Social encounters

These weeks events:

Aion Rebuild Conference, April 23rd-24th, 2019, Toronto Reference Library: The second incarnation of the Aionex conference. Check out Rebuild Conference Twitter.

Matt Spoke was one of the speakers at the 2019 SingularityU Canada Summit — April 23rd-24th, 2019 — Edmonton Convention Centre, Edmonton.

Aion Founders Matt Spoke and Kesem Frank was speaking at Blockchain Revolution Global, April 24th-25th, 2019 in Toronto.

Videos:

Matt’s update for the Month — May 3rd:

Aion Founder Matt Spoke shares updates on Unity paper and AVM mainnet launch.

Jennifer, PM for Rebuild, shares her thoughts capturing the success of the first Rebuild Conference.

Videos from Aion Rebuild Conference:

Announcing Unity Hybrid Consensus and the Aion Virtual Machine Timeline and Support: At REBUILD Conference 2019, the Aion Foundation announced the path toward next-gen consensus for the Public Network and dates and details around the Aion Virtual Machine (AVM) on Mainnet.

Matt Spoke — What it Mean to Rebuild the Internet: Bitcoin and blockchains are not only about 1000x returns and lambos. They represent an architectural shift in how we govern our society. The shift which is much needed. Matt Spoke, CEO and founder of AION explains why the web3 is needed, explains the history of the internet, what web 1 and 2 were all about, and articulates the intentions behind web 3.

Panel 1 — How Enterprises View Blockchain (Deloitte, IBM, EEA, Web 3): The movement of web 3 technologies is attracting some very big fish. Understand how enterprises are thinking about blockchain and crypto by hearing from individuals at the head of this movement from organizations like IBM, Deloitte, EEA, and Web 3 Labs.

Panel 2 — How to Solve the Biggest Issues Facing Blockchain Adoption: Hear from researchers, open-source contributors and engineers that are working from the front-lines on the biggest issues facing blockchain technology from being able to be the backbone infrastructure for mainstream applications. Individuals that are present on the panel are from organizations such as AION, Chainsafe, and Microsoft.

Panel 3 — Building Web 3.0: Without a proper foundation, a house cannot stand. At the moment, web3 and blockchains are building that foundation for the future decentralized applications to be able to function properly. Listen to individuals that are building that foundation from companies like AION, Nodesmith, Pocketnetwork, and Blockdaemon.

Panel 4 — Side Effects of Monopolies Controlling the Internet: Apple and Google have monopolized app distribution and now have the power to cut off any viable competitors or put individuals out of business by simply refusing to put them on their platform or launching a competitor and having it in the spotlight. This panel consists of serial entrepreneurs and tech innovators that have lots of experience with app development and interactions between these monopolies. They have much to say about them.

Panel 5 — Business Models for Dapps: The first applications that were developed on the internet had no way of monetizing the content they produced and usually resulted in giving away products absolutely for free. It was not too long before advertisers noticed a ripe, new industry, perfect for exploiting. Before we knew it, the web was marinated in ads and it was the only viable business model for application on the web. The web3 movement challenges that belief. Hear the panel of industry experts and veterans that have built, consulted and funded new businesses in the blockchain space. In order for us not to repeat the same mistake that happened during the development of the web, we need to come up with alternative businesses models that would be able to monetize on the content that is produced.

What new and innovative business models are we going to see in the future?

Panel 6 — How to Fund Web 3: During the ICO boom, it seemed like it was the wild west, where you could throw your money anywhere and it would double in days. But since the hype has died down significantly, much more caution has been given when approaching this new and yet unknown industry. Hear from the key investors and builders of this new technology and understand how they approach the untamed industry.

Panel 7 — The Governance of Blockchain Protocols: Hear from individuals responsible for building the projects that are the backbone of decentralization applications and web 3 — Cosmos, AION, Polkadot and Ethereum. Understand their shared vision and ambition that they have for the future of the better web.

Kesem Frank — Building and Investing into Blockchain: Many see blockchain and the crypto industry simply as a speculative tool that goes up and down like a rollercoaster ride. Kesem Frank, the co-founder of NUCO, then AION, Mavennet, and his new fund — Bicameral Ventures, cuts through the fog of what blockchain is all about and talks on its potential having realized it when he was working as a consultant for Deloitte. Understand how Kesem’s vies on this industry as an investment tool and as something that many valuable businesses will utilize in the near future.

Sascha Darius Mojtahedi — Bunz, and the future principles of the internet: What started out as a simple facebook group for trading and exchanging things, has turned into an entire community and one of the leading web 3 projects with thousands of people using this new way of exchange. This leading project of the web 3 movement is called Bunz.

