Austin Hill

CEO, Blockstream Corp.

Austin Hill is an entrepreneur and active investor. In 1994, Austin founded one of the first Internet providers in Canada, Total.Net (Sold to BCE Emergis in 1997). After that, he co-founded Zero–Knowledge Systems, the largest and most funded research company focused around cypherpunk technologies for privacy, anonymity, and electronic cash. The company also pioneered anonymous networking technology and invented cryptographic identity trust metric systems. Since leaving Zero–Knowledge in 2006, Austin has been an active angel investor, social entrepreneur focused on meaningful games and gift economies.

Austin was a Venture Partner with Montreal Startup and helped create Real Ventures, Canada’s leading early stage venture capital firm. Working with executive MBA programs and as a partner with Founder Fuel (Real Ventures early stage accelerator), Austin has mentored more than 60 early stage startups. Austin has been involved in the founding of hundreds of companies as an investor, founder, board member or, more often, as an instigating participant.

Jun Murai

Dean / Professor, Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University

He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science, Keio University in 1987, majored in Computer Science, Computer Network and Computer Communication. He developed the Japan University UNIX Network (JUNET) in 1984, established WIDE Project in 1988, aiming to research and develop the computer networks, currently the Founder.

He is a member of the Strategic Headquarters for the Promotion of an Advanced Information and Telecommunications Network Society (IT Strategic Headquarters), a member of the Cyber Security Policy Council, National center of Incident readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity(NISC) , Cabinet Secretariat, chairs and serves on many other governmental committees, and is active in numerous international scientific associations. He is known as the "Internet samurai" and, in Japan has also been called "the father of the Internet in Japan".

He was a Member of Internet Architecture Board (IAB) from 1993-1995, Board of trustee of Internet Society (ISOC) from 1997-2000, Board of Director of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) from1998-2000. He was inducted into The 2013 Internet Hall of Fame/ 2011 IEEE Internet Award / 2005 Jonathan B. Postel Service Award.

Michael Casey

Senior Advisor, MIT Media Lab Digital Currency Intiative

Michael Casey is a Senior Advisor for the Digital Currency Initiative at MIT's Media Lab. Most of Michael’s career was spent as a journalist, including 18 years at The Wall Street Journal, where he was a senior columnist covering global economics and markets and a frequent TV and radio commentator. In the summer of 2015, Michael left the Journal to to join MIT. There, he is seeking to build awareness around digital currencies and the underlying blockchain technology, shaping scholarship around the topic and exploring dedicated research projects that use this emerging technology to achieve social impact goals.

Michael is a frequent public speaker. He also advises institutions on how to understand the challenges and opportunities emerging from digital currency technology. He is the author of three books, including The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money are Challenging the Global Economic Order, co-authored with Paul Vigna, The Unfair Trade: How our Broken Global Financial System Destroys the Middle Class and Che’s Afterlife: The Legacy of an Image. A native of Perth, Australia, Michael has degrees from the University of Western in Australia, Curtin University and Cornell University.

Naoyuki Iwashita

Head of Fintech Center, Bank of Japan

He graduated from Keio University in March 1984 with a B.A. in Economics and joined the Bank of Japan.
In July 1994, Mr. Iwashita was transferred to the Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, and was in charge of institutional research into the IT for the financial system, such as cyber security, digital currency, cryptography, PKI and biometrics for fifteen years.
In 2006, Mr. Iwashita assigned to Head of Center for Information Technology Studies (CITECS).
In June 2009, Mr. Iwashita was inducted as Director of Shimonoseki Branch, located in Yamaguchi prefecture.
Fron July 2011 to July 2013, Mr. Iwashita was seconded to Hitachi, Ltd. He was assigned as Senior Director of Smart Information Systems Division
In July 2013, Mr. Iwashita returned to the Bank and was assigned to the Payment and Settlement Systems Department as Associate Director-General.
In May 2014, Mr. Iwashita assigned to Head of Center for Advanced Financial Technology (CAFT) in the Financial System and Bank Examination Department.
In April 2016, the Bank of Japan established the FinTech Center in the Payment and Settlement Systems Department and Mr. Iwashita was appointed as Head of the Center.

