"BlockChainJam" is a one-day event
where you can learn about and get a feel
for the developments surrounding the cutting-edge technologies
and the potential future brought about by blockchain
while discovering various projects that are actually ongoing
The conference offers an exciting lineup of speakers
and features a wide range of topics, including cryptocurrency,
blockchain technology, regulation, taxes, business applications and more.
"Blockchain" is a technology that underpins Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
The goal of BlockChainJam2019 is to spread awareness on blockchain technology
to the "aspiring talents shaping the future of tomorrow"
by providing them with an opportunity to learn widely and deeply about the technology
With a focus on more academic aspects of blockchain technology,
this year's conference will be divided into 2 sections: "Engineers Section",
which is designed for engineers involved in the research and development on blockchain technology,
and "Business Developers Section",
which is dedicated to business developers
looking for new businesses opportunities around the technology.
The agenda will also include the one
and only panel discussion with our distinguished speakers.
In addition, there will be a fireside chat session
where you will have the chance to interact more directly with the speakers.
Join us in discovering the most innovative technologies
and projects
at the one of most academic venues in Japan!
Mark Karpelès was born in Dijon, France in 1985. He took an interest in computer when he was a child and started programming at the age of 3. At 15, he started a server hosting business with his friends and people he had gotten to know on the Internet. He joined a gaming company when he was 18 and worked for the company for about a year and a half before becoming an independent engineer to work on various projects. At 20 he joined Téléchargement.FR (currently Nexway SA) as a developer where he was responsible for projects related to payment systems as a deputy director of the R&D division. After moving to Japan in 2009, he founded Tibanne Co. Ltd. and started a server hosting business. In 2011, he took over the Bitcoin related business at Mt. Gox and became involved in the management of the company. It became the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world after a significant rise in the price of Bitcoin, only to file for bankruptcy in 2014 due to a hacking incident. He was arrested in 2015 with several criminal charges including unauthorized creation of private electromagnetic records and embezzlement, but declared actually innocent in March 2019. Currently he serves as the director and CTO of Tristan Technologies. In his free time, he likes to make apple pies. Knowledgeable in the Japanese animation (anime) and comics (manga), he is also known as "Anime Sommelier" .
Josh Cincinnati is the Executive Director of the Zcash Foundation, a 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to building Internet payment and privacy infrastructure for the public good. Earlier in his career, he was a Developer Advocate at Lyft, the Developer Advocate at BlockCypher, a Co-Founder at a (now defunct) startup, and a Product Manager at the Washington Post. He received his MBA from Stanford University, and BAs in Mathematics and Political & Social Thought from the University of Virginia. In his free time, he likes to write satire.
Shogo Ochiai is the Co-founder and COO of Cryptoeconomics Lab (CEL), a world renowned blockchain research organization developing the Plasma framework and OVM, a second layer development framework compatible with all types of blockchains supporting smart contract. Previously he was serving as its CTO, a position subsequently assumed by its blockchain researcher, Hiya Shohei. With an extensive background in the technology space as well as economics and international relations, he is responsible for managing the entire process of optimizing the sophisticated technological solutions offered by CEL by exploring their potential applications.
Yoshinori Hashimoto was working as a quantitative analyst at Japan Exchange Group, Inc. before joining bitFlyer. He discovered Enigma while working at bitFlyer and, seeing the innovative aspects of the secure computation technology enabled on blockchains, joined Enigma Collective as a Japan representative to promote the technology. Currently, he is working as a researcher at BUIDL, Ltd., while also involved in the development of Enigma as the COO at Turingum. He graduated from the Graduate School of Economics at the Faculty of Economics, the University of Tokyo, where he conducted research on financial systems.
Leona Hioki founded ToyCash Inc. in 2018 and has been involved in the development of an account system on decentralized protocols and created a decentralized exchange platform for memberships. In 2019 he has conducted "Scouting ICO", an ongoing ICO campaign which aims to gather top talents rather than attract funding. He is also working in the computer security space. He dropped out of the Faculty of Engineering at Kyoto University.
Joined 0x in July 2019 to drive 0x protocol development. Previously PM at Facebook Ads, driving productivity of Facebook Global Sales team since 2014. Graduated from Ecole Centrale Paris and University of Padua.
Hiroki Tahara founded BitPenguin, a student body dedicated to exploring blockchain technology, in 2017 while he was an undergraduate student at the University of Tokyo and was involved in various projects as a writer and engineer. In the same year, he obtained the Small and Medium Enterprise Management Consultant (SMEC) certification and started to provide advisory services on finance and business strategy. In 2019, he co-founded Turingum K.K, a company involved in the research and development of the Enigma protocol. He can be found on Twitter at なまはげ (@_namahagesan). Currently he is a graduate student at the Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Tokyo.
A member of the Radar team since November 2017. Experienced in Scrum and Agile project management. Formerly the head of fraud prevention for online sales at Otter Products and a member of the innovation team. With a degree in economics he studied at Bucknell University and Doshisha University.
Jun Furuse is a member of the technical advisory committee at Tezos Foundation, the Scientific Director at Tezos Japan, and the CEO at DaiLambda, Inc. A former quant at a hedge fund and an investment bank, he has been responsible for ensuring the security of critical systems by leveraging solutions based on theoretical computer science. Since 2018, he has also been involved in the development of the core technologies for the Tezos blockchain and promoting those technologies in Asia. He obtained a Master's degree from the Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences at Kyoto University, studied at INRIA (French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation), and holds a Ph.D in computer science from Paris Diderot University. He currently lives in Kyoto.
