IOTA

David is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for any kind of technology that can push human progress forward.

Dominik Schiener is the Co-founder of the cryptocurrency IOTA, a disruptive technology that enables machines to store and send money frictionlessly between one another. In 2017, he co-founded the IOTA Foundation and established Germany’s first nonprofit foundation that enables and fosters permission-less ecosystems powered by distributed ledgers. Rated among the top 10 managers in the global blockchain community, Dominik is currently focused on making the nascent IOTA technology market-ready — and thus unleash its full potential for society to benefit.

Sergey Ivancheglo lives in Minsk, Belarus. He holds a Bachelor of Science with specialization in electronics and artificial intelligence. He has been working as a software engineer for more than 20 years, and since 2011 he has been primarily focused on Distributed Ledger Technology.  Since childhood, Sergey (a.k.a. Come-from-Beyond) has been interested in the development of computer games, which later transformed into an interest in Massively Multiplayer Online Games and Virtual / Augmented Reality and the complex backend technology required to make them work properly. This interest made him deep-dive into distributed computing, building expertise that was ultimately useful for the creation of distributed ledger technologies.Sergey has played a pioneering role within the DLT community by spearheading several “next-gen” components. Before co-founding IOTA, he created Nxt, which was one of the very first projects to go beyond the focus of Bitcoin with added functionality on the blockchain. He was also one of the pioneers behind the Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism, being the first to implement full Proof-of-Stake. Sergey also co-founded a stealth distributed computing hardware IP company with David Sønstebø back in 2014, which was the precursor for the IOTA project.  

Serguei Popov is a research mathematician working in the field of Probability Theory and Stochastic Processes. He graduated from and attained his Ph.D. at the Moscow State University under the supervision of Professor Mikhail Menshikov, with whom he still happily collaborates. Around 20 years ago he moved to Brazil to do a postdoc, and then progressed to professorship first in the University of Sao Paulo, and then in the University of Campinas.  Serguei began his interest in cryptos in late 2013 when, after stumbling upon an article about Bitcoin, he became an avid reader of bitcointalk.org and discovered an innovative project called Nxt, founded by an anonymous user called BCNext, together with the help of Sergey Ivancheglo (a.k.a. Come-from-Beyond). Popov achieved notoriety in the Nxt community after publishing a short note with calculations on the block generating process in Nxt

Dr. Moody Alam is joining IOTA as Director of Research. In this role, Moody will focus on overseeing research at the IOTA Foundation.  Dr. Moody Alam is a Chartered Scientist (CSci) with the UK Science Council, and a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) and British Computer Society (BCS). He has been a Visiting Professor in Pakistan and was formerly a Principal Researcher at the University of Oxford. He holds a Ph.D. in Distributed Artificial Intelligence and specializes in designing decentralized protocols for intelligent systems. He has authored over 20 peer-reviewed publications in prestigious conferences and journals. His academic services also include serving on over 15 conference and programme committees and as a journal editor (Advancement in Pattern Recognition, 2018).Moody’s career spans over a decade of research and leading research teams in academia, governments and industry. He is an award-winning scientist who has worked at world-class institutions including Microsoft Research, Cambridge and University of Oxford, and has substantial experience leading technical and cross-functional teams at SMEs and large organizations. His distinguished scientific career is well recognized among the research community and has led to him advising governments and global tech companies on issues ranging from decentralized systems, artificial intelligence, machine learning and smart energy.

Daniela Faustino is a passionate international business executive with a focus on building teams and organizational capacity. A proven track record as senior leadership team member in crafting a strategic vision, driving growth and implementing cost optimized programs across multiple geographies. She is driven to deliver business success and developing human potential.  She left in February 2020.

Edward Greve has been a software developer for a number of years, most recently at WillowTree Apps in North Carolina, where he worked on cutting edge digital products for nationally and internationally recognizable brands, such as  CBC and National Geographic. His area of expertise is in full-stack web development, and he understands how to work with business partners to develop advanced cloud-based systems that support applications with a world-class user experience.  Edward holds degrees in Mathematics and Physics from Rowan University and is fully self-taught in computer science. He is also a language enthusiast and polyglot, and he speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese, Dutch, and French in addition to conversational bits and pieces in a half-dozen other languages from around the world. He spent almost a decade living and working in Taiwan.  

