Abstract
This Panel Discussion, gives an insight into how Blockchain as a technology can be used to achieve the conference theme, namely, ‘Ubiquitous Digital Connectivity and Economic Prosperity For All’. Since the theme pivots around economic equality, this panel has taken Decentralized Finance(DeFi) as its case study. The approach adopted is to introduce the audience to this new technology, namely blockchain by using simple real-life examples and case-studies of countries and people around the world who are using this technology. The audience is first taken through the familiar comfort zone of traditional banking and made aware of its short-comings such as being skewed towards High Networth Individuals(HNI) and the inherent economic disparity it causes to the vast majority, namely the common individual. The listener is then made to grasp the problems with traditional banking, a centralized financial system and is enlightened about the need to have a more open, accessible and reliable financial system.The audience is made aware that the existing UPI payment methods facilitating inter-bank transactions is a stepping stone to the idea of an open financial system. The listener is then slowly hand-held into the concept of Decentralized Finance(DeFi) and how blockchain can be used as a technology to envisage this. The discussion ends with how ubiquitous digital connectivity is no longer a dream,but very much a reality, thereby laying the foundation for technologies such as blockchain to be adopted in the coming years. The discussion ends with where we are currently in this blockchain adoption roadmap and what is in store for us, throwing light on the roadblocks along this journey and how they can potentially be overcome.
Focus Areas:
- Understanding “Value” of cryptocurrency as a universal digital currency
- Financial accessibility and sovereignty for all
- Decentralized Composable financial instruments using Blockchain technology
- Immediate remittance (Venezuela, Japan, El Salvador examples)
- Unique digital identity with ubiquitous connectivity / Next Gen KYC
- How blockchain provides secure digital identity (EU, Australia examples)
Panelists Details
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Dr.Mydhili K Nair,
Professor, MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology (Moderator) |
Areas of Interest:
Data Science and De-centralized Computing Technologies such as, Blockchain.
Short Bio:
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Dr.Mydhili K Nair is currently working as a Professor in MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology. She has a mixed bag of 8 years Industrial Experience & 17 years of Academic Experience. In the IT Industry she has adorned various roles ranging from Technical Lead to Project Manager in different companies such as Wipro, Hexaware, Asset Corporate Consultant to IBM & Mahindra Comviva. In Academia she has been working in MSRIT since 2004. She has won the prestigious IBM Faculty Award in the year 2011 for her collaborative research association with IBM. She loves to keep abreast with cutting edge technology. In this context,she was invited to be a Teaching Consultant for two AICTE(Govt) sponsored workshops in the Blockchain domain, where she and her team made the syllabus and conducted two week-long hands-on sessions. She has filed for 4 patents and has 75 referred publications till date, which includes 6 Book Chapters. She is also in the editorial panel of referred journals & has been a member of the organizing committee, panelist and session chair for many annual symposiums, conferences, such as IEEE CCEM as well as Women In Engineering (WiE) forums such as Grace Hopper Conference, IEEE ANTS WiE track etc. She is also the faculty mentor for Google Developer Student Club of MSRIT. She & her students have won many project competitions & best paper awards at State & National level, including Smart India Hackathon for three successive years (2018 to 2020). She is passionate about teaching and mentoring student projects, some of which have actual end-users. Her current area of interest is to Apply Technology for Societal Benefits, especially in the Assistive Technologies sector, mainly visually impaired. |
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Dr. Varun M Deshpande
General Manager, Cybersecurity in Schneider Electric, Nashville USA |
Areas of Interest:
Cyber-security, Privacy, Trust and Blockchain.
Short Bio:
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Dr. Varun M Deshpande is currently working as General Manager – Cybersecurity in Schneider Electric. He has 11 years of industry experience in different domains of Cybersecurity. Prior to Schneider Electric, he worked at McAfee for over 8 years in the Consumer Security division. He has earned his Ph.D. degree for his research working in the field of cloud security, trust, and privacy. He has published over 10 international research publications in peer reviewed journals, book chapters & conferences. He has filed for 4 patents in the India Patent Office as part of his research work. He is recipient of Global Intellect Educational Award 2018 in category of GIS Youngest Innovator Award (South Region) distributed by JSR in association with Asian Society for Scientific Research in Pune, April 2018 for contributions towards research and innovation, among other awards. He has delivered several invited tech talks on Blockchain and Cybersecurity in various forums, including presenting keynote addresses in IEEE International Conferences. Also, has been Session Chair in multiple IEEE international conferences. He has delivered several hands-on workshops including Blockchain Technology in both academia and corporate. His area of interests within Blockchain and Cyber security include enterprise risk management, identity & access management, data privacy, application of security frameworks, application security, secure software development cycle etc. He has achieved certain certifications including CompTIA Security+, ISO/IEC 27001 Lead Implementer and ISO/IEC 27001 Lead Auditor. He is a Member of Board of Studies, School of Engineering. & Tech., Jagran Lakecity University. He is also an advisory member, part of NEP Implementation Committee in Jagran Lakecity University. |
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Abhitej Singh
Strategy and Community |
Areas of Interest:
Crypto and Blockchain ecosystem.
Short Bio:
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Abhitej leads Strategy and Community at Persistence, a Singapore-based Blockchain startup. Persistence network is based on the Tendermint BFT consensus and makes the asset classes such as Proof-of-Stake assets, Commodities and Art/Collectibles accessible to all through decentralised applications. He is also the co-founder of Cosmos India. Abhitej has been in the Crypto and Blockchain ecosystem since inception of Persistence and actively works in the Decentralised Finance (DeFi) and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) domains. He is also contributing with the adoption of inter-chain NFT and Metadata standard, interNFT. |
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Bapireddy
CoFounder and CTO |
Areas of Interest:
Blockchain, specifically De-Fi.
Short Bio:
Bapireddy leads all things technical at BrahamFi, a DeFi startup. BrahmaFi creates and manages a host of novel DeFi components and strategies by abstracting complexity and making DeFi accessible to the masses.
Bapireddy has been in the blockchain space since inception of BrahmaFi. He started as a Quantitative Researcher at Hooklabs, a Crypto quant trading firm. Before that, he worked as a Research Engineer at Samsung R&D leading in machine learning research.
He graduated with a Dual Degree in Electronics & Electrical Communication Engineering from IIT Kharagpur.
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Aditya Gupta
Founder of Hopon and Blockchain developer at Hooklabs |
Areas of Interest:
P2P networking including Blockchain.
Short Bio:
Aditya Gupta is working as Blockchain Engineer at Hooklabs. Prior to working in decentralized finance, he had founded Hopon, a company specializing in providing blockchain and decentralized networking solutions.
He also worked as an SDE at Amadeus Software Labs for 2 years where he served as the security whitehat for their R & D division.
Aditya has delivered several talks on blockchain and decentralization at various corporate and academic forums. He has also delivered hands-on workshops to university students as well as corporate teams.
His areas of interest lie in P2P networking, trustless execution, decentralization and censorship resistant technologies, application security and data privacy.
