A panel conversation: How Blockchain will Radically Transform our Society

7th March, 2018, from 6pm-8pm

The Oxford Foundry
3-5 Hythe Bridge Street
Oxford
OX1 2EW

Interested in Blockchain solutions for the future of business, governance, and society?

Please join the Blockchain Society, The Oxford Foundry, and our distinguished panel for an evening conversation about what Blockchain is capable of and how it will transform business, work, governance and society.

PANEL:

Ludwig Siegele, Technology Editor at The Economist

Professor Vili Lehdonvirta, the Oxford Internet Institute

Ruth Milligan, Head of Financial Services & Payments Programme at Tech UK

Jason Lacombe, co-founder at Veratrak

Moderator: Jack Laing, President of University of Oxford Blockchain Society

TIMINGS:

5:30 - Arrival and registration

6:00-7:00 - Panel Discussion and Q&A

7:00-8:00 - Networking and drinks

ABOUT THE PANEL:

Ludwig Siegele is the Economist’s technology editor. He joined The Economist as US technology correspondent in 1998. In 2003 he was sent to Berlin as the newspaper’s Germany Correspondent, before relocating to London in 2008 to cover the IT industry until 2011 and then run part of the Economist’s website as online business and finance editor. Mr Siegele started his journalistic career in 1990 as the Paris Business Correspondent of Die Zeit, a Germany weekly. In 1995 he moved from France to California to write about the internet for several German publications. He holds a degree in economics and political science from Cologne University and degrees in journalism from the Kölner Journalistenschule as well as the Centre de Formation des Journalists (CFJ) in Paris. He is also co-author of a book on SAP (“Matrix der Welt – SAP und der neue globale Kapitalismus”). He is the author of The Economist’s special report on startups.

Professor Vili Lehdonvirta is an Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, a Hugh Price Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute, London.His research deals with the design and socioeconomic implications of digital marketplaces and platforms, using conventional social research methods and novel data science approaches. He has a PhD in Economic Sociology from Turku School of Economics (2009) and an MSc in Information Networks from Helsinki University of Technology (2005). Previously he worked at London School of Economics, University of Tokyo, and Helsinki Institute for Information Technology. Before his academic career, he worked as a game programmer. He has advised companies, startups, and policy makers in the United States, Europe, and Japan, including Rovio, Warner Brothers, and the World Bank. His book Virtual Economies: Design and Analysis (with Edward Castronova) is published by MIT Press and translated to Chinese by China Renmin University Press. (LinkedIn, Google Scholar).

Ruth Milligan is an expert in payments systems and financial services technologies, with 12 years expertise at EU and UK level. She is a qualified UK solicitor, specialising in competition law, payments and retail financial services. She is currently Head of Financial Services and Payments at techUK, the trade association which represents the technologies sector. She takes the lead on all issues relating to payments, open banking and PSD2, insurance, financial inclusion, identity and Blockchain, sitting on Open Banking Working groups and the Payments Strategy Forum groups. Previously, Ruth worked as payments expert for the retail sector in Brussels, advising on competition cases, the evolution of the Interchange Fee Regulation and PSD2 and representing retail on the Euro Retail Payments Board and the Card Standardisation Group.

Jason Lacombe is the co-founder and CEO of Veratrak, a Seedcamp-backed startup using Blockchain to build the next generation of solutions for storing, sharing and protecting critical information in the pharmaceutical supply chain. Jason is currently doing a DPhil at the University of Oxford, Medical Sciences Division. Jason first became interested in Blockchain technology in 2015 as a member of the University of Oxford Blockchain Society. Jason see's incredible value in this technology, and it's ability to transform the future of the pharmaceutical supply chain. In a past life, Jason had exposure to the pharmaceutical industry as a health economist, where he used microsimulation modelling to look at the health and economic impact that different pharmaceutical drugs have on survival across the lifespan. Jason has also been an expert advisor for the European Parliament.