Learning from Blockchain

Abstract

The remarkable decade-old history of blockchain is summarised and the (usual?) case is made for its non-financial applications. The properties of blockchain are compared with those of a distributed database and a parameterization considered for a variety of instantiations. This talk is planned to be midway between a research seminar and a tutorial.

Biography

Jeff Sanders is Academic Director of AIMS, the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, South Africa and a Professor of Mathematics at Stellenbosch University. He is Australian: BSc (Hons), Pure Mathematics, Monash University and PhD (Abstract Harmonic Analysis), Australian National University. He worked for 5 years in Macao at the United Nations University’s International Institute for Software Technology. His interests lie in Theoretical Computer Science, and the topics on which he has worked have in common that they use pure mathematics to elucidate and design information systems. Currently he is working on privacy in distributed systems, using epistemic logic; and on blockchain.