Introducing seven candidates for the first election within the SingularityNET ecosystem.

Fulfilling Our Commitments

In May, we announced our plan to create the SingularityNET Supervisory Council.

As per our whitepaper, following a period of five years after the launch of the network, a supermajority of AGI token holders in combination with the foundation should be able to determine any future changes to the network’s operations. The SingularityNET Supervisory Council is a significant step toward the fulfilment of that vision.

The Supervisory Council will not only ensure that SingularityNET upholds its founding vision, values, and commitments but will also serve to foster quality interactions between our community members and the Foundation.

The registration form for the Supervisory Council was open to the public up until the 27th of May, and we would like to thank all applicants for their interest. A great variety of talented and passionate minded individuals submitted their names for consideration, and we are heartened by the fact that so many accomplished individuals share our vision.

The role of the Supervisory Council necessitates that the Council members be chosen in a fair and impartial manner. The Foundation has carefully assessed all the applicants and has selected seven nominees. All nominees are expected to hold AMA events and interact with the community members on the community forum.

On the 12th of June, our community members will vote and select three individuals from the nominees to be elected as Council members.

Each individual will vote only once, with one vote containing three candidates selected in order of preference. Tokens considered for the election must not be moved during the duration of the 24 hour voting period, this is a necessary measure that will ensure that each participant votes only once with the same AGI token balance — any tokens that do not meet this requirement will not be counted for voting in this election. It is also important to note that voting is free and that no tokens will be spent during the voting process.

For the ease of the community, a tutorial video of the voting process and UI will be provided in advance. For more information on the SingularityNET Supervisory Council and the voting process, please visit our community forum.

The Nominees

After a careful assessment of the applicants, the Foundation has shortlisted the following seven nominees for the SingularityNET Supervisory Council:

David Orban

“I believe that decentralized artificial intelligence solutions are better suited to achieve the goal of sustainable value creation benefiting humanity.”

David Orban is the Founder and Managing Partner of Network Society Ventures — a seed stage global investment firm focused on innovative startups at the intersection of exponential technologies and decentralized networks.

David started his professional career in AI in the mid-80s, when a previous generation of top-down solutions achieved important results. He has been originally a Prolog and Lisp developer and a knowledge engineer for expert systems.

He is an investor, entrepreneur, author, blogger, keynote speaker, and thought leader of the global technology landscape. He has led the adoption of Bitcoin and blockchain in start-ups and is an advisor and investor in numerous blockchain companies and funds.

To learn more about David Orban, please click here.

Dr. Florian Baumann

“I am fascinated by Open Source, sharing ideas, data, code and challenges around AI. Since my childhood I started coding, realizing ideas and discussing my insights as part of communities in different forums — connecting to the internet with a 33.3k modem.”

Dr. Florian Baumann is the CTO of Dell Technologies Unstructured Data Solutions division with a focus on Automotive and AI.

Florian received a Ph.D. in the area of Machine Learning applied to Scene Understanding in 2015. He has been involved with Machine Learning for over ten years and has more than 20 publications under his name. His main research area is visual recognition and solving highly-demanding learning problems.

He got in touch with blockchain technology in 2017 by reading various blockchain whitepapers — primarily focusing on IOTA and Ethereum, and finding use cases to improve business processes with a focus on Automotive and AI.

To learn more about Dr. Florian Baumann, please click here.

Penny Wong

“I believe in a future for humanity towards a near post-scarcity society (economics and governance) through abundance, automation and decentralised thinking. We need humans to think differently and collaborate globally through diversity and inclusion, regardless of gender, race, religion, age, and however us humans tend to segment ourselves.”

Penny Wong is a management consultant and co-founder of RadMis. Her lifetime mission is to utilize AI to transform the AgedCare sector. She volunteers in support of STEM education and human diversity in AI development and is a mentor at TechReadyWomen.