Oki Matsumoto

Chaiman & CEO, Monex Group, Inc.

BA in Law from the University of Tokyo (1987). Began his career at Salomon Brothers and joined Goldman Sachs in 1990 where he became General Partner in 1994 at the age of 30, the youngest ever at that time.
In April 1999, he founded Monex, capitalized with Sony, where he is presently Chairman & CEO.
Monex Group, Inc. is a global online financial institution with operations in three major financial centers. Monex, Inc. in Japan, TradeStation Group, Inc. in the US, and Monex Boom Securities Limited in Hong Kong. It also has a Joint Venture online broker in Hangzhou, PRC. The group has about 1000 employees worldwide with over half of its staffs in the US.
He served as Financial Counsel to the Prime Minister and also as an outside director of Tokyo Stock Exchange, and presently is an outside director of Kakaku.com and JIN CO.

Ichihashi Ritsu

CTO, Bengo4.com

Post graduating from The University of Tokyo, School of Engineering in 2005, Ichihashi joined Accenture as a consultant in Communication Technology Business Strategy sector where he was invovled in the planning and execution of new business solution, support and marketing. In January of 2014, Ichihashi joined Bengo4.com where he was appointed as Executive Officer, Chief Technology Officer as of October 2015. While serving as CTO, he also serves as the company’s Legal Tech Lab director where he leads the R&D of smart contract systems using Blockchain technology.

Nicolas Dorier

CTO, Metaco SA

Nicolas Dorier serves as the CTO of Metaco SA in addition to being a main developer of NBitcoin, the most complete and portable bitcoin library (C3), and author of “Programming the Blockchain in C#”. (Link: http://n.bitcoin.ninja/) Dorier lends his C++ skills for improements in Bitcoin Core when proposed by contributors; such as OP_CSV, segregated witnesses and compact blocks.

Dorier is most interested in Open Asset- the colored coin protocol which allows issued token to be exchanged via bitcoin trasnactions and new potential of instant, trustless and free exchange of such token allowed by OP_CSV and segregated witness.

Shin’ichiro Matsuo, Ph.D.

Research Affiliate- Director's Liaison for Financial Cryptography, MIT Media Lab

Co-Founder, BSafe.network

Dr. Shin'ichiro Matsuo is a research scientist in cryptography and information security based in Silicon Valley. He is working on maturing Blockchain technology from academia side. He is a research affiliate - Director's Liaison for Financial Cryptography at MIT Media Lab, research fellow at University of Tokyo and Chief Security Scientist at MagicCube Inc. He is an editorial team member of LEDGER, the first Blockchain academic journal and a program committee member of W3C Blockchains and the Web. Together with Mr. Pindar Wong, he is establishing the BSafe.network to promote applied academic research in blockchain technologies. He is the editor of three ISO/IEC standards.

Dr. Matsuo founded CELLOS, the international consortium for security evaluation of cryptographic protocol and serves as the head of its technical working group for securing cryptographic protocol like TLS. Previously he served as the head of Japanese national body of ISO/IEC JTC1 SC27/WG2 for cryptographic techniques, a member of advisory board cryptographic technology for Japanese government. He is the member of IACR, IFCA.

Pindar Wong

Chairman, VeriFi (Hong Kong) Ltd

Pindar Wong is an internet pioneer, who co-founded the first licensed Internet Service Provider in Hong Kong in 1993. He is the Chairman of VeriFi (Hong Kong) Ltd, a discrete Internet Financial Infrastructure consultancy. In 2015, he helped organize Asia's first Blockchainworkshops.org, Phase 1 and 2 of ScalingBitcoin.org and sponsored the Hong Kong Bitcoin Roundtable. Together with Dr. Shin'ichiro Matsuo, he is establishing the bsafe.network to promote applied academic research in blockchain technologies.

