During the third annual Blockchain & Bitcoin Conference, Russian developer Sergei Lonshakov demonstrated the work of his “drone employee,” that is, a drone operated via a smart contract.

The demonstration impressed the conference participants. Dmitri Starodubtsev, attendee of the event and co-founder of cyber•Fund, told CoinFox:

“I was really surprised by Sergei Lonshakov who demonstrated a drone controlled through a smart contract. That’s really cool. Nobody else has done such a thing yet.”

The so-called “drone employee” is a good example of how the Internet of Things works. Created by Lonshakov and his team back in December 2015, this project enables one to rent a drone and to send it to any given location. The important thing is that the drone is not human-controlled when performing the task. It measures the distance, calculates the price, receives the payment and gets to the destination all by itself, operating through a smart contract based on the Ethereum platform. When the drone returns to its base, it creates a transaction informing the client that the task is complete, which, in turn, leads to the termination of the contract. More about the way the “drone employee” operates can be found on Lonshakov’s Russian blog.

Referring to the conference in general, Starodubtsev noted that precisely such developments make the event more interesting.

“Generally speaking, I’m glad to see that the event is becoming more and more interesting every year. The number of participants is growing, the reports are getting better. And some really interesting things appear which are made by our guys.”

Sergei Lonshakov has been involved in the development of cryptocurrency projects since 2011. In 2014, soon after Ethereum was founded, Lonshakov took an interest in the platform and began investigating the implications of smart contracts. In 2015, he began working with DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) and since the autumn of 2015, he has fully focused on the possibilities Ethereum creates for DAO and IoT.

Blockchain & Bitcoin Conference Russia 2016 took place on 8 April in Moscow and gathered government and banking representatives, financial experts, payment systems and services, entrepreneurs, developers of fintech services, investors and lawyers. 2016 has become the first year when the term “blockchain” was added to the name of the conference which was earlier referred to as “Bitcoin Conference Russia.”

Andrew Levich