Cara Harbor joins The IOTA Foundation as the new Director of Communication. In this role, she will be instrumental in developing The IOTA Foundation’s external and internal communication strategy. She will also lead the charge in ensuring IOTA Foundation news and relevant information is disseminated to all stakeholders and interested parties in a clear and timely manner.  Cara is a San Francisco native with 19 years of experience working with the tech giants of Silicon Valley and worldwide. She has led communication strategy and media relations for companies such as Adobe, HP, Cisco, LinkedIn, ArcSoft, MuleSoft, ROBLOX, and many others. Her background spans all aspects of tech, including open source technologies, enterprise/IT, consumer, IoT, cryptocurrencies, as well as the nonprofit sector.

Holger Köther is a global Senior Director, Program Manager and IT enthusiast, who has worked over the last 17 years at the multinational corporate IT organizations Siemens and Atos.  Since childhood, he always has had a keen interest in hardware, software and programming. Developing his IT skills and knowledge through autodidact learning, Holger became more and more thrilled by the countless possibilities which new technology could offer — and the disruptive change it would bring with it.After starting in IT consulting and project management, Holger’s responsibilities greatly increased over the years providing him with the experience of working in high pressure environments for several of Atos leading Managers and Executives.Holger has extensive know-how in project-, program- and people management and has managed Atos-owned software products and global IT services to improve monitoring, application performance and business service management. His responsibilities ranged from design and development, to customers’ deployment and operations by ITIL standards. He managed teams of experts in Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Romania and India.Between his daily challenges, Holger was recruited into different handpicked task forces to strengthen Atos relationships with key customers in Germany, the UK, Spain and the US. Most recently, he worked as Lead Architect and CTO streamlining the strategic partnership between Atos and Telefonica.  Holger completed several prestigious management and leaderships trainings and holds a degree of Business Administration from the Steinbeis University Berlin.  

Jens Munch Lund-Nielsen has built a life and career on bringing together different professional fields and sectors, thereby creating new types of partnerships. By carefully and deliberately mixing diverse experts and interests, he has built new ventures and created impactful partnerships — especially within the field of supply chains and global trade. For the last 8 years he has taken up different roles within A.P. Moller — Maersk including launching a new e-trade platform for Africa, forged a partnership with a large bank to develop financial trade services with focus on emerging markets, co-founder of a public-private partnership with focus on trade facilitation including five governments, the ICC and the World Economic Forum. Within the field of CSR, he has launched human right initiatives and established a partnership with other logistic companies such as UPS and Agility supporting the UN World Food Programme, to deliver a rapid response to large natural disasters around the world.  

Julie A. Maupin began her career in the non-profit sector in the mid-1990s. Working in relief and development in Bihać, Bosnia taught her that human rights and individual economic empowerment are inextricably linked. This discovery later led her to study both law and economics and think deeply about the interconnections between the two. Raised in rural Colorado by a paramedic and a plastic-injection-molding-machinist-turned-programmer, Julie always had a natural affinity for technology. She joined Monster.com as a human capital consultant in the early 2000s and helped pioneer the use of internet-based talent acquisition methods by Fortune 500 companies in Seattle. After riding out the dot.com boom (and then bust) and growing her revenue portfolio to over $5 million in just a year and a half, Julie headed to Yale, where she obtained graduate degrees in law and economics.  Over the following decade, Julie sojourned in South Africa, Switzerland, the US again, and then Germany, quickly establishing herself as one of the world’s leading experts in international economic law, global governance regimes, and alternative dispute settlement. She picked up a PhD in international development studies along the way, and in 2014 she was appointed Senior Researcher at the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg. Julie had begun passively following Bitcoin in 2012 while teaching at Duke Law School and was immediately taken with its potential to provide access to finance to the world’s unbanked populations. The move to Max Planck gave her the opportunity to shift her research profile to cryptocurrencies, smart contracts, digital identity management, collective intelligence, and the many other fascinating social innovations DLTs make possible. Her knack for connecting the dots between the legal, economic, social, and technical dimensions of these innovations in plain language have made her a sought-after public speaker and advisor to governments, corporations, start-ups and inter-governmental bodies.  Julie currently sits on the Fintech advisory board of the German Ministry of Finance and the G20 Digital Economy Experts Task Force and is a resource person for the UN Internet Governance Forum. In addition to her appointment at Max Planck, she holds external research appointments with the Centre for International Governance Innovation and the University College London Centre for Blockchain Technologies. She has recently been advising IOTA on the incorporation and governance set-up of the foundation and is actively helping to develop projects to be carried out by the social venture fund.  

