Block, stock, and barrel Ashlie Chin

When designing enterprise blockchain networks, the blockchain layer is often thought to be the most integral part of the stack. Each platform has unique requirements, architectures, and different programming languages.


Here's where DAML comes in. Developed by Digital Asset, DAML is an open-source smart contract language specifcally designed to reflect business logic and work flows. It is platform-agnostic and is currently available on Hyperledger Fabric, Sawtooth, and Besu, Corda, VMWare blockchain platform, and SQL databases. Today, organizations leveraging DAML include the likes of accenture, the Australian Securities Exchange, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, and most recently, the Singapore Exchange.


Tim Kemp is the head of Emerging Ledgers at Digital Asset where he is responsible for delivering integrations of DAML on various platforms. In this episode, Tim talks about everything DAML, detailing the value of a smart contract language approach as a key component to improving accessibility and driving enterprise adoption. He highlights key take aways from DAML's earlier successful use cases, reflecting on what enterprises need to develop successful consortia. Finally, he touches on why partnerships are key and why he's excited about their recent partnership Chaisntack.


About Tim Kemp
Tim is the head of Emerging Ledgers at Digital Asset where he is responsible for delivering integrations of Digital Asset’s DAML programming language on Hyperledger Fabric, Sawtooth, and Besu, Corda, and SQL databases. Tim started in capital markets technology in 2000 as a programmer, and has built a career at the intersection of technology and business in financial services, holding various engineering, product management, and business development roles at a number of startups and established vendors. Tim has a degree in Computer Science from the University of Liverpool, England, and currently lives in Westchester County, New York with his wife and young family.


About [Digital Asset](www.digitalasset.com)
Digital Asset helps companies design, create, and run the next generation of business applications. We enable the world’s largest companies to harness the power of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to streamline operations and make value transfer efficient and secure. At the core of Digital Asset’s offering is DAML, an intuitive smart-contract programming language used to digitize multi-party agreements and automate transactions in a precise and secure manner. The result: technology that provides a platform for innovation today and well into the future.
Special Guest: Tim Kemp.

Beyond pharmaceutical traceability: blockchain for federaed learning in healthcare


From the storing and exchange of sensitive citizen and patient data to vaccine traceability, blockchain's tamper-proof data sharing capabilities have been widely regarded to have various applications in healthcare. In this episode, Mike McCoy talks about federated learning in healthcare and how blockchain provides a promising solution to unlocking its potential without compromising on privacy. He also talks about the challenges specific to implementing blockchain solutions in highly regulated, multi-stakeholder environments such as the healthcare and life sciences and its need for data interoperability standards. Learn about the various initiatives at ConsenSys Health such as the Consensys Covid hackathon, and their how they expect to see blockchain adoption evolving over the next few years. Also, he debunks the myth of the end of intermediaries so widely promised by blockchain, explaining how blockchain is instead making them more effective and efficient.


What is federated learning?
Federated learning ia network of participants to collaboratively train without any participant needing to share their data. Instead of sending data to a centralized repository, federated learning works by “sending the algorithm” to the data stored in its home location. Participants in the network are sent this algorithm and they each improve it by training it on their data locally, thus creating an updated algorithm.


( extracted from Robert Miller's newsetters "Why federated learning is important")


About [ConsenSys Health](www.ConsenSysHealth.com)
ConsenSys Health is a spin-off from ConsenSys, one of the world’s largest blockchain companies, focused on solving the biggest problems in healthcare. They are part of an ecosystem of technology and industry partners seeking to drive positive, inclusive change in healthcare and the life sciences.


About Mike McCoy
Mike McCoy is the Director of Platform Integration & Technical Partnerships at ConsenSys Health working on building an evidence-based, ethics-driven platform based on blockchain, machine learning and privacy enhancing technology for health care, life science and public sector partners. Previously at Accenture and ConsenSys AG, Mike works in technical strategy, development, integration and growth models for people to use and scale emerging technologies to current industry standards.


Mike also is an Adjunct Professor at Thomas Jefferson University's Institute of Emerging Health Professions as a lecturer and course developer for emerging technology graduate certificate courses. He is a member and ambassador to many technical working groups such as IEEE, Frontiers, Blockchain in Healthcare Today, Blockchain for Social Impact and the Hyperledger Working Group.
Special Guest: Mike McCoy.

How is blockchain redefining the social impact space?