Pindar serves on the Hong Kong Trade Development Council ICT Services advisory committee, the School of Engineering Advisory Committee HKUST, the Technical Advisory Board of the Packet Clearing House, Editorial Advisory Board of the Internet Protocol Journal. Previously, he was the first Vice-Chairman of ICANN, Chairman of the Asia Pacific Internet Association, alternate Chairman of Asia Pacific Network Information Center, Chairman of APRICOT and elected Trustee of the Internet Society From 2010-2015 he served on the Digital 21 Strategy Advisory Committee of the Hong Kong Government and the Task Force on Industry Facilitation.

Hiroaki Kitano

President & CEO, Director of Research, Sony Computer Science Laborataories, Inc.

Hiroaki KITANO received his B.A. in physics from International Christian University, Tokyo, and Ph.D. in computer science from Kyoto University. From 1988 to 1994, he was a visiting researcher at Center for Machine Translation at Carnegie Mellon University.

KITANO is President and CEO of Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc., President of The Systems Biology Institute, Professor at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, and Director of Laboratory for Disease Systems Modeling, RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences, Kanagawa. He is also a Founding President of the Robocup Federation.

He received The Computers and Thought Award from the International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence in 1993, Prix Ars Electronica 2000, Design Award 2001 from Japan Inter-Design Forum, and Nature’s 2009 Japan Mid-career Award for Creative Mentoring in Science, as well as being an invited artist for Biennale di Venezia 2000 and Museum of Modern Art, New York in 2001.

Motoaki Saito

CEO, PEZY Computing

Post his residency at the Department of Radiology, Tokyo University Hospital entered Graduate school whilst establishing a health care system corporation for research and development purposes. 3 years later in 1997, established a medical system and automatic diagnostic equipment development corporation in Silicon Valley.

Taking advatange of the research and development, knowhow gained in the US, In the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake, returned his corporation base to Japan where he shifted his focus to areas not limited to the medical field, such as the develpment of natural sciences in efforts to aid in the reconstruction of Japan.

Currently Saito served as the CEO of PEZY Computing, developing next generation super computer technology, Founder and Chairman of ExaScaler Inc. and UltraMemory Inc.

Developed in just 7 months, his in house technology build small scale supercomputer was awarded globally second place at Green500 in November of 2014, in July of 2015 from globally ranked first to third. Currently is working on a next generation super computer that has 100 times more potential than the currently “Kyo” and on general purposed artificial intelligence.

Ryota Kanai

Founder & CEO, ARAYA Brain Imaging

Born in Tokyo in 1977. Was introduced to Saussure liguistics in high school during a language class which sparked interest and research in how meaning is born through relationships and mathematically interpreting its subjectiveness and infrastructure. Kanai’s research puts emphasis on cognitive neuroscience approached via conciousness research and brain science applied to technology in today’s world.
Kanai graduated from Kyoto University, Graduate School of Science: Department of Biophysics, Division of Biological Sciences, and enrolled to Universiteit Utrecht where he received his PhD research visual awareness. Rsearched visual experience and time span engagement under Professor Shinsuke Shimojo at the California Institute of Technology. At the University College London (UCL) worked on developing non-invasive brain stimulation technology, in addition carried out research on brain resarch: machine learning to brain strucutre image. In 2015, after his continued research with Anil Seth from the University of Sussex, Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, founded and launched Araya Brain Imaging: Japans first brain information research venture.
Currently works on projects with the Japan Science and Technology (JST) on CREST: which focuses on artificial cousciousness via implementation of integrated information theory and free energy principle. For the further nurshiment of Conciousness Research in Tokyo, has set up Cionsciousness Club- which focuses on a wide range of conciousness research (not limited to neuroscience).

Koichi Nakamura

Founder & CEO, Idein Inc.

Born in 1984. Studied optimizing compiler technology for high performance computing at Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo. Joined a study of methodology of interdisciplinary studies and study of origins of life as a computer scientist outside the university. Worked as a lecturer of mathematics seminar for IT engineers, as an advisor of a major cellular carrier and a start-up company concerning data analysis and machine learning technologies. At April 2015, left the university and founded Idein Inc. From 2016, became an advisor of Digital Garage and cooperate with DG Lab with a focus on artificial intelligence.

