Andrew Key‘s career has been at the intersection of capital markets and technology. He co-founded ConsenSys Capital, a financial services constellation of companies, including Fund Foundry, ConsenSys Ventures, and Token Foundry.

Previously, Andrew ran ConsenSys’ global business development from inception of the company, co-founded ConsenSys Enterprise, co-created the first Ethereum Blockchain-as-a-Service offering with Microsoft , and began the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance,

Andrew joined ConsenSys with capital markets, healthcare, technology and entrepreneurial experience. Previously, he worked for UBS investment bank in equities analysis. Later, he was involved within multiple hedge funds and broker dealers in alternative asset investing. After, he co-founded a healthcare revenue cycle management company where he learned about Bitcoin and eventually Ethereum.

He graduated from Loyola University in Maryland and University of Auckland with degrees in economics and international finance. Andrew’s best computer science was in college, and it’s been downhill technically, since then.

Andrew’s LinkedIn
Andrew on Twitter

Blockchain

A blockchain, originally block chain, is a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography. Each block typically contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp and transaction data.

By design, a blockchain is inherently resistant to modification of the data. It is “an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way”. For use as a distributed ledger, a blockchain is typically managed by a peer-to-peer network collectively adhering to a protocol for inter-node communication and validating new blocks. Once recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks, which requires collusion of the network majority. This makes blockchains potentially suitable for the recording of events, medical records,and other records management activities, such as identity management, transaction processing, documenting provenance, food traceability or voting.

Blockchain was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 for use in the cryptocurrency bitcoin, as its public transaction ledger. The invention of the blockchain for bitcoin made it the first digital currency to solve the double-spending problem without the need of a trusted authority or central server. The bitcoin design has been the inspiration for other applications.

Ethereum

Ethereum is an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform and operating system featuring smart contract (scripting) functionality.It supports a modified version of Nakamoto consensus via transaction based state transitions. Ether is a cryptocurrency whose blockchain is generated by the Ethereum platform. Ether can be transferred between accounts and used to compensate participant mining nodes for computations performed.

Writing (Andrew Keys)

Blockchain Predictions for 2018
Blockchain Predictions for 2017
Blockchain Predictions of 2016
Memo from Davos
Building the Hyperconnected Future on Blockchains (responsible for writing healthcare section)
Non-Technical Introduction to Ethereum
Tokenization of Assets

Andrew/ ConsenSys in Mainstream Media 

New York Times: Ethereum, a Virtual Currency, Enables Transactions That Rival Bitcoin’s (03/2016)
Bloomberg: Post-Bitcoin Technology Has Geeks, Giants, and Hackers Excited (03/2017)
Wall St Journal: Ethereum Network Copes With Surge of Activity as Virtual Kitten Game Goes Viral (12/2017)
The Economist: Financial Technology is proving less of a battleground than feared (052017)
International Business Times: How Ethereum Blockchain Technology Will Revolutionize Digital Asset Value (01/2018)

More Videos with Andrew

The Blockchain will disrupt everything – Keynote, Berlin November 2017
Speaking at Davos, World Economic Forum (1/2018)
Keynote – Cloud Expo, Jacob Javitz Center (03/2018)

Career:  Bestselling author, strategic advisor, innovation activist dubbed “Mr. Creativity” by The Economist; Chairmen & CEO EdgeMakers; Chairman ILSI
Interests: Jazz, Film & Theater (actively!). Unpeeling the onion, reinvention of education, innovation at societal scale.
Hometown: San Francisco, USA

John Kao was born in 1950 to Chinese immigrant parents. An accomplished jazz pianist, he spent the summer of 1969 playing keyboards for Frank Zappa. Kao studied philosophy at Yale College, received an MD from Yale Medical School, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He taught at Harvard Business School from 1982-96, where he specialized in innovation and entrepreneurship and created executive and MBA programs on innovation. He has also held faculty appointments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, Yale College, and the Naval Postgraduate School.

John is a leader in creating and delivering high end innovation leadership executive programs for both public and private sectors. He is chairman of the Institute for Large Scale Innovation, whose i20 group is an association of 30 national ‘Chief Innovation Officers.’  John coined the term “large scale innovation” to refer to innovation as a societal agenda.  He has advised numerous nations and regions on innovation strategy and execution, including Finland, Singapore, the City of San Francisco, Abu Dhabi and elements of the US government as well as the European Union innovation policy team.

