passion for automation, mobile and internet technology as well as international business and culture and lives in rural Scotland where he can escape to in between his current globe circling activities. David received his B.A. degree in Computer Science and Accountancy from Heriot-Watt University and an C.A. in Accounting and Finance from Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. |
KEVIN GILL
Blockchain in Insurance Kevin is the Practice Leader & CTO of IBM's UK Blockchain Global Consulting Organisation. He runs the practice and sells and solutions their UK blockchain implementations. Kevin has delivered blockchain implementations across Insurance and Financial Markets, as well as solutioning blockchain implementations across other sectors. Reinsurance; Trade Finance & Trade Credit Risk Insurance; as wells as Financial Markets shadow recording have been key focus areas in this technology which enables game changing business network transformation. Prior to Blockchain, Kevin was the IBM UK Insurance CTO and led the Business/Enterprise Architecture Capability. |
LIAM GILL
Blockchain Mining Liam Gill is a Canadian entrepreneur and business man who founded Ichor Environmental Blockchain Technologies and Backed Currency Technologies in 2017. Liam is currently completing an MSC Management at Durham University having already attained a Bachelors of Law. Concurrently, Liam is overseeing the design and construction of a new multimillion dollar cryptocurrency mining facility, working alongside established institutions to create a cryptocurrency that will complement the existing financial and legal social infrastructure in addition to exploring the possibility of starting a Blockchain Commercial and Academic Research Institute. |
ANTON MOSGOVOY
Blockchain and Financial Inclusion Technologist, CTO lead blockchain, neuro net, biometric architect, and strategist. He has been working on the blockchain proof of stake solution, proving Nash’s equilibrium. From May 2017 has been the leading technologist at Humaniq. For this organisation, he built its blockchain architecture, biometrics, and crypto messenger type app (deployed in Africa to an audience of thousands of people). He designed the platform API, now serving as a full identity management system. He created the Humaniq data explorer using PWA technology and designed and projected Humaniq’s CI/CD pipeline. He also worked on the geofencing technology to perform efficient queries of geotagged data. In 2015 he founded the startup Finlyt - algorithmic installment and revolving credits. In 2015 he joined a project developed by the National Bank of Canada to build a national financial system based on the blockchain. |
Rob Knight
Co-Founder of Mattereum Rob Knight is co-founder of Mattereum, which provides decentralised commercial law to automate and enforce legal agreements on the blockchain. An experienced leader of technology projects, he has a particular interest in the economics of software engineering. He has contributed to and led large-scale infrastructure projects for the UK Post Office, ITV, and the BBC. He previously co-founded an international sofware consultancy firm with operations in Europe and Asia. |
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MATTHEW MCWHILHAM
Cryptocurrency Panel A recent Quantitative Finance and Risk Management postgraduate of Newcastle University. President and Founder of the Newcastle University Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Society, working with BTC.com, Oracle, BmyBIt and CryptoTalent to educate students on blockchain technology. |
Kelly Levalley Hunt
Global Vice President of Sales at BlockApps. Over the past 20 years Kelly has worked in the technology industry while living in the US, Europe, Africa, South East Asia, and China. Kelly worked with Emerson Network Power as Director of Strategic Accounts leading a team of 100 Mechanical, Electrical, and Software Engineers in the Data Centre industry advising on strategic builds in telecommunication, collocation and managed service sectors. Kelly’s experience in the Technology industry heavily influenced her interest in the blockchain space as an early investor. In 2017 Kelly invested in and joined BlockApps as Global Vice President of Sales. BlockApps is a Blockchain organization, the first company incubated out of ConsenSys with Kieren James-Lubin as one of the Founders. BlockApps is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. |
DUNCAN SPERRY
Cryptocurrency Panel Duncan has seven years military and over twenty-five years business experience within international companies, as an entrepreneur, and in private equity. He was a founding member of the International Division of Silicon Valley global payments company, VeriFone Inc, and held several international appointments at Regional and General Management level including UK Managing Director. After VeriFone, he co-founded the world’s first B2B Internet Payments service provider, before founding his own private equity payments & FinTech boutique, GBD, and incubating several start-ups. He has also served on the board of a public company. Having semi-retired in 2011, taking time out to write a geo-political thriller, Fault Line, (to be published by Austin Macauley in 2018) and to pursue other interests including voluntary work, he is once again active in business with a new start-up in the application of distributed ledger technology (Blockchain) to B2B trading relationships. Duncan was educated at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Durham University and San Francisco School of Management. He holds an MBA (with Distinction) from Durham, where he received the Best Overall Award for Academic Excellence. He currently is a guest lecturer to the full-time MBA Programme at Durham University Business School, where he sits as a NED on the Durham MBA Boardroom Exercise. An active climber, he is a member of the management committee of the Mount Everest Foundation. |
SIMON MONTFORD
Cryptocurrency Panel Simon is a London-born entrepreneur who co-founded the first web-based online auction platform (icollector.com) in 1995 as well as one of the first digital media agencies (CM Interactive). After a successful exit, he then obtained an MBA and moved to Scotland to become an EIR at the Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute of the University of Edinburgh School of Informatics. He has since co-founded tech startups in the UK and USA, and established several meetup communities including iotScotland (iotsct.com) & ethScotland (ethsct.com). |
Tee Ganbold
TeeGanbold will introduce participants to Blockchain and its Social Impact, through various use cases ConsenSys (founded by Joseph Lubin, the co-founder of Ethereum) has been leading.Tee gained her professional experience in Pareto Securities (Equity Sales Trader; 2014 - 2015), Double Think Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland (Founding Member, Commercial Operations, Venture Studio; 2015 - 2016), YAMAA (Founder/ Empowering Herders & Factory Workers - Social Enterprise; 2015-present), Cambridge Analytica (Global Commercial Operations, Data Science Consulting; 2016-2017), and ConsenSys (Global Blockchain Solutions for Enterprises and Governments; Oct 2017 - present). She is also the Co-Founder of British Mongolian Students Association (BMSA) and still is the Chairwoman. She has grown the organisation and introduced students to the British Parliament, Mongolian British Chamber of Commerce, London Stock Exchange and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Ministry. She speaks English (fluently), Mongolian (fluently) and Mandarin (basic). |
Arnaud Saint-Paul
A conscious technologist, social entrepreneur, philanthropist, recipient of many different innovation honors and awards, Arnaud is passionate about the use of technology in helping humanity to evolve positively. His life purpose is to support and advice companies and individuals to reach their highest potentials and as such, blockchain is a key technology to achieve that goal. Arnaud is currently dedicated to several social impact projects using blockchain to empower people and making a difference in the world. |