Japanese CPA/USCPA. Joined KPMG in 2006 and spent 10 years working on finance and accounting related projects in Tokyo and New York. Since 2016, has been involved in various crypto related projects, including his own startups such as Lost Blocks and CryptoGain. Spends most of his weekends setting up nodes.
Yoshikazu Nishimura previously worked for Oracle Corporation Japan and has an extensive background in machine learning, IoT and FinTech spaces, among others. He has won numerous prizes at world-renowned hackathons, most recent ones being an MVP at Blockchain Hackathon Tokyo 2016 and Best Innovation Award at Global Blockchain Summit in Shanghai, and is also a member of MENSA, a high IQ society. He joined alt Inc. in November 2017 as the CTO. He holds a Master's degree in Computational Molecular Biology from the University of Southern California.
Nobuyuki Takahashi joined Hakuhodo DY Media Partners in 2016 and worked as a media planner for 3 years. Since 2019, he has been involved in the development of various dApp projects in the Business Innovation division as part of the company's new business initiative. Driven by his mission of "creating a world where value is created through people playing games ('Play to Asset')", he is actively working on creating unique business opportunities around dApps to encourage their adoption by leveraging the media company's resources.
Yu Kimura is the 22-year-old CEO and CTO of LCNEM, Inc. and has been programming in the C language since he was 15. He has also proposed MTPL (Monetary Theory of the Price Level) and developed Cosmos SDK JS.
Sota Watanabe joined Chronicled, a blockchain startup based in Silicon Valley, the United States, before returning to Japan to found Stake Technologies, Inc. He has also been involved in the open source projects for Polkadot and Substrate. His primary interest is in Web3.0, a next generation web powered by blockchain technology. He graduated from the Faculty of Economics at Keio University and is a Blockchain research fellow at the Graduate School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo.
Kevin Newman is an entrepreneur and angel investor working on blockchain technology in the fintech and digital asset spaces. Previously he served as the Head of Partnerships at Wirex (wirexapp.com), where he led the business development in the APAC region and managed global partnership deals. He also has an extensive background in consulting and advisory for governmental and non-governmental organizations. He was responsible for the design and implementation of a business development initiative designed to encourage the adoption of Catapult 2.0 and provide more liquidity for XEM, and spoke at various conferences and meetups as a relationship manager for major stakeholders in the space. He has been living in Japan for over 20 years. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and holds an MA in Diplomacy at Tufts University.
Kazuya Okada is the Technical Director at Opening Line, Inc. Previously, he was responsible for the development of smartphone applications while heading the company's laboratory dedicated to blockchain technology. He was also involved in proposing the standards on Apostille, a blockchain notarization system built on the Catapult blockchain. The blockchain is the next generation core engine for NEM and provides high compatibility with legacy systems. He is working on developing products for solving various social issues by leveraging the NEM blockchain powered by Catapult.
Jo Nakamura enrolled at the Faculty of Law at Chuo University in 2015 and transferred to the State University of New York in 2016. He then joined a startup company as an engineering intern in 2017. He joined the new business development division at Japan Cloud Capital, Inc. in 2018 and became a Product Manager for new businesses in 2019.
Mai Fujimoto has been actively involved in the bitcoin and blockchain spaces as the leading evangelist in Japan ever since she first discovered Bitcoin in 2011. Having strong connections with renowned experts in the industry around the world, she is widely known as "Miss Bitcoin". She founded withB, Inc., a recruiting company dedicated to blockchain engineers, was involved in the launch of the cryptocurrency donation platform "KIZUNA", and has been responsible for their management. She has also been serving as an advisor at various blockchain companies both in Japan and abroad, including BITPoint Japan, LayerX, GMO Internet, and My Crypto Heros.
Shigeaki Wakizaka joined BITPoint in April of 2019 and has been presiding over the entire design, development, and implementation processes for its various services. Previously he was working as a systems architect and responsible for systems development at GMO Click Securities, Inc. and GMO Financial Holdings, Inc, involved in projects ranging from CFDs to offshore FX business development to the development of front-end systems for internet banking.
Takao Minemoto is a handpan player and world traveler. He was born in Hiroshima Prefecture in 1985. In May of 2015, while working as a percussionist he became fascinated by the sounds of a handpan made by SONOBE, the only handpan manufacturer based in Japan. After buying the instrument from the manufacturer, he started his career as a handpan player in hopes of healing people with his music. In April of 2016, he set out on an almost year long journey across 13 countries while busking (i.e. performing music in the street for money), carrying just a handpan with him. In October of 2016, he released the music CD "On the night when the moon sheds dew", an hour long healing CD music played with a handpan and a piano. In April of 2018, his first album "d" was released. In May of 2019, another healing CD "The earth" was released. Currently based in Tokyo, he plays the handpan in various settings, including busking, live events, workshops, music composition, dancing and yoga, and musical collaborations involving various musical instruments, both in Japan and abroad. A handpan (hang drum) is a new type of steel percussion instrument invented by 2 Swiss people in 2001, and allows for expressing the three main elements of music (i.e. rhythm, melody, and harmony) all by itself.
| Date | Sunday, November 17, 2019 |
| Time | 10:30 Venue opens / 19:00 Venue closes |
| Venue | Yasuda Auditorium, the University of Tokyo |
| Tickets | On sale now |
[ Yasuda Auditorium, the University of Tokyo ]
Hongo Campus, Hongo 7-3-1,
Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, 113-0033
(10-minute walk from Todaimae Station
on the Tokyo Metro Namboku Line)
