Industry Seminar: The Future of Blockchain Platforms

KU Leuven: DistriNet

Get informed by academic and industry experts about the tech behind Web 3.

Department of Computer Science

Blockchains were originally designed to support digital peer-to-peer payments but have since evolved into general-purpose trustworthy computers – the platforms behind the up and coming third generation of the Web – “Web 3”.Modern blockchain networks can potentially replace any existing “Web 2” internet service with a more trustworthy and transparent “Web 3” version. They support faster and cheaper transaction processing without having to resort to small-scale “private” blockchains. Meanwhile so-called “oracles” provide reliable “on-chain” access to existing “off-chain” data, facilitating the integration of blockchain with existing services. Finally, “appchains” enable the rapid build-out of sovereign blockchains to support specific applications while at the same time embracing openness and interoperability across chains, creating a new “internet of blockchains”.Come learn about these topics and more in a series of talks by local KU Leuven and international blockchain experts, explore opportunities to collaborate with local university labs and enjoy the opportunity to network with like-minded professionals during the networking reception.Target audience: software architects and engineers, business developers, tech strategists, CTOs and innovators working for Flemish software / IT companies eager to explore the potential of, or already building on, blockchain technology.AGENDA - MAY 3015.00 - 15.30: Welcome &amp; registration15.30 - 16.00: Blockchains as trusted computers: unraveling the tech behind Web 3 (Tom Van Cutsem, Associate Professor at DistriNet - KU Leuven)Most people think of blockchains as a tool to validate and record electronic payments, or as a distributed database. But with the advent of smart contracts, blockchains have become programmable computers, software platforms capable of running applications, like Cloud infrastructure – except decentralized. I will briefly expand on this view, explain how blockchain computers are rapidly becoming faster and cheaper, and why this is potentially a big deal for the next generation of Web applications and services. I will end with a call to action for Flanders to prepare for this next shift in computing, and elaborate on what role academic research can play.Tom Van Cutsem is a professor at DistriNet KU Leuven where he performs research on better ways of programming blockchain computers. Prior to joining KU Leuven he led research on software systems at Nokia Bell Labs, Nokia’s industry research division. He is a former member of TC39, the JavaScript language standardisation committee, and actively contributed to Web standards.16.00 - 17.00: The Internet Computer Protocol: Evolving Web3, One Vote at a Time (Yvonne-Anne Pignolet, Director of Research at DFINITY)Recent technological advances have enabled the efficient execution of decentralized web3 applications and smart contracts. The Internet Computer Protocol (ICP) is a fast and efficient decentralized blockchain-based system for the execution of general-purpose applications in the form of smart contracts. In particular, the ICP's execution, governance and evolution are controlled by different parties in a trustless and fault-tolerant manner instead of a central entity. In this talk, I will give an overview of the ICP, followed by a discussion of the challenges the IC faces to facilitate upgrading itself through voting by ICP token holders and present our approach to tackle them.Yvonne-Anne Pignolet's work is centered around distributed systems, ranging from the design and analysis of algorithms for reliable and efficient distributed systems despite failures and malicious behaviour to complex network analysis. After her PhD at ETH Zurich in 2009 she was a postdoc at IBM Research Zurich and Ben Gurion University, Be'er Sheva. She worked for 8 years at ABB Corporate Research, Switzerland mostly devoted to research on communication systems for industrial and power systems, as a Principal Scientist in her final role. In 2019, she joined DFINITY, where she leads teams of researchers and engineers building and improving the Internet Computer.17.00 - 17.45: Connecting the world to blockchains (Gregory Neven, Chainlink Labs)Blockchains are a powerful tool, guaranteeing public verifiability of all transactions and executions taking place on that blockchain. By themselves, however, blockchains are isolated systems that can only reason about events occurring within the blockchain. In this talk, we'll explain how oracle technology can connect blockchains to the outside world, enabling them to ingest data from and perform actions on classical Web2 services. We will also look at the shortcomings of blockchains when it comes to privacy, and what mechanisms are available to improve it.Gregory Neven is a principal research engineer at Chainlink Labs. He is a research scientist in cryptography and information security, with a special focus on blockchains, privacy, and provably secure cryptographic protocols. He has published over 60 research papers and patents in the field. He holds a PhD from the Distrinet research group at K.U.Leuven, and previously worked as a research scientist at DFINITY and IBM Research - Zurich.17.45 - 18.15: Software engineering challenges for smart contracts and blockchain-based systems (Bert Lagaisse, DistriNet - KU Leuven)This presentation will explore the software engineering challenges associated with smart contracts and blockchain-based systems. As blockchain emerges as a novel distributed architecture for enterprise computing, it offers a decentralized platform for automating business processes within and between organizations. The coming decade may introduce new programming paradigms and development platforms for our application developers, reminiscent of past shifts such as multi-tier, service-oriented, and cloud computing architectures. We will begin with an application-centric approach to the requirements analysis and architectural design of blockchain applications, evaluating the trade-offs necessary to determine the suitability of decentralized solutions. The session will conclude by highlighting key challenges and obstacles faced by developers on leading blockchain platforms, with a focus on Ethereum.Bert Lagaisse is an Associate Professor in Software Engineering at the DistriNet KU Leuven, where he leads iDeas, the applied research group at GroupT focused on intelligent and distributed e-applications. His research addresses technical and human challenges in software engineering for distributed applications. Over the past decade, Bert has developed and managed research in security middleware, distributed data management, and cloud technologies, collaborating closely with industrial partners.18.15-20.00: Networking reception L ocation: KU Leuven, Arenberg III Campus, Room JAVA (05.152) in Building 200A - Celestijnenlaan 2OOA, 3001 Heverlee<a href="https://distrinet.cs.kuleuven.be/about/contact" title="https://distrinet.cs.kuleuven.be/about/contact" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">P arking Kapeldreef</a>, access code 87074# This event is organized within the context of the Cybersecurity Flanders Program.

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Industry Seminar: The Future of Blockchain Platforms

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Industry Seminar: The Future of Blockchain Platforms

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