Post on 19-Jul-2020
Center for Large Scale Data SystemsSan Diego Supercomputer Center
UC San Diego
BlockLABSDSC’s New Blockchain Research Lab
James Short Director
September 12, 2018Ver 1.0
Website: https://www.clds.info/blocklab.html
BUSINESS SENSITIVE – NOT FOR CIRCULATION
BlockLABGoal: To define, evaluate and report on the core technical, managerial and business questions in blockchain and distributed ledger technologies, their commercial applications in industry, and their potential for triggering significant disruption in core industrial sectors
Objectives: a) To conduct primary research in Blockchain and DLT technologies and
their business applications in a hands-on, laboratory environmentb) To conduct business and economic analysis of the evolving blockchain
marketplace, with emphasis on analyzing early-stage market dynamics, emerging industry sectors, and illustrative use cases
c) To conduct webinars, work-in-progress sponsor meetings, and a capstone, end of the year assessment workshop, at the annual Data West conference in December
What Topics Will We Address with Industry Partners?
• To define and evaluate the principal technologies in blockchains (BC), distributed ledgers, transactions, smart contracts, secure document management, and related functionalities
• To analyze the implications of BC for data architecture, including its potential to replace shared DBs, Replication / Data Fabrics, ETL/Data Lineage tools, Messaging, Workflow engines, and other data tools
• To address BC’s implications for existing platform architectures and data governance policies
• More broadly, to analyze the directionality, size and pace of blockchain’smarket evolution, driven by investment patterns in venture capital, corporate investment, ICO financing and evolving consortia and partnerships
How Will We Do This?• By producing technical evaluations and reports, conducting lab
experiments, benchmarking blockchain performance, and completing economic and management analyses of the blockchain marketplace
• By hosting events, workshops, educational sessions and quarterly webinars
• September 25-26 2018: inaugural BlockLAB Sponsor Board and research in progress meeting• Dec 4-6 2018: Data West conference workshop, Industry Day demos, exec forum discussion• Q1 2019: IBM Blockchain Education and Training Pilot at SDSC
• In small group sessions spun up by member companies, and at industry conferences attended or sponsored by LAB members
• We will also make use of existing industry conferences that are attended and/or supported by BlockLAB members
• For example, the MIT CDOIQ symposium in July of each year• At conferences such as Enterprise Data World, Xconomy, etc.
Proposed Technical Research Topics and Reports*
Introductions• Introductory white papers explaining the foundations
of distributed ledgers, blockchains, encryption, hash functions, and related technologies.
Transactions, validation, and state• Papers discussing the technical foundations of
transaction handling, transaction validation, and state tracking. Surveys discuss transaction and state management features of the principal software suites.
Blocks and block mining• Papers discussing the technical foundations of
creating blocks of transactions and proof-of-work calculations. Surveys discuss how block mining is done with the principal software suites.
Consensus models• Papers discussing the technical foundations of
network-based decision making, consensus, and attack vectors. Surveys discuss the consensus models used by the principal software suites.
Smart contracts• Papers discussing the legal foundations of
contracts and the technical issues arising from algorithmic contracts. Surveys discuss differences in the ways smart contracts are addressed by the principal software suites.
Document models• Papers discussing the technical foundations of
managing secured documents using a distributed ledger. Surveys discuss document handling features of the principal software suites.
Software overviews• Overview papers discussing specific software
suites and their structure, features, and limitations.
Benchmarks• Benchmark reports evaluating the performance
of specific software suites and any issues that emerge because of software performance
*A listing of proposed application / use cases will be presented and discussed at our Sept 25-26 meeting
BlockLAB Start Up Structure 2018• Active Project Researchers: 4 principals + 6 affiliated faculty
and researchers, participating technical staff will be broughton in the Fall
• Location: SDSC with virtual LAB space• Founding Sponsors: 6 founding sponsors• Sponsor Affiliates: Additional sponsor group added in the Fall
(“Lab Affiliates”)• Core activities: technical evaluations and reports, use case
studies, market analysis• Milestone Events: 1.5 day blockchain work in progress event
Sept 25-26. Pre conference workshop at Data West on Dec 4• Routine Updates: Monthly all-member meeting or conference
call starting up in September
PeopleJames Short, Lead Scientist, CLDS, SDSC Director, BlockLAB
Information scientist with principal degrees in communications and management information systems from MIT. Prior faculty appointments at the London Business School, Boston University and the MIT Sloan School. Ten years at UCSD and SDSC, was on the faculty at the MIT Sloan School prior to joining UC San Diego.
Laura Carrington, Director PMaC LAB, Technical Lead, BlockLAB
Laura Carrington directs SDSC’s Performance, Modelling and Characterization Lab. PMaC is focused on the advancement of performance and energy analysis of HPC applications and systems to guide scientific code development, improve architectural design, reduce energy usage, and assist in informed system procurements.
LAB Principals
PeopleTimothy Mackey, Associate Professor, UCSDDirector, Global Health Policy Institute (GHPI)
Tim Mackey is the Director of GHPI and an Associate Professor of Anesthesiology and Global Public Health at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. Tim is leading several IEEE Standards Association initiatives in blockchain technologies, including exploring the use of blockchain technology to secure the drug supply chain against counterfeit medicines.