In this episode, Mehran discusses how UNICEF is leveraging blockchain to alleviate some of the world's social issues. Learn more about UNICEF's blockchain initiatives both internally and externally to optimize efficiency and improve tranparency and accountability across multi-stakeholder environments. He goes indepth to talk about the vavious usecases for blockchain within the social impact space using examples of projects from the UNICEF Venture Fund and the UNICEF Crypto fund (supported by the Ethereum Foundation), and shares some of the implementation challenges faced.


Why is it valuable to look at how we design for communities that have remained largely underserved in tech? Learn how and why UNICEF is playing such a big role in advocating for blockchain-powered future, and why we need to bring the user back to the center of design in blockchain.


Check out the graduate startups from the first cohort of the UNICEF Innovation Fund:


Coinsence: Utopixar developed a platform that enables collaborations amongst communities and organisations to facilitate participative decision making and value transfer.
Prescrypto: Prescrypto is providing a digital solution to the lack of electronic prescriptions in developing countries with a platform that allows medical service providers to view one common history of a patient, and improve the level of care.
Statwig: Statwig is using a blockchain-based solution to ensure the efficient logistics delivery of vaccines through an enhanced supply-chain management system.
W3 Engineers: W3 Engineers built a mobile connectivity platform. It allows users within the network to give connectivity access to other users directly between smartphones, instead of relying on internet and cell networks.
Atix Labs: Atix Labs developed the Circle of Angels platform for small to medium-sized enterprises to gain access to funding, while creating traceability in where the funds are used and measuring impact.
OS City: OS City is a company that uses blockchain and artificial intelligence to help city authorities provide digital services. Its purpose is to improve governments’ efficiency and trust, aiming to build a more sustainable future.


About Mehran Hydary
Mehran is currently a designing and building blockchain software for global issues at UNICEF. He started his blockchain career at Deloitte where he was scaling their technology delivery team while working closely with clients to understand how blockchain can be used in various industries. His previous experience also includes TD Bank, Hydro One, and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Mehran studied Electrical Engineering at the University of Toronto in Canada.


About UNICEF Innovation
UNICEF Innovation is an interdisciplinary team of individuals around the world tasked with identifying, prototyping, and scaling technologies and practices that strengthen UNICEF's work. We build and scale innovations that improve children's lives around the world. For more information about UNICEF's work in innovation, visit: www.unicef.org/innovation and www.unicefstories.org.
Special Guest: Mehran Hydary.

With over 30 participating global banks, the Marco Polo Network, one of the largest and fastest growing blockchain-based consortiums to date.


In this epsiode, Ashlie speaks to Michael Odom, sales engineer at TradeIX to learn more about how the Marco Polo Network is revolutionizing the trade finance space using DLT. We discuss some of the challenges being addressed by the Marco Polo Network, and how and why distributed platforms provide an unprecedented solution that existing trade digitization attempts fall short of. Learn more about their future plans, challenges, and more.


About the Marco Polo Network
The Marco Polo Network is the largest and fastest growing trade and working capital finance network in the world. It is a joint undertaking between technology firms TradeIX and R3, the world’s leading financial institutions, and their corporate clients.


About TradeIX
TradeIX is a multi-award-winning technology provider and network operator of the Marco Polo Network driving innovation and change in facilitating the flow of goods, money and credit in global trade. Some of the smartest financial institutions and companies in the world work with TradeIX, including Accenture, BNY Mellon, Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Commerzbank, ING, LBBW, Anglo-Gulf Trade Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Natixis, Bangkok Bank, SMBC, Danske Bank, NatWest, DNB, OP Financial Group, Alfa Bank, Bayern LB, Helaba, S-Servicepartner, Raiffeisen Bank International, Standard Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, National Bank of Fujairah PJSC, National Australia Bank, Bradesco, AIG, DHL and many other Fortune 500 companies from various industries. TradeIX is headquartered in Dublin with offices in London, Kettering and Singapore and operations in Germany and the US.
Special Guest: Michael Odom.

Released in January 2020, the news of Hyperledger Fabric's version 2.0 release made waves across the enteprise blockchain community. The upgrade introduced a variety of improvements based of the development experience of enterprises building solutions on Fabric 1.0, including heightened data privacy capabilities, increased performance, more granular controls, and greater flexibility for consortium management.


