The IOTA Foundation is excited to welcome Blockchain @ Berkeley into the community and to announce our official collaboration. B@B is an organization setup by students at UC Berkeley. Their group consist of Berkeley students, alumni, community members, and Distributed Ledger Technology/Blockchain enthusiasts from all educational and industrial backgrounds: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Economics, Business, and more. Over the coming months we will be exploring several different use cases in a multitude of sectors together with this great team. Read below about each individual member’s experience, interest and reason for wanting to work on IOTA in their own words.

Jonathan Allen

I am the Co-Head of Consulting at B@B. I was in the military for five years as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician, then worked at several tech startups before starting school at UC Berkeley last semester. I am an Interdisciplinary Studies major with a focus in economics, business, and computer science. I have been closely following the blockchain space since late 2013 and I am an avid physical crypto collector. I am very excited to work with IOTA. When I first read the white paper I was extremely impressed with how it took such a novel approach to solving the issue of transaction throughput seen on other current distributed ledger implementations. Many of the use cases I have been explored make much more sense with feeless transactions and no hard cap on transaction rate. Looking at the development road map it is extremely ambitious and we can’t wait to get involved in any way that we can.

Collin Chin

I am a student developer at B@B and a third year electrical engineering and computer science major at UC Berkeley. Last semester, I worked as a developer for B@B’s external consulting team on a project with Airbus Group. This Summer, I am interning at Consensys with the Gnosis team. The very first in-depth blockchain project that I worked on attempted to solve problems using IoT devices. However, deeper thought into connecting small devices to a large blockchain network poked holes in the use-case. With IOTA’s scalable Tangle, I can see many of the difficulties involving IoT and blockchain disappearing. This realization, along with the motivated IOTA community, has sparked my interest in developing on IOTA and made me excited for our new partnership.

Raymond Chu

I am a third year computer science major at UC Berkeley and developer at Blockchain at Berkeley. Last semester, I was the lead developer on the Provenance team — supply chain management of pharmaceuticals to comply with the FDA’s new Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA). This summer I am a software engineering intern at IBM and I’m currently seeking more opportunities and projects in the blockchain space. I am really looking forward to working with IOTA because of the potential use cases that IOTA’s tangle brings to the table. Many of the current blockchain implementations don’t have the scalability or practicality, while IOTA opens many doors. I’m excited to see and work on the innovative ideas that spring from the IOTA community.

Pranav Gaddamadugu

I am a developer at Blockchain at Berkeley and a second year computer science major. Last semester, I was the lead developer on the Blockjack team, where we implemented a version of Blackjack on the Ethereum blockchain. I am currently interning at Consensys with the Virtue Poker team.



I look forward to tackling interesting use cases for IOT and the blockchain. IOTA offers a large number of advancements, like quantum-proofing and eliminating transaction fees, that enable a variety of implementations. Although the projects are ambitious, I am excited to see what the IOTA community can come up with.

Ali Mousa

I’m a second year computer science student at UC Berkeley. Last semester, I was a lead developer on Blockchain at Berkeley’s first external consulting project for the Airbus Group. This summer I am interning at BlockApps. IOTA excites me because a fee-less, scalable blockchain is what the blockchain space currently lacks. This enables many use cases that other platforms render impossible because of gas costs and high transactions fees, as well as high block times and absurdly lengthy times for transaction finality. IOTA also brings the blockchain to more devices than just ASIC miners and beefy computers with thousand dollar GPUs. IOTA has the potential to be the next generation blockchain.

Gillian Chu

I’m a second year computer science student at UC Berkeley, with a minor in Biology. Last semester, I worked on the consultant team to the Airbus group, and now I’m an editor for the Blockchain @ Berkeley blog, as well as helping to organize the October 2017 Cryptoeconomics conference. I’ve worked with B@B for a full year now and am excited about how I’ve seen the space grow in this short span of time. IOTA’s Tangle resolves scalability obstacles in a way that gives blockchain the brilliant potential to truly affect a variety of contexts. I’m especially fascinated by the use case where IOTA’s data validators push telehealth forward. Additionally, with feeless transactions, IOTA’s role in developing an e-voting platform seems particularly promising. With so many impressive and ambitious use cases made possible, I’m excited to learn lots in our partnership.

