This weekend begins with the infamous Blockchain Summit held at Sir Richard Branson’s Necker Island with industry executives, innovators, government regulators, and developers all gathering in the Caribbean.

The event will take place June 4-7th with special guests Marietje Schaake, European Parliament, Laurent Lamothe, former Haitian prime minister, Elizabeth Rossiello, CEO of BitPesa, Forbes Columnist Laura Shin, Beth Moses, an aerospace engineer for Virgin Galactic, and many more Bitcoin and blockchain alumni. This year’s Blockchain Summit will be sponsored by the BitFury Group and MaiTai Global. BitFury’s chief executive officer Valery Vavilov stated in the announcement:

“Our emphasis for this year’s gathering is to bring some of the world’s top thinkers from diverse backgrounds – civil society, NGOs, business, technology, government – to this extremely special place known for free thinking and cutting-edge innovation to foster out-of-the-box thinking, imagine new frontiers and form new partnerships, projects and initiatives that will drive the future of this transformational technology,”

The event will be broken down into three sections blockchain innovation, security, and financial management. This year is said to have a wide variety of people understanding each subject as well as a diverse crowd with occupations other than blockchain-related. With the finance section former White House staffer Jamie Smith, BitFury’s global CCO told Forbes, “I use that term quite loosely, because I don’t just mean Wall Street, London or Hong Kong. I mean the movement of currency around the world and how that will affect that way people are brought into the larger economy and out of the shadows of being unbanked.” Smith says the agendas won’t be “hard-core” panels but a relaxing atmosphere where people can do what they want.

Blockchain Summit, Photo by John Dill

Other business representatives attending the event will include members from Bloq, MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative, the U.S. Digital Currency Coordinator, World Bank, Tally Capital, and CME Group among many other firms and agencies. In addition to the diverse atmosphere of attendees Forbes Columnist Laura Shin will be hosting a podcast throughout the entire event called “Unchained: Big Ideas From The Worlds Of Blockchain And Fintech.”

The Blockchain Summit last year had a little controversy in the media concerning the majority of male attendees and the formation of the Blockchain Alliance. The group was initiated to help law enforcement learn about the technology as well as help them find criminal activity or people not following regulatory compliance.

There’s no doubt Sir Richard Branson digs blockchain technology and the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Branson has been a proponent for these innovative protocols for quite some time and continues to bolster its technological worth. Many are eager to see what comes out of this private meeting of the minds held on Branson’s island. Will there be discussions about the block size debate like there was at the Satoshi Roundtable? We shall see what kind of developments come to fruition from this meeting in the Caribbean. What we do know is the Blockchain Summit boasts a relaxing island atmosphere and organizers say, “Top influencers will meet and explore how the cutting edge technology behind the blockchain can and will change the world for better.”

Source: Blockchain Summit homepage, Forbes Images: Virginlimitededition, John Dill’s Blockchain Summit Photographs