Speakers

Richard BrooksRichard Brooks

Dr. Brooks has in the past been PI on research programs funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, National Institute of Standards, Army Research Office, Office of Naval Research and BMW Corporation. These research projects include coordination of combat missions among autonomous combat vehicles (ARO), situation and threat assessment for combat command and control (ONR), detection of protocol tunneling through encrypted channels (AFOSR), security of intellignet building technologies (NIST), experimental analysis of Denial of Service vulnerabilities (NSF), mobile code security (ONR), and security analysis of cellular networks used for vehicle remote diagnostics (BMW).

Dr. Brooks’ current research interests include game theory, strategic reasoning, blockchain security applications and information assurance. He was PI of the Mobile Ubiquitous Security Environment (MUSE) Project sponsored by ONR as a Critical Infrastructure Protection University Research Initiative (CIP/URI). It concentrated on creating distributed countermeasures to overcome large-scale network attacks like distributed denial of service and worms. Dr. Brooks was co-PI of a NIST project defining the security standards and protection profiles for the ISO BACNET networked building control systems standard. Dr. Brooks was co-PI of a DARPA ISO program coordinating air campaign command and control and PI of the Reactive Sensor Networks (RSN) Project sponsored by DARPA IXO. RSN explored collaborative signal processing to aggregate information moving through the network, and the use of mobile code for coordination among intelligent sensor nodes. He has received DURIP awards from ONR and ARO that support the study of networked systems interacting with the real world. Current projects include authentication and authorization of exa-scale computing systems and establishing Internet freedom in West Africa. His Ph. D. dissertation received an exemplary achievement certificate from the Louisiana State University graduate school. He has a B.A. from The Johns Hopkins University in Mathematical Sciences.

Research

Dr. Brook's research concentrates on information assurance, battlespace coordination, behavior pattern extraction/detection and game theory. His battlespace coordination work has been funded by DARPA (distributed coordination of air combat campaigns), ARO (game theoretic coordination of combat missions for teams of autonomous combat vehicles) and ONR (maritime domain awareness). Results from the ONR work is being used by the Fleet and NATO for learning, tracking, and predicting shipping patterns.

His network security research projects have included funding from NSF (analyzing wired and wireless denial of service vulnerabilities, blockchain), DoE (authentication and authorization of exa-scale storage systems), BMW Corporation (controlling dissemination of intellectual property), and the US State Department (creating anonymous communications tools for civil society groups). It frequently looks at attacks that disable security measures by working at a different level of the protocol stack. His Internet freedom work involves interactions with at risk populations working for freedom of expression.

 

Axel HollandaAxel Hollanda

Vice President, Engineering
Smart Yields

Axel has nearly two decades of experience in IT, engineering, and research and development. He recently served as a partner in CT&H Consulting, a business management and data analytics consulting firm in Brazil. He previously worked as a research and development manager at the leading Brazilian institute FUCAPI, spearheading dramatic growth in the engineering department. He has also served as a senior electronics engineer at Diebold, where he developed hardware, firmware and test software, and oversaw a team of junior developers. Axel earned his Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees in electrical engineering, and his Bachelor of Technology degree in mechatronics, in Brazil. Born and raised in the Amazon rainforest, Axel’s deep connection with nature fuels his interest in building a better, smarter food-production system. He is an avid karaoke singer and Harley Davidson Free Rider.

 

Nathan JinNathan Jin

CEO and Founder
Ivy Food Tech

Ivy automates document management for the food supply chain as the basis for information exchange. Nathan focuses on product development, strategy and innovation, with a strong passion for food. Ivy is a cohort member of the StartOut Growth Lab and the Valley Ventures Accelerator programs, and is a member of the Trace Alliance by OriginTrail. Ivy is now in open alpha.

Prior to founding Ivy, Nathan was a co-founder and Head of Product for ripe.io where he conceptualized and led the development of one of the first implementations of blockchain in food. His work at ripe.io has been recognized by Forbes as a Top 25 Most Innovative Ag-Tech Companies, AgFunder's Most Innovative US Supply Chain Startup and featured in multiple media outlets. He has written for Food Processing Magazine and Today's Dietitian about blockchain in food, and also writes on Medium.

 

John JohnsonDr. John D. Johnson

CEO and Founder, Aligned Security;
Program Advisor, IEEE Blockchain for Agriculture Forum

Dr. John D. Johnson is CEO and Founder Aligned Security, a cybersecurity consulting firm. He is also a founding board member of The Docent Institute, Security Advisor Alliance, Cyber Education Foundation, an advisor at Cybersecurity Collaborative, a member of SC Media Editorial Board, and serves on advisory boards for security and emerging technology companies. John is a cybersecurity professor at Excelsior College, where he has developed and taught numerous graduate cybersecurity courses. He spent nearly eighteen years as security architect for John Deere, where he managed security infrastructure in addition to developing strategy and secure architecture solutions for protecting a global corporate network, endpoints, industrial systems, and the supply chain. His experience spans the public and private sectors as well as industry verticals: technology, manufacturing, finance, energy, healthcare, and education. John was previously network security manager for the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory and an experimental nuclear physicist developing radiation detection systems for nuclear remediation and non-proliferation.