Hear Sascha, one of the founders of Bunz, talk about the principles behind web 3 technologies, the lessons learned from previous technological innovations and what kind of an outlook we should have on the future of this technological movement.

Robert McChesney — the History of the Internet and it’s Corporate Owners: Robert McChesney examines some of the biggest issues facing our society in the 21st century. The large internet monopolies are controlling the market, with surveillance and lack of privacy becoming “the gold standard for making making. Having all of the information about all of us is central to their business model.” Robert explains how this is not only a threat to our rights, but to democracy. With us having a third of the number of working journalists today as we did twenty five years ago on per capita basis. Robert dives into explaining how journalists are a key component to core democratic theory and how due to the current state of the web, there is no signs of them improving. Unless we solve these issues soon, with the technologies on the rise like AI, and robotics, “inequality today will look like a golden age of equality 10 or 20 years down the road.”

Watch Robert McChesney to understand key issues in our society today and what Web 3.0 is working towards solving them.

Ann Cavoukian — embedding privacy into the infrastructure of our society: Both of the private and public sectors are incentivized to extract as much data as they can out of you. Data has become the new oil of the 21st century, and massive surveillance that has been used in the process of extracting it has resulted in lack of privacy and trust. Three term privacy commissioner of Ontario, Ryerson university professor and author of multiple academic works including ‘privacy by design’, Ann Cavoukian speaks about the importance of imbedding privacy into the design of organizations and products and services that they provide.

Alex Tapscott — What is Blockchain and Why it Matters: Alex Tapscott is the author of a popular book — blockchain revolution and the co-founder of the Blockchain Research Institute in Toronto. He is a strong evangelist of blockchain technology and is able to articulate it in a certain way that enables everybody to understand it’s significance.

Watch the video to understand the technology behind Bitcoin and how it can change so much more than just the way we transact currency online.

Ethan Buchman — Philosophical Perspective on the Engineering of Web 3: Ethan Buchman is the founder Cosmos, one of the most prominent blockchain protocols that is focused on tackling the biggest challenges that blockchains have today — interoperability, and scalability. Among many other things.

Ethan Buchman talks about what kind of infrastructure we need in order to enable web 3 to function properly with an unique take from a philosophical perspective mixed with a technical one.

Peter Kieltyka — Blockchain for Gaming: Blockchain technology has already challenged our beliefs about what money really is, now it is challenging us to think what gaming is all about. With the power of being able to transact value on the web and not rely on vast intermediaries, the experience of gaming might be completely different in the future. Peter Kieltyka, the founder of Horizon Games and he is focused on changing the future for gaming for the better. Listen to Peter talk about vast technologies coming from blockchains that could change the way the world play’s online.

Tanner Mirrlees — What Shapes the Digital Age and it’s Problems: Hear an academics perspective on the flaws about the current digital age. While many of rebuilds conference speakers have been engineers, entrepreneurs and investors, Tanner Mirrlees is a professor at the Ontario Tech University. Understand his take on what is needed for the web to become sustainable and for the current problems to be solved.

Dr Cathy Barrera — Blockchain Governance 101: How do we govern something that is decentralized and doesn’t have any hierarchy. Blockchain comes with many opportunities but with them brings many challenges, one of which being how does a network supposed to govern itself and the parties interacting with it. Dr. Cathy Barrera is the founding partner at Prysm Cryptoeconomic group which focuses their research and effort in understanding what does an optimal blockchain network look like and how does it act. Watch her talk at Rebuild to understand one of the top questions facing the blockchain revolution.

Ryan Zurrer — Understanding Web 3: We need web 3 because web 2 failed us. With web 3, users would be able to control their own privacy, sovereign identity, financial accounts and destiny. Understand the progressing history of the web and how we ended up with one that controls majority of our personal data and in which surveillance has become the golden business model for making money. Ryan Zurrer, director of web3 foundation, walks us through the history of the web, explains the flaws of web 2 and points to blockchain technology as the solution to maintain our sovereignty.

Kevin Owocki — Gitcoin and the Power of Open-Source: Understanding how open-source works and its potential from Kevin Owocki, the founder of Gitcoin — a project which empowers open-source developers by paying them with Gitcoin crypto for completing various tasks.

Ryan Selkis — Investment Infrastructure of Blockchains: Ryan Selkis, the co-founder of Messari and former Consensys employee, is talking about building the necessary infrastructure that needs to exist in order for Web3 to function.

Gregory Markou — How To Contribute to Web3’s Development: Gregory Markou is VP of Engineering at Chainsafe.

Ali Sharif — A Researchers Explanation for Blockchain.

David Winterstein — Velocia.

Upcoming events:

Aion at Consensus 2019 NY — May 13th-15th, 2019.

Reddit: