Hyperledger Project Board of Directors and Technical Steering Committee chair elected; new member investments underscore demand for open source blockchain platform development
Lake Tahoe, Calif. - Collaboration Summit - 29 March, 2016 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today is announcing the Hyperledger Project has filled key leadership positions and is welcoming new members. The Hyperledger Project is a collaborative effort to establish, build and sustain an open, distributed ledger platform that will satisfy a variety of use cases across multiple industries.
The results of the Board of Directors and Technical Steering
Committee elections for the Hyperledger Project include the following:
-
Technical
Steering Committee Chair: Chris Ferris, distinguished engineer and CTO of
open technology at IBM
-
Technical
Steering Committee members include: Tamás Blummer, Digital Asset Holdings;
Mic Bowman, Intel; Richard Brown, R3; Stanislav Liberman, CME Group; Hart
Montgomery, Fujitsu; Satoshi Oshima, Hitachi; Stefan Teis, Deutsche Börse;
Emmanuel Viale, Accenture; Pardha Vishnumolakala, DTCC; and David Voell, J.P.
Morgan.
-
Board Chair: Blythe
Masters, CEO of Digital Asset Holdings
-
Governing Board
Members: Charles Cascarilla, CEO, itBit; Toshiya Cho, Hitachi; Jerry Cuomo,
IBM; Chris Ferris, IBM; Dirk Hohndel, Intel; Todd McDonald, cofounder and COO,
R3; Robert Palatnick, DTCC; Kireeti Reddy, CME Group; Stefan Teis, Deutsche
Börse; Dave Treat, Accenture; Yoshinobu Sawano, Fujitsu; Santiago Suarez, J.P.
Morgan; and Craig Young, CTO, SWIFT. itBit’s Cascarilla
and SWIFT’s Young are newly elected board representatives since the formation
in December 2015.
These appointments are made by member vote. The TSC drives
technical direction of the Hyperledger Project, while the Governing Board
manages business direction, including governance, marketing and operational
decisions.
The Hyperledger Project
today is also announcing ten new companies are joining the effort and
investing in the future of an open blockchain ledger: Blockstream, Bloq, eVue
Digital Labs, Gem, itBit, Milligan Partners, Montran Labs, Ribbit.me, Tequa
Creek Holdings and Thomson Reuters.
"There is no other effort advancing an open blockchain with
this level of broad industry representation and level of leadership,” said Jim
Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “The Hyperledger Project is
among our fastest growing projects at The Linux Foundation. The opportunity is
great. This leadership team and the community investments among members across
industries put the project in the best position possible to accomplish its
mission.
Peer-to-peer
in nature, distributed ledger technology is shared, transparent and
decentralized, making it ideal for application in finance and countless other
areas such as manufacturing, banking, insurance and the Internet of Things. Research
reports estimate that the investment in blockchain by financial institutions
alone will grow to $400 million by 2019 (see: Aite Group Blockchain Players in Capital Markets: Where
Are the Pioneers Headed?, 2015). By creating a cross-industry open standard for distributed
ledgers, virtually any digital exchange with value, such as real estate
contracts, energy trades, marriage licenses, can securely and cost-effectively
be tracked and traded.
The Hyperledger Project is
gaining traction on a daily basis, displaying how vital this effort is in
advancing distributed ledger technology,” said Blythe Masters, CEO of Digital
Asset Holdings and Board chair for the Hyperledger Project. “Uniting the
industry to drive this initiative forward is paramount to the success of
distributed ledger technology. The Linux Foundation and its members are
collaborating on an open source infrastructure that will increase privacy and
scalability, among many other benefits.”
These member investments demonstrate that blockchain
technology continues to grow in importance as the alternative approach to
multinational business transactions,” said Chris Ferris,
IBM Distinguished Engineer, CTO Open Technology,
and Technical Steering Committee chair, Hyperledger Project. “By providing a
community for members to collaborate and contribute to an open source
blockchain solution, we’re able to advance the technology collectively and
ultimately drive quicker adoption and higher value across industries.
Comments from new Hyperledger members
Blockstream
"Blockchain technology is at the bleeding edge of
computer science and ushers in a new paradigm of programmable trust,” said Dr.
Adam Back, president of Blockstream. "We’re excited to offer our
operational blockchain experience and collaborate with members of the
Hyperledger Project to advance new applications of open ledger
technology."
Bloq
Blockchain technology impacts every aspect of business –
commerce, trading, security, to name a few,” said Matthew Roszak, co-founder,
Bloq. “By developing this critical technology in an open source community,
we’re able to collaborate, innovate and advance the technology to meet growing
enterprise demands.
eVue
Digital Labs
We understand the importance of uniting industry leaders to
advance a technology forward,” said Bryce Weiner, chief operating officer, eVue
Digital Labs. “eVue is extremely excited to collaborate with other Hyperledger
Project members and contribute to this open source community.
Here at Gem, we understand the critical importance of establishing
trust and transparency in the Blockchain economy,” said Micah Winkelspecht, founder
and CEO, Gem. “We’re excited to collaborate with members of the Hyperledger
Project to accelerate the open source, decentralized technology needed for
industry-wide adoption.
itBit
As a financial services company that provides
blockchain-based solutions, we understand the technology gaps that need to be
filled to ensure enterprise demands are met,” said Charles Cascarilla, itBit's
co-founder and CEO. “Open source projects like the Hyperledger Project unite
the world’s leading companies to address critical needs and advance a
technology for greater adoption.
Milligan Partners
We’re eager to help standardize Blockchain technology by
joining the Hyperledger Project,” said Matt Milligan, managing partner,
Milligan Partners. “We understand the importance of collaborative development
to overcome interoperability challenges in tolling operations, and we look
forward to working together with project members from other disciplines.”
Montran
Labs
Secured, shared and transparent digital ledger systems are at
the core of what we do,” said Alexandar Esca, director, Montran Labs.
“Collaborating with other companies who are paving the way for blockchain-based
technologies allows us to innovate in a way we couldn’t achieve working within
our company walls.
Ribbit.me
Blockchain is essential to Ribbit.me’s business,” said
Gregory Simon, CEO and co-founder, Ribbit.me. “It was a natural step for us to
join the Hyperledger Project to help advance this critical technology.
Tequa
Creek Holdings
In the future, as multiple companies rapidly collaborate to
solve customer problems, providing decentralized provability of transactions
between these partners is essential for them to trust each other,” said Robin
Bayer, general manager, Tequa Creek Holdings. “We’re excited to be part of this
open source community and contribute to the development of leading edge
blockchain technologies.”
Thomson Reuters
We’re excited about our partnership with the Hyperledger Project and
collaborating with other members to accelerate deeper collaboration and a
shared vision for the evolving blockchain technology and its
applications in financial services, government, and enterprises,” said Bob
Schukai, head of applied innovation, Thomson Reuters.
For more information about the Hyperledger
Project, please visit: https://www.hyperledger.org/.
About The Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world's top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.
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