John is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and serves on several program committees including: RSA Conference, Black Hat, InfowarCon, and CornCon. Over his career, he has served in technical and professional society leadership roles. He is currently IEEE-USA VP Communications, serving on IEEE Computer Society Board of Governors, Chair of Iowa-Illinois Section, and on Region 4 ExCom. John has maintained his CISSP and CRISC certifications and has received various awards in recognition of his contribution to the profession. He is an IEEE Senior Member (SMIEEE), Charter Member of FAIR Institute and Distinguished Fellow of Ponemon Institute.

 

Isar MostafanezhadIsar Mostafanezhad

Senior Advisor
Smart Yields

Isar is an electronics engineer with a Ph.D. in wireless sensor design. In the past 10 years he has worked on a variety of applications to deploy his wireless sensors from biomedical applications to virtual reality to precision farming.

 

 

 

 

 

Maria PalombiniMaria Palombini, MBA

Director, Emerging Communities & Initiatives Development, Global Business Strategy & Intelligence, IEEE Standards Association

Maria is the creator, leader and advocate for the Pharma Blockchain Initiative, which seeks to bring awareness and balanced learning to the pharmaceutical community and its key stakeholders on the viable applications of blockchain within the pharmaceutical framework. The goal of the initiative is advance adoption of blockchain in combination with emerging technologies (ie. AI, IoT, etc) where it will lead to enhanced patient safety and care, and optimize and innovate the drug development lifescyle.

In 2017, Maria joined IEEE-SA with a directive to build communities and advance initiatives to develop standards for enterprise adoption of emerging technologies. Her work includes building communities of technologists, industry executives, academic researchers and industry stakeholders to educate on the benefits and challenges of viable applications of emerging technologies, while building consensus on recommendations for frameworks on technical standards and recommended guidelines for protocol and policies to enhance the outcomes of technology implementation. Her primary areas of focus include the pharma, health, supply chain, energy, and agriculture sectors. In parallel to her work in blockchain standards, she is the project lead for IEEE-SA’s newest initiative, Digital Inclusion through Trust and Agency, a critical program focused on bringing the outstanding 50% of the world’s population online while working with technologists, advocacy groups and policy leaders on developing trusted frameworks that will protect the digital persona, the right to be forgotten, and restoring dignity to digital transactions for ALL members of the global community.

In 2015, Maria left Euromoney Plc, one of the world’s leading information and event producers. She founded DisruptiveRx™, an information company that would produce written and in-person educational programs and bring pragmatic attention on breakthrough innovations that would transform life sciences and healthcare enterprise operations.

Her career started at the prestigious IEEE (Institute for Electronic and Electrical Engineers) and moved onto highly respected media companies including Penton Media, Advanstar Communications, IIR, Reed Business Information and Nielsen Business Media. She successfully led the global branding, marketing and public relations campaign for the world’s largest mining investment networking platform, Mining Indaba™, in Cape Town, South Africa.

Maria currently holds an MBA from the Rutgers Graduate School of Business and a BA and BS from Rutgers College at Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey. She is an accomplished leader and public speaker having presented at various industry events. You can follow her on twitter @DisruptiveRx or on LinkedIn.com/in/mpalombini.

 

Jason RupeDr. Jason Rupe

Co-Chair, IEEE Blockchain Initiative;
Principal Architect, CableLabs

Dr. Jason Rupe is a Senior Member of IEEE and of IIE. He has served as Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Reliability, and as its last Managing Editor. He has served as Vice-Chair for RAMS, on the program committee for DRCN and PHM, and on the committees of several other reliability conferences because free labor is always welcome. He has also served on the advisory board for IIE Solutions magazine, as an officer for IIE Quality and Reliability division, and various local chapter positions for IEEE and IIE. He is currently on the AdCom of the IEEE Reliability Society, serving as their TC chair for SDN and NFV; and is a chair for the IEEE Blockchain Initiative announced in 2018. That should keep me busy!

Jason has worked at USWEST Advanced Technologies, and has held various titles at Qwest Communications Intl., Inc., most recently as Director of the Technology Modeling Team, Qwest’s Network Modeling, Federated Network Data, and Operations Research group for the CTO while also serving as the reliability expert, and helping to build some pretty big-deal networks. He spent some time teaching as an Adjunct Professor at Metro State College of Denver as well. Jason worked for over seven years as the Director of Operational Modeling at Polar Star Consulting where he helped government and private industry to plan and build highly performing and reliable networks and services. Currently, he is the Principal Architect for Proactive Network Maintenance at CableLabs. He holds two patents, and is working on a bunch more.

