Verifiable / Confidential AI + Aptos Blockchain

## Introduction:

Fully Homomorphic Encryption allows one to perform mathematical operations on encrypted data without the need to decrypt it first. This can be useful in situations where sensitive data needs to be processed or analyzed, but the data owner wants to keep the data private and secure.
In the context of Machine Learning, Fully Homomorphic Encryption helps you leverage the power of ML without ever revealing sensitive data to the server.
Not familiar with FHE? Read this 6 minute introduction by Zama: 6min.zama.ai

Zero-Knowledge Machine Learning, or Verified ML allows the owner of an ML algorithm to convince others about the results of the model, without revealing any information about the ML model itself. A powerful server runs a model on the data, and returns a result plus a proof of correct execution.
This allows for a prover to prove the result of a computation, without revealing any information about the inputs or intermediate steps of the computation.
More information about Verified ML can be found in this blogpost and in this research paper.

Aptos Labs is dedicated to creating better network tooling and products on the Aptos Network. A next-generation Layer 1 blockchain, Aptos’ breakthrough technology and programming language, Move, are designed to evolve, improve performance and strengthen user safeguards. Aptos brings a paradigm shift to Web3 through better technology and user experience. As the lowest-latency, highest-throughout blockchain in the market, Aptos is a home for developers to create the next wave of killer applications. Not familiar with Aptos? Read this whitepaper.

## Speakers:

Luis Montero is a Machine Learning engineer working on the Zama Concrete-ML library. Before joining Zama, Luis worked as a research scientist at Therapixel, where he worked on breast cancer detection from medical images using deep-learning. He holds a Master's degree in Applied Mathematics from Paris-Saclay University.
Yuval Domb is a multi-disciplinary engineer and chief architect at Ingonyama. He has decades of experience leading research, algorithms, and design teams in various fields such as wireless communication, algorithmic trading, and most recently cryptography. He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering - Information Theory from Tel Aviv University.
Alexander Spiegelman is a Blockchain researcher at Aptos. He obtained his PhD from the Technion, where he worked with Idit Keidar on Distributed Systems. Prior to joining Aptos, Alexander worked as a research scientist at Novi Research and VMware Research, where he worked on Blockchain performance and robustness, including Asynchronous BFT and the DAG-based approach.

## Schedule:

6:30pm - 7pm: pizza, beer, social mingling, introductions
7pm - 7:30pm: talk by Luis Montero
7:30pm - 8pm: talk by Yuval Domb
8pm - 8:30pm: talk by Alexander Spiegelman

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## About Zama:

Zama's mission is to safeguard privacy by making the internet encrypted end-to-end. In order to do that, Zama is building open-source cryptographic tools that help developers use Fully Homomorphic Encryption without having to learn cryptography. Zama was founded by Pascal Paillier, a pioneer in FHE, and Rand Hindi, a serial privacy entrepreneur. As of today, Zama's team is composed of 59 people, 34 PhDs and 14 nationalities.

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## About Ingonyama:

Ingonyama is a next-generation semiconductor company, focusing on Zero-Knowledge Proof hardware acceleration. Using a broad, multidisciplinary approach and a deep understanding of the ZK landscape, Ingonyama focuses on finding and solving computational bottlenecks in ZKPs. Our goal is to radically improve the performance of Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Provers by designing hardware optimized for ZK computation.

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## About Aptos:

The Aptos Blockchain is a secure and reliable infrastructure designed for scalability to meet the growing demands of Web 3.0. It is based on cutting-edge research in consensus, smart contract design, system security, performance, and decentralization. Its core principles include scalability, safety, reliability, and upgradeability. Not familiar with Aptos? Read this whitepaper.