Nick Zoghb

I’m a developer, consultant and education officer for B@B. I am also a third year computer science and bioengineering major. Last semester I worked on an enterprise-facing platform that leverages IoT and Blockchain technologies to mitigate supply chain inefficiencies within the agricultural industry. I am currently co-heading our initiative to create a developer-focused ethereum course. My time on the IoT team has convinced me of the vast untapped potential still latent in the tech. IOTA is leading the way through new and exciting territory with the potential to upend, not just entire industries, but how the economy itself functions. The partnership is no doubt a thrilling next page in B@B’s book; I am looking forward to learning and being an effective contributor to the team.

Ronen Kirsh

I am the Co-Head of Consulting at B@B and in charge of external outreach. I served in the IDF for three years in a special forces reconnaissance unit as a medic, commander, and sergeant. After the military, I co-founded two startups in the social entrepreneurship space and worked in sales and marketing in the foreign exchange industry. In 2014, I moved to California to pursue my higher education and I am currently a senior at UC Berkeley studying Economics and Entrepreneurship. I have been engaged in the crypto space for almost two years and I have been hooked ever since. Since hearing about IOTA’s novel approach to scalability and emphasis on IoT use cases, I have been waiting a long time to see the first implementations of the technology. Being early adopters is a core value at B@B and provides us with the passion and drive to become a leading contributor within the IOTA community. We can’t wait to contribute to the ecosystem of support and development in order to help IOTA’s goals come to fruition.

William Dai

I am a developer and consultancy management officer at Blockchain at Berkeley. As a second year electrical engineering computer science and business administration intended double major at UC Berkeley, I am inclined to view both technology and finance not as means to an end, but tools for creating a more equitable world where people have the opportunity and resources to choose their own destinies. During the last semester, I worked on a project exploring the feasibility of cross-exchange arbitrage between fiat currencies and the two leading cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ether. This summer, I am taking two courses, on project management and machine structures, as well as serving as a residential advisor and working on a project with Augur. In my free time I enjoy participating in CTFs (Capture the Flag, a genre of cyber security competition). I am particularly fascinated by IOTA’s groundbreaking advances in secure data transfer. The idea of IoT devices seamlessly conducting microtransactions opens a multitude of possibilities for more efficient automation or even crowdsourcing. I look forward to learning while collaborating with IOTA.

Cliff H. Ahn

I am a consultancy management officer at B@B studying economics and am planning to take courses in computer science to possibly pursue a minor. Last semester, I was the head of consulting for a project that focused on an enterprise-facing platform that leveraged IoT and Blockchain technologies to mitigate supply chain inefficiencies within the agricultural industry with Nick Zoghb. I worked with some fintech students to educate and prepare a presentation to USAID regarding blockchain technologies, and am currently working on projects within the organization. After working on a project focused on IoT and blockchain, it felt natural to move towards IOTA after it was introduced to us. IOTA’s scalability as well as its focus on IoT combined with the many ambitious projects that are in the pipeline are what drew me in, and I am excited for the opportunity to learn and grow alongside my peers and IOTA.

Aparna Krishnan

I am a third year Computer Science Major at UC Berkeley with a minor in Economics. I co-head the Education Department and co-taught the cryptocurrency decal in spring 2017. I am currently working on my own series of blog posts analyzing the corrective security measures of blockchain technologies. After reading a paper about how users’ data is not their own, I’ve been very keen to work on an application where people can monetize and control their own data. I believe that such user data can easily be monetized with IOTA’s tangle because it enables micro transactions. I am excited to work IOTA’s motivated community and push forward some interesting projects!

The IOTA Foundation is very excited to have such great students working together with us on a myriad of interesting projects that will explore uncharted territory for distributed ledger technology. Expect a lot of cool use cases and projects to spawn from this. Welcome B@B!