Ilkay Altintas, Chief Data Scientist, SDSCIlkay Altintas is the Chief Data Science Officer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), where she is also the Founder and Director for the Workflows for Data Science Center of Excellence. Since joining SDSC in 2001, she has worked on different aspects of scientific workflows as a principal investigator and in other leadership roles across a wide range of cross-disciplinary NSF, DOE, NIH and Moore Foundation projects. She is a co-initiator of and an active contributor to the popular open-source Kepler Scientific Workflow System.
LAB Principals
PeopleAffiliated Faculty and Researchers
Siddhartha (Sid) Dalal, Professor, Columbia UniversityPrior to joining Columbia, Professor Dalal was Chief Data Scientist and Senior Vice President at AIG in charge of R&D that included creation and application of AI, Statistics and CS to Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, and Sensors/IOT for managing risks. Dalal has an MBA and a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester with over 100 peer-reviewed publications, patents, and monographs covering the areas of risk analysis, medical informatics, Bayesian statistics and economics, image processing, and sensor networks.
Gabriel Silva, Professor, Bioengineering; Director, CENI, UCSD
Professor Silva's research interests are in neuroscience and neural computing and engineering. He studies the neurobiology of neural signaling at cellular and cellular network scales in order to learn about the mechanisms that underlie neural computation and information processing in the brain. Silva applies his work in the study of advanced applications of AI and Deep Learning technologies in industry. Silva is the founding director of the Center for Engineered Natural Intelligence (CENI).
PeopleChaitan Baru, Distinguished Scientist, SDSC
Chaitan Baru is a Distinguished Scientist and Associate Director of Data Initiatives at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), UC San Diego where he works on applied and applications-oriented research problems related to data management and data analytics. Formerly he was on assignment as Senior Advisor for Data Science in the Computer and Information Science & Engineering Directorate at the National Science Foundation.
Affiliated Faculty and Researchers
Vishu Nandigam, Open Science Chain, SDSCViswanath Nandigam is the associate director for the Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Development Lab at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, UC San Diego. He is the principal investigator/co-investigator on several federally-funded data intensive projects including the NSF-funded OpenTopography project. His research interests include the application of blockchain technologies in scientific data management and distribution, web-based data distribution platforms, data intensive application development, parallel and federated database systems, and information integration.
PeopleRaj Patil, CEO & Co-Owner, AEEC
Mr. Patil has been the co-owner and CEO of AEEC since 1997. As CEO, he oversees AEEC operations and is responsible for devising the company’s strategies, innovation initiatives and continuous process improvements. Mr. Patil holds a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Michigan Technological University. He is also a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Owner President Management (OPM) program. He is a registered professional engineer in the District of Columbia, Virginia, Maryland, Utah, and Wyoming. Mr. Patil served as a council member on GSA’s Information Technology Industry Government (ITIG) Council from 2008-2010
Naguib Attia, Vice President, IBM Global University ProgramsDr. Naguib Attia is Distinguished Engineer and VP of IBM Global University Programs. He is responsible for setting up IBM’s academic relations strategy, creating next generation global technical training programs in collaboration with universities and research institutions, and managing the overall award programs budgets. Previously, Dr. Attia was the VP and CTO of IBM Middle East and Africa. Attia has served as the chair of Aerospace Industry Association (AiA) Technical group, and is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Society (IEEE). He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Essex, England.
Industry Principals
PeopleIndustry Principals
Steve Orrin, Chief Technologist, Intel FederalSteve Orrin is Chief Technologist, Intel’s Federal Division & Intel Federal LLC. Steve is responsible for Cyber Security & Cloud Strategy, Solution Architecture and Engagements. Steve is a recognized expert on enterprise security and was named one of InfoWorld’s Top 25 CTO’s of 2004. In 2009, Steve was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies. Steve is a co-Founder of the Web Application Security Consortium, Vice-Chair of the NSITC/IDESG Security Committee, and active in professional security associations.
Steve Todd, Fellow, Dell TechnologiesSteve Todd is a Dell Technologies Fellow and Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at Dell EMC. Steve has filed over 250 patent applications with the US Patent and Trademark Office, and has published two books, Innovate with Influence and Innovative with Global Influence. His current work focuses on new tools and services for determining the value of data, and industrial applications of blockchain technologies.
PeopleIndustry Principals
Pieter De Leenheer, Co-Founder & CSO, CollibraPieter De Leenheer is cofounder and Chief Science Officer of Collibra. He leads the company’s Research & Education group, including CollibraUniversity, an online learning platform for data governance and data science education. ... Prior to cofounding the company, De Leenheer was a professor at VU University of Amsterdam. Today he serves as adjunct professor at Columbia University and as visiting scholar at several universities across the globe, including UC San Diego and Stanford.
Michael Sossong, VP & CTO, Decision SciencesMichael Sossong is VP of Research and Development, and CTO for Decision Sciences. He joined Decision Sciences in 2008 as director of nuclear research and led the development of a commercial multi-mode passive detection systems. Previously he worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in muon tomography. Michael holds BS, MS and PhD degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Contact InformationDr. James Short
jshort@sdsc.edu858 534 5014