His advisory work for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was described in The New York Times as “out of the box”

More:
www.johnkao.com
John Kao on Wikipedia
John on Twitter
www.edgemakers.com

Key publications:
Jamming: The Art and Discipline of Business Creativity (1996; still reprinted and available in 16 languages)
Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back (2007) 

Career: First Prime Minister of Tibetan Government in Exile. Eminent Buddhist Philosopher, Scientist and Politician. Counselor at World Peace University (USA) and at Institution for Asian Democracy (NYC) and many others. Close confident of HH the Dalai Lama.
Interests: Non-Violence,  Education, Present Generations, Social Change, Morality and Mental Development
Hometown: Born in Kham (today China), fled 1959, living in Dharamshala (India)

Professor Samdhong Rinpoche was born as Samdhong Lobsang Tenzin in 1939, in the Tibetan province of Kham. At age of five, he was recognized and enthroned as the reincarnation of the fourth Samdhong Rinpoche. He began his monastic studies at age 12 at the University of Drepung in Tibet and eventually obtained a Doctorate in Buddhist sciences at Gyutö Monastery, Dalhousie, India in 1970. In 1959, Rinpoche fled to India to escape the repressive Chinese government in Tibet. There, he was commissioned by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to serve as a teacher to monks in exile. He was appointed director of the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in Varanasi in 1988 and remained there until 2001. On July 29, 2001, Rinpoche was named Kalön Tripa, or Prime Minister of the Tibetan Exile Government, the first political leader to be directly elected by the people in exile. He is an eminent and distinguished scholar, teacher and philosopher, and a life-long campaigner for Gandhian principles especially that of non-violence or peaceful resistance.

99Faces interviewed him in Berlin, Germany, after giving a lecture on ‘Tendrel – Mind and Reality” for students of the Tarab Institute International.

Tibet & Tibetan Parliament in Exile: The territory of Tibet is under the administration of and occupation by the People’s Republic of China, a situation that the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) considers an illegitimate military occupation. The position of the CTA is that Tibet is a distinct nation with a long history of independence. The position of the People’s Republic of China, however, is that the central government of China has continuously exercised sovereignty over Tibet for over 700 years, that Tibet has never been an independent state, and that Tibet’s de facto independence between 1912 and 1951 was “nothing but a fiction of the imperialists who committed aggression against China in modern history”. The current policy of the Dalai Lama is that he does not seek full independence for Tibet, but would accept Tibet as a genuine autonomous region within the People’s Republic of China.

More:

Biography Samdhong Rinpoche 

Book Review – UNCOMPROMISING TRUTH FOR A COMPROMISED WORLD: TIBETAN BUDDHISM AND TODAY’S WORLD

Tibet at a glance

A new generation Exile

Parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration

Samdhong Rinpoche on Facebook

Unity in Duality on Facebook

Video:

Concluding Session of 2010 ICTB with Keynote Address by Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche

Why meditate – Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche

Unity in Duality – An introduction, Part 1

Liu Olin – Breaking the Wall of Global Debt @Falling Walls 2011 from Falling Walls on Vimeo.

Career: Founder & President FutureWorks; Author, Digital Analyst and Sociologist
Interests: Photography and Future
Hometown: San Francisco, USA

Brian Solis is globally recognized as one of the most prominent thought leaders and published authors in new media. A digital analyst, sociologist, and futurist, Solis has influenced the effects of emerging media on the convergence of marketing, communications, and publishing. He is principal of FutureWorks, an award-winning New Media and business strategy consultancy in Silicon Valley, and has led interactive and social programs for Fortune 500 companies, notable celebrities, and Web 2.0 startups.
In March 2010 Brians latest book was released: Engage, The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web, with an introduction written by Ashton Kutcher. Brian has also written and published several ebooks on new PR, social media, customer service, personal branding and blogger relations.He is also known for photographing prominent tech figures, Hollywood Celebrities, thought leaders, artists, and events. His work has been featured in BusinessWeek, The New York Times, Wired, The Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, among many other outlets.

More:
www.briansolis.com www.future-works.com
Twitter: @briansolis
Brians Photos on flickr

Other articles/links/videos:
Video: Brian Solis speaking at Thinking Digital Conference 2010 Link: Books by Brian Solis Article: Mashable: Why Brands are becoming Media 12/2010