Blockchain: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Blockchain has taken the world by storm - find out what has been learned about creating success and avoiding failure in this new technology, from some of the world’s largest networks, and millions of recorded transactions, globally.

The technology no longer suffers from the hype, and consequential mistrust, as it once did; industries are finally bridging the divide between theory and practice. Generating real business value is now a reality, but this value is only being achieved by a very small percentage of currently active networks.

We will discuss what facilitates a successful network and what the common pitfalls are that lead to failure, all whilst providing insight into live and functioning use cases, networks and industries.

If you're planning to attend but have little/no previous blockchain knowledge, then please feel free to check out the following link for high-level information and a free downloadable guide:
https://www.ibm.com/uk-en/blockchain/what-is-blockchain

Speakers:
Erica Stanford - Founder, Crypto Curry Club
Luc Desrosiers - Solution Architect, IBM Blockchain Labs
Andrew Darley - IBM Blockchain Leader, Europe

Agenda:
17.30: Registration, food, drinks and networking
18.00: Common pitfalls when working with blockchain
18.20: How our experiences shaped IBM Blockchain Platform 2.0
18.40: Why and how blockchain is succeeding in the enterprise landscape
19.00: Open discussion and Q&A
19.30: Networking and drinks
20.00: Close

Speaker biographies:

Erica Stanford - Founder, Crypto Curry Club

Erica is the founder of the Crypto Curry Club, a highly sought-after series of fun networking lunches and educational events for leaders in blockchain, crypto and emerging tech (www.cryptocurryclub.com) and co-founder of SWcircle, a consulting firm focused on blockchain and emerging technologies. She has been regularly featured in the press about cryptocurrency and blockchain trends and speaks internationally about blockchain use-cases and adoption of emerging technologies.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/erica_stanford_
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericastanford/

Luc Desrosiers - Solution Architect, IBM Blockchain Labs

As an IBM Certified IT Architect with over 20 years of experience, Luc had the chance to work in different roles: developer, consultant, pre-sales architect. He recently moved with his family from Canada to the UK to join one great lab: IBM Hursley. This is where he had the opportunity to join the IBM Blockchain team. He is now working with clients across multiple industries to help them explore and understand how blockchain technologies can enable transformative use cases and solutions.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Luc_At_IBM
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luc-desrosiers/

Andrew Darley - IBM Blockchain Leader, Europe

Andrew is the leader for IBM Blockchain in Europe. He has been active in blockchain projects since 2015 and is involved with clients in many different industries as they move to production implementations in 2018. Previously, Andrew led Platform as a Service in the Cloud for IBM Europe working with clients at the beginning of the Cloud revolution. In many ways there are similarities between the rapid growth in blockchain technology today and Cloud 5 years ago. Both are revolutionising the market, enabling new business processes, and enabling companies to be more innovative and agile. Andrew was included in the 2017 Tyto survey of the Top 500 Influencers in the UK tech sector at number 30.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/andrew_darley
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-darley-8966394/

Image courtesy of Ed Moffatt - Designer, IBM Blockchain