Wilfried Pimenta de Miranda is an entrepreneur, former management consultant and corporate strategy/M&A/business development professional. With a background from Cleantech and Oil & Gas, he’s been working internationally at the forefront of emerging technologies, helping incumbents and startups explore new business model innovation, expand internationally and get in position for the clean energy revolution. From onshore wind, offshore wind, solar PV, hydropower to transmission and smart grid, Wilfried has been collaborating with global champions from Europe such as EDF, Shell, Statkraft or Scatec. At Multiconsult, a leading international engineering consultancy from Norway, he played a key role in growing its renewables footprint, scaled its activity across industries and geographies and contributed to its successful IPO in May 2015. Wilfried now shapes strategic innovation initiatives and startup ventures that open new pathways to value creation for business and society.  Wilfried graduated from INSEAD with a Global Executive MBA in 2013 spent in France, Singapore and Abu Dhabi. Back in 2001, he finalized an international double Msc engineering degree from Ecole Centrale de Lyon, France and NTNU, Norway.

Dr. Navin Ramachandran has been a member of the IOTA Foundation since the end of 2016. As a practicing medical doctor and healthcare researcher, Navin took the lead of IOTA’s eHealth-focused activities, publishing on the use of the IOTA MAM protocol in healthcare, and speaking widely on the topic of IOTA and distributed ledgers. He also has a keen interest in information modeling, augmented reality and the impact of AI.  

Mark Nixon joins IOTA to head up the Smart City Program. He brings a wealth of experience gained across the TMT sector having held senior commercial and operational roles for 3Com, Verizon,Nokia, O2 and most recently Huawei where he led the Business Consulting Practice in MENA.  Mark started his career in Telecommunications 30 years ago with the British Army “Royal Corps of Signals” as a Systems Engineer working on some of the earliest Mobile Data Communications Networks deployed globally to support British Military Operations. Early successful forays into near-realtime Intelligence Systems working on personality tracking and vehicle identification / tracking systems led to his leaving the Royal Signals and joining the TCP-IP Switching Company 3Com. Here he held several Technical and Product Marketing roles, leading key projects with the UK academic community on the development of “JANET” and “SuperJANET”, a global secure IP network supporting research and academic institutions.

Mark Schmidt is a cryptocurrency enthusiast and entrepreneur. He studied Business Administration at the University of Hamburg and founded several startups — ranging from on demand parceling services, affiliate websites, to developing mobile applications. While still in his teens, he managed professional e-sports teams, such as Trademark Gamers and ASUS. Ever since, Mark has given breath to new projects and startups. Currently, Mark is located in Hamburg, Germany.  

Samuel Reid is a mathematician, business executive, inventor, and STEM polymath. As the CEO and a Co-Founder of Geometric Energy Corporation since June 2015, he delivers mathematical and scientific consulting to industry, academia, and government. He provides advisory services and execution to technology feasibility and development in energy systems and blockchain, with a focus on solid state sodium ion batteries, decentralized smart grids and assisting companies that want to integrate DLT or do ICOs, as well as the interoperability of private and public ledgers. He was previously CEO of Clean Crude Corporation, a sustainable oil and gas company in Calgary, Alberta, as well as CEO of Homeostasis Healthcare and Symbiosis Systems Inc., in Jesup, Georgia.  Reid holds important positions in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space, as a Director of SpaceBit, the world’s first non-jurisdictional decentralized space agency, and as Chief Blockchain Engineer of the Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange, the world’s first government regulated token sale platform and cryptocurrency exchange.