Gavin Wood was the Chief Technology Officer and co-­founder of the Ethereum Project. He is the co-designer of the Ethereum Protocol, author of its formal specification, and is the creator and author of the first functional Ethereum implementation. Gavin Wood designed and stewarded the Solidity language, was the project chief of the IDE, and designed and implemented the Whisper protocol. He has pushed “state-of­-the-art” in analysis tools and programming languages, as well as co­-founded several technology start­ups.Gavin Wood has presented to numerous audiences around the world, from keynotes at regional technology conferences, to musings on the future of legal systems at Harvard. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of York. His new initiative is the Polkadot protocol, which will connect public and private blockchains so that they can inter-operate. This ambitious project could make it frictionless for corporations that wish to work in private blockchains to connect with public blockchains. Gavin is founder and current director of Parity Technologies Ltd. He has pushed the state­-of­-the-­art in analysis tools and programming languages, as well as co-­founded several technology start­ups, including Grid Singularity and Ethereum. He is the co-­designer of the Ethereum Protocol and author of its formal specification, he created and wrote the first functional Ethereum implementation, designed and stewarded the Solidity language, was the project chief of the IDE, and designed and implemented the Whisper protocol.