UMass Amherst Symposium on Computing for the Common Good

Two five-hour Zoom webinars on back-to-back days. Woo! I’m glad that’s over. But seriously, check out the recorded sessions and talks. I loved everything. Good places to start are Jim Kurose’s keynote (session 8) and the panel discussion on regulating artificial intelligence. I’m in awe of and grateful to all of the brilliant and hard-working … More UMass Amherst Symposium on Computing for the Common Good

My TEDx Talk

The organizers of TEDx Amherst invited me to give a talk. I spoke about the work we did at The Kuwa Foundation, which focused on online identity and privacy. The title is “We’re Being Owned: Why We Must Take Control of Our Online Identities.” Here is the video. … More My TEDx Talk

WANTED: Rules for Initial Coin Offerings

Entrepreneurs see initial coin offerings (ICOs) as an easy way to quickly raise a lot of money with no strings attached. Some ICO investors’ greed has blinded them to the apparent risks. However, ICOs are an important new fundraising innovation that is appropriate for endeavors where the objective is to create value through decentralization. Although most ICO-funded projects will fail, the ones that don’t will have a more significant impact on our lives than the Web. Governments, particularly in the United States, have been slow to act. When they do, some entrepreneurs will find themselves in trouble, and many ICO investors will have already lost money. For important ICO-funded projects to flourish, we need ground rules. The Simple Agreement for Future Token Sales (SAFT) is the most significant industry initiative so far that tries to define those rules. … More WANTED: Rules for Initial Coin Offerings