Alex “Sandy” Pentland

Professor, Director, MIT Media Lab Connection Science and Human Dynamics Lab

Professor Alex "Sandy" Pentland directs the MIT Connection Science and Human Dynamics labs and previously helped create and direct the MIT Media Lab and the Media Lab Asia in India. He is one of the most-cited scientists in the world, and Forbes recently declared him one of the "7 most powerful data scientists in the world" along with Google founders and the Chief Technical Officer of the United States. He has received numerous awards and prizes such as the McKinsey Award from Harvard Business Review, the 40th Anniversary of the Internet from DARPA, and the Brandeis Award for work in privacy.

He is a founding member of advisory boards for Google, AT&T, Nissan, and the UN Secretary General, a serial entrepreneur who has co-founded more than a dozen companies including social enterprises such as the Data Transparency Lab, the Harvard-ODI-MIT DataPop Alliance and the Institute for Data Driven Design. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and leader within the World Economic Forum.

Yuki Shimahara

Founder & CEO, LPixel Inc.

Yuki Shimahara is the Founder & CEO of LPixel inc, one of the top image analysis developer in the life science field. He has majored in cell physiology and bio-image informatics in the University of Tokyo. After graduation, he has worked in IT ventures doing corporate planning, HR, and global business development. In 2014, he has founded LPixel Inc., together with his former colleagues from his university laboratory. LPixel develops an image diagnosis system using A.I. technology with Japanese National Cancer Center and some other medical institutes.

Fumitaka Yamasaki

CEO, iXs Research Corp.

Post completing his MS in Science and Engineering at Waseda University in 2000, entered a Ph.D. program at Osaka University, Graduate Schol of Engineering in addition to working as a researcher at ERATO JST Project with Hiroaki Kitano and at Osaka University Frontier Research Center. During his time as a Ph.D. student, he set up iXs Research Corporation and has since deployed research ahd development for specialized robots such as those in maintaining infrastrucutre, nucluear power plants in Fukushima.

Takeshi Fukuda

Director IBM Research, IBM Japan

Dr. Takeshi Fukuda is the Director of IBM Research – Tokyo. Throughout his career, Takeshi has expanded his background in a wide range of disciplines including data engineering, data mining, machine learning, bioinformatics and autonomic computing. Today, he is driving cognitive computing research initiatives to pave the way for deepening the relationship between humans and machines, and the world. He also teaches at Waseda University’s Graduate School.

Rei Inamoto

Founding Partner/ Creative Director Inamoto & Co

Originally from Tokyo, with international upbringings in Asia, Europe and the US, he brings an unusual combination and perspective to his work. Making him one of the most influential individuals in the marketing and creative industry today. Formly the Chief Creative Officer of AKQA worldwide overseeing creative solutions for clients such as Audi, Nike, Xbox. Rei has brought the agency to its highest recognitions, becoming the first to receive five Agency of the Year accolades from publications including: Adweek, Creative Review, Campaign.

As of late 2015, founded Inamoto & Co alongside former Managing Director of AKQA New York, Rem Reynolds. The company focuses on Business Invention for brands and consumers with Design, Data and Technology at its core.

Rei is a frequent speaker at numerous conferences including Cannes Lion Festival of Creativity, SXSW, Spikes in addition to his many awards and recognitions: “Creativity 50” in Creativity Magazine, “the Top 25 Most Creative People in Advertising” in Forbes and was inducted into “The Hall of Achievement” in 2012 by the American Advertising Federation.

He currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.

Neha Narula

Director of Research, MIT Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative

Neha Narula is Director of Research at the Digital Currency Initiative in the MIT Media Lab, where she leads a group focused on building the future of digital currency and decentralized systems. She completed a PhD at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT building fast, scalable distributed systems and databases. In a previous life she helped launch the new Digg and was a Senior Software Engineer at Google.

Thaddeus Dryja

Founder & CTO, Lightning Labs

The Bitcoin block size is a hot topic in Bitcoin. Gavin Andresen has been at the center of the heated discussion of how to scale Bitcoin to accommodate higher transaction volumes. The lightning Network has garnered much support as a possible solution to this problem. The co-authors of the lightning Network white paper, Joseph Poon and Tadge Dryja, gained credibility with the release of their ideas. Many projects have already seen the benefit of something like lightning Network to their projects. And, according to Joseph Poon, this will be an easy thing for them to do.