 

Houman ShadabHouman Shadab

CEO, Clause
Co-Director, The Accord Project

Houman Shadab is a co-founder and the CEO of Clause, a revolutionary software platform for improving the role of legal contracts in business by connecting them to a wide variety of web services, enterprise software systems, and blockchain to reduce admin costs and enable real time monitoring and automation. Houman is also co-director of the Accord Project, a nonprofit organization building open source technology for smart legal contracts. Houman is also a prolific and influential expert in law, business, and technology with over a decade of experience researching and teaching in academia and public policy at New York Law School, Cornell Tech, and other institutions. He has testified before the federal government several times on topics ranging from hedge fund regulation to Bitcoin derivatives and is widely published and cited.

 

 

Doug ShinsatoDoug Shinsato

Doug is a member of the University of Hawaii’s Board of Regents.

He is currently the CEO of Heyou Media, a digital media firm founded by actor/writer/director Tom Skerritt. Heyou recently teamed up with the highest paid writer in the history of the film industry to distribute short-form comedy episodes. Digital rights management— and the promise of blockchain to combat piracy— are key issues in the entertainment and media industries.

He is a frequent speaker on the topics of blockchain, cybersecurity and telemedicine.

In addition, Doug is the Founding/Emeritus Co-Editor-in-Chief of Telehealth and Medicine Today and the Founding/Emeritus Editor-in-Chief of Blockchain in Healthcare Today, both digital online peer-reviewed journals.

He is on the Board of Directors of Creative Intelligence Associates (Tokyo). CIA is a product and service branding advisor which focuses on increasing customer satisfaction and company revenues/profits. The founder of Fast Retailing (Uniqlo)— currently Japan’s richest person— has written extensively about the role CIA played in building his company’s brand and corporate strategy.

Doug is a member of the Board of Advisors of: ViaEquity, a Northern European technology equity fund; Mynurva, a UK-based mental health counseling service that supplements the understaffed NHS mental healthcare system; and Buglab, a cybersecurity and pentesting firm.

Previously, Doug was a senior partner at Deloitte Consulting. He started his career in Japan as a strategy consultant focused on information and communications technology for the Boston Consulting Group and served as an adjunct professor at the Graduate Business School of Sophia University in Tokyo.

He is the author of For That One Day: The Memoirs of Mitsuo Fuchida, the Commander of the Attack on Pearl Harbor and 101 Lesser Known Facts About the Attack on Pearl Harbor.

Doug received his BA and MBA from the University of Southern California and holds a JD from the Stanford Law School.

 

William WangWilliam Wang

Co-Founder & COO, Opentrust; University of Bristol

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard YuRichard Yu

PhD, PEng, FIET, FIEEE, Professor, School of Information Technology, Depart. Systems & Computer Engineering (cross-appointment), Carleton University;
Chair, IEEE P2418.3 Standards Working Group (DLT for Agriculture)

Prof. F. Richard Yu received the PhD degree in electrical engineering from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 2003. From 2002 to 2006, he was with Ericsson (in Lund, Sweden) and a start-up (in San Diego, CA, USA), where he worked on the research and development in the areas of advanced wireless communication technologies and new standards. He joined Carleton School of Information Technology and the Department of Systems and Computer Engineering (cross-appointment) at Carleton University, Ottawa, in 2007, where he is currently a Professor. His research interests include connected and autonomous vehicles, wireless cyber-physical systems, security and privacy, and machine learning and artificial intelligence. He has published 440+ papers in reputable journals/conferences, 6 edited books, and 27 granted patents, with 9,000+ citations (Google Scholar).

He serves on the editorial boards of several journals, including Co-Editor-in-Chief for Ad Hoc & Sensor Wireless Networks, Lead Series Editor for IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology – Connected Vehicles Series, Editor for IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC) - Series on Green Communications and Networking, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications Networking, Wiley Journal on Security and Communication Networks, and International Journal of Wireless Communications and Networking, a Guest Editor for IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing special issue on Advances in Mobile Cloud Computing, and a Guest Editor for IEEE Systems Journal for the special issue on Smart Grid Communications Systems. He has served on the Technical Program Committee (TPC) of numerous conferences and as the TPC Co-Chair of IEEE Globecom’17, VTC’17F, INFOCOM-IECCO’17, Globecom’16, INFOCOM-MCV’15, Globecom’14, WiVEC’14, INFOCOM-MCC’14, Globecom’13, GreenCom’13, ICCC’13-GMCN, CCNC’13, INFOCOM-CCSES’12, ICC-GCN’12, IEEE VTC’12S – Wireless Networks Track, Globecom’11 – Cognitive Radio Network Symp., INFOCOM-GCN’11, CNSR’11, INFOCOM-CWCN’10, IWCMC’09, VTC’08F Track 4, WiN-ITS’07. Dr. Yu is a registered Professional Engineer in the province of Ontario, Canada, a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), and a Fellow of the IEEE. He serves as the Chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Green Communications and Computing and the Chair of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society – Ottawa Chapter. He is a Distinguished Lecturer, the Vice President – Membership, and an elected member of the Board of Governors (BoG) of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society.