Today’s Blockchain Workshop will attempt to bring financial industry executives, regulators and digital currency entrepreneurs together to learn about the impact and potential of decentralized ledger technologies.

Blockchain Workshop runs June 15-16 at the Millennium Hotel in London and hosts a series of talks covering emerging blockchain payment networks, regulatory challenges, financial inclusion and more. The event is organized by Constance Choi, founder of blockchain law firm Seven Advisory, as well as two Harvard law professionals: Law Lab Co-director John Clippinger and Berkman Center for Internet & Society Research Fellow Primavera De Filippi.

“We believe that the rapid emergence of blockchain technologies presents revolutionary opportunities and challenges to the future of modern society as we face the 21st century,” Choi told Bitcoin Magazine. “The fundamental lack of understanding of these complex technologies has impaired exploration, innovation and deployment. We started this initiative to address blockchain policy issues through a multi-stakeholder approach.”

Demystifying the Blockchain

The conference’s location in London is not by accident. The city recently has been recognized as the world’s leading hub for financial technology and Bitcoin startups. The region’s financial focus is represented in the event’s partners and sponsors. Deutsche Bundesbank, the University of Oxford and the European Commission’s Startup Europe are some of the event’s partners, and sponsors include Barclays Bank, international law firm Bryan Cave and Swedish Bitcoin exchange Ecurex.

The conference will kick off with an introduction to digital currency and blockchains, covering Ripple, Ethereum, Eris, Bitcoin and others. Then talks get into the nitty gritty of the economics behind these emerging platforms with a keynote by Houman Shadab of New York Law School.

The event then transitions into one of the most talked about finance topics of the decade: financial inclusion. Yussar A.F. Abar, former governor of Central Bank of Somalia and vice president at Citigroup, will lead a talk about how blockchain technology could help those without bank accounts in Africa and beyond.

The next day starts with a keynote by IBM database programmer and Ethereum developer, Henning Diedrich, who will show how blockchains could be used to secure and facilitate transactions between the Internet of Things. The event will then go on to explore who and what will be regulated under new decentralized schemes for corporations and financial institutions. BlockchainWorkshop will end by going over existing or potential use cases, such as supply-chain payments, crowdfunding and monetization of art.