Kazutaka Yonekura

CEO, al+

CEO: Kazutaka Yonekura, responsible for technology planning, management planning and direction. 2001 Media Do Co., Ltd（Tokyo stock exchange shares: 3678）Appointed as Director. Become independent in 2004 In 2014, buyout the whole business of Miraishonen Inc. after achieving growth of up to 1.5 billion Japanese Yen in annual sales. Created Alt, Inc.in the same year, November.

Ichiro Otobe

Director of Operation & Member of the Board, ZMP Inc.

Ichiro is Director of Operation at ZMP Inc., an autonomous driving and robot technology firm, where he oversees overall business operations. Previously, he was President of Riot Games LLC, a Japan subsidiary of the global leader in e-Sports, where he has lead the launch of Japan operation. Before Riot Games, he was Partner at Advantage Partners, a private equity firm, where he has lead the investment deals of Willcom, Wireless City Planning, Komeda, and GTA TeleGuam. He has also served as Board Member of Reins International and lead the international expansion of Gyu-Kaku, a Japanese BBQ restaurant chain. Prior to joining Advantage Partners, he was Chief Strategist of Square Enix, a leading video game developer. He also served as President of Square Enix Inc., a U.S. subsidiary. He was also with McKinsey & Company, where he led projects of new business development, strategy and M&A advisory for clients in TMT and financial industries. He started his career at Industrial Bank of Japan in 1991.

Ichiro holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and an MSEE and BSEE from the University of Tokyo.

Ryan Shea

Co-Founder & CEO, Blockstack Labs

Ryan Shea is Co-founder and CEO of Blockstack Labs, which maintains the open source Blockstack software and makes it easy for developers to build decentralized, user-controlled applications secured by the blockchain. Blockstack Labs is funded by Union Square Ventures and Y Combinator.

Ryan was inducted into the Forbes 30 Under 30 and graduated from Princeton University, where he studied Computer Science and Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He was also an engineer at ZocDoc, authored several popular open-source cryptography and blockchain libraries, and was the President of the Princeton Entrepreneurship Club, which was awarded the Alberto Santos-Dumont Prize for Innovation twice under his leadership.

Jonathan Hope

Co-founder & CEO, Keychain

Jonathan is a technologist and entrepreneur with rare breadth and depth of experience in financial and blockchain technology. Jonathan's technical experience includes building high-performance real-time trading systems in New York and Tokyo, research in theoretical computation and artificial intelligence at MIT and cryptography at the Panasonic Princeton Laboratory.
Jonathan's innovations in the blockchain space focus on hot-wallet security, transaction confidentiality, and authentication for financial services, IoT, and the enterprise. Simultaneously, as a Partner at Fusion Systems, Jonathan helped grow the business for Fusion’s Raptor --- one of the most widely known risk-managed trading gateways used by the top traditional investment banks in Asia.
In New York, Jonathan ran the Auto-Execution Database group at Bloomberg Tradebook, where he managed real-time transaction data for all Bloomberg equities and derivatives order flows. Prior to Bloomberg, Jonathan built trading systems for Goldman Sachs in New York and information security software for Trintech in Princeton. Jonathan holds a Bachelor’s in computer science and a Master’s degrees in computer science and mathematics from Rutgers University.

Joshua Lachter

Vice President of Strategic Growth, ASAPP, Inc

Joshua Lachter is Vice President of Strategic Growth at ASAPP in New York City where he leads new business development and expansion of the company’s AI-enabled digital engagement platform. Previously, he was a Director at Greenmantle, a Cambridge-based advisory to some of the world's largest investment funds, where he oversaw new business development and client relations. Prior to joining Greenmantle, he was a founding member of Locus Analytics (now Syntax Analytics), a New York-based asset manager creating novel portfolio construction methods using proprietary functional classification systems whose index funds are now listed on the NYSE. He is a member of the Board of Directors at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York. He informally advises several technology, healthcare, and nonprofit startups. He graduated with honors from Harvard with a degree in History.