KC Tam is a widely regarded expert in the Fabric world that has written extensively about his learning during his journey in blockchain. His deep dive articles of Fabric 2.0 that present cross comparisons between 1.0 and 2.0 are some of the earliest to have been written since its launch. In this episode, Ashlie speaks to KC Tam on the key changes introduced in Hyperledger Fabric 2.0 and his take on the value of these improvements.


Read KC's writing on Hyperledger Fabric 2.0
First Attempt on Chaincode Operation in Hyperledger Fabric Release 2.0
Illustrating Endorsement Policy in Lifecycle Chaincode (Hyperledger Fabric Release 2.0)
Changing Endorsement Policy and Chaincode Upgrade After Chaincode Committed (Hyperledger Fabric 2.0)
From “First Network” to “Test Network”: A New Test Network introduced in Fabric v2.0


About KC Tam


KC is the founder of LedgerTech, mainly providing blockchain consulting and training service to various types of clients. He is also an instructor and training material developer at Blockchain Educators, providing classroom training on various blockchain topics, and a part-time lecturer at City University of Hong Kong. He speaks in many blockchain events and webinars, and publishes articles regularly on blockchain topics, from concepts to hands-on practice, receiving more than 15,000 views each month. His interest is to explore how blockchain platforms work, and how blockchain applications help in the business world. His focus is on Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum. Prior to his blockchain journey, he also spent almost 10 years in cloud consulting roles in both Cisco and Ericsson.
Special Guest: KC Tam.

Cultivating Singapore into a global hub for blockchain


Singapore has often been cited to be a leading hub for blockchain projects as a result of its thriving blockchain ecosysem and favourable regulatory environment. In this epsiode, Veronica Tan and Yi Ming Ng describe the state of blockchain adoption in Singapore from both public and private perspectives, including government involvement, the various stakeholders, and past and future challenges. They also talk about both government and industry responses to tackling these barriers, emphasizing the need for a multi-stakeholder approach.


At the Singapore Fintech Festival, IMDA and Tribe are announcing the launch of OpenNodes, a new content platform built to foster a hyperconnected blockchain ecosystem through collaboration and education. In October, they published the Singapore Blockchain Landscape Map, that provides an overview of various blockchain companies and initiatives that are pioneering the application of blockchain technology to various use cases in Singapore.


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Veronica is from the Technology & Infrastructure Group in IMDA (Infocomm Media Development Authority) Her work revolves around master planning and strategy development of frontier technologies such as blockchain, that are relevant for Singapore to realise its vision to be a leading digital economy in the world. Veronica was previously involved in IDA’s Smart Nation efforts, overseeing the development of Smart Nation infrastructure to enable data-driven decision making for Singapore.


Yi Ming is the Managing Partner of Tribe Accelerator, Singapore’s First Government Supported Blockchain Accelerator to facilitate the mass adoption of blockchain technology in startups. Yi Ming too serves as a partner at TRIVE, an early stage Southeast Asia (SEA) focused Venture Capital firm based in Singapore, which invests in technology startups from Seed to Series A rounds of funding in various domains. This includes Deep Technologies, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Marketplaces and FinTech.


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About Open Nodes
Open Nodes is an ecosystem platform that connects companies to blockchain solutions providers and serves educational content to enterprise leaders and policymakers. Learn more at https://opennodes.com/. Access the Singapore Ecosystem Report here.


About IMDA
The Info-communications and Media Development Authority (IMDA) develops and regulates the converging infocomm and media sectors in a holistic way, creating a dynamic and exciting sector filled with opportunities for growth, through an emphasis on talent, research, innovation and enterprise. As a statutory board in the Singapore government, it seeks to deepen regulatory capabilities for a converged infocomm media. Learn more at https://www.imda.gov.sg/


About Tribe Accelerator
Tribe Accelerator is the first Singapore government supported blockchain accelerator, championing to be a neutral platform in driving collaboration and growth of the blockchain ecosystem. The product development focused accelerator aims to provide promising startups a hyperconnected platform to develop innovative solutions together with our network of global corporations, government agencies and top blockchain companies. Tribe Accelerator is backed by some of the world's leading organisations including AXA, BMW Group Asia, Citibank, ConsenSys, Ethereum Foundation, EY, IBM, Intel, Nielsen, PwC, R3, Temasek, Ubisoft and others. Learn more at :https://tribeaccelerator.co/
Special Guests: Veronica Tan and Yi Ming Ng.