Penny has over 15 years of professional experience in designing and delivering enterprise application projects ranging from solution architecting, product commercialization, to leading digital transformation project turnaround (rescue/salvage). She has also worked as a payments consultant (since 2007) advocating P2P mobile payments, DLT, value transfer, and the future of money.

To learn more about Penny Wong, please click here.

Sean Goltz

“I am concerned about the AI empire.”

Sean Goltz, the author of “The Imaginationless Generation,” is a senior lecturer at the ECU business and law school, and an expert in technology ethics who focuses his research on the ethics of AI.

Sean is also the founder of Global-Regulation and is a lawyer in Israel and Canada. Global-Regulation has been named a finalist in the UBS future of finance and received funding from Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM.

To learn more about Sean Goltz, please click here.

Mathew Newmann

“It is my strong belief that we are morally obliged to partner lofty ambitions for a distant future with steps that can be taken right now to move in a positive direction.”

Mathew Newmann is an expert on the business application of AI Ethics and has an extensive background in steering multinational enterprises through complex, strategic change.

Mathew has a 20-year career in the application of new technology in industry. He has worked with enterprises in services, energy, health-tech, insurance, oil & gas, public sector, media, and FMCG.

He has co-designed global standards, advised professional associations, and assisted in the formation of government policy on the topics of corporate implementation of Artificial Intelligence and application of AI Ethics. Throughout his career, he has tried to ensure the equitable spread of benefits, costs, and risks from new technologies.

To learn more about Mathew Newmann, please click here.

Evan Freeman

“Human potential is vast, together we can create the opportunities needed to continue the advancement of society in positive ways to ensure that human potential will never be wasted.”

Evan Freeman is a prominent educator in the blockchain space, who has spent considerable time lobbying and educating governments and corporations on the benefits of blockchains and machine learning.

Evan is the VP of a Blockchain Investment Fund and is the first college blockchain instructor in Canada. He also serves as a member of the Digital Currency Working group of the Hawaii State Senate.

To learn more about Evan Freeman, please click here.

Trent Barnes

“The sovereign individual.”

Trent Barnes is an advisor and mentor to a number of companies, projects, and executives in the blockchain, technology, fintech, and social impact space. He is a Partner at ZeroCap, a blockchain VC firm that focuses on capital investments, advisory, and innovative liquidity solutions in the blockchain and fintech space.

Trent comes from a recruitment background, where he implemented and advised on recruitment, job placement, and people and culture strategies for corporates and startups. He is also a board member of the Blockchain Association of Australia with a mission to grow and enhance the Australian Blockchain community and to further enhance the ecosystem.

To learn more about Trent Barnes, please click here.

Communal Responsibility

As the world wakes up to the importance and power of AI, the need for a decentralized AI network that is owned by everyone, and no one, will only become more acute.

Currently, the Foundation is playing a vital role in the evolution of the overall SingularityNET ecosystem. Until the control of the network is transferred to the token holders, the Supervisory Council will ensure that the stewardship of the Foundation is in accordance with the core vision underlying SingularityNET.

It is now the responsibility of the community members to interact with the Supervisory Council Nominees (and vice versa) and to cast their vote during the first ever election within the SingularityNET ecosystem. We see this election as a pivotal moment for SingularityNET and the affirmation of its underlying philosophy for decentralized democratic governance.

We hope that this initial exercise in community democracy will allow the SingularityNET ecosystem to demonstrate the maturity it has gained during this past period of development. The success of this election will also be an early, preliminary indicator of the kind of Decentralised Autonomous Organisation that the SingularityNET platform could eventually become.

Join Us

If you would like to learn more about SingularityNET, we have a passionate and talented community which you can connect with by visiting our Community Forum. Feel free to say hello and introduce yourself over here.

We hope you will join us in our mission to democratize AI and to use its transformative powers to enact real, positive and lasting change. The best way forward is to come together and work practically towards creating a better future.

For any additional information, please refer to our new roadmap. To stay informed about all of our developments, please subscribe to our newsletter.