30+ leaders are bringing their capabilities and expertise to help launch a Data Economy around Ocean
In the deep waters of the crypto-underworld, we’ve noticed that Weeve is making waves with a serious impact. Their secret? A smooth and creamy combination of academic rigour and cryptography, with a pinpoint market focus. This vision was laid out to us by Prof. Dr. Sebastian Gajek, Weeve Co-founder & CTO and Professor in Cryptography at Flensburg University.
Sebastian’s dedication to cryptography extends beyond his work and into his everyday life — he has a genuine pet doge — and we admire his quickness to connect to others, as well as the ease and energy with which he engages the Weeve community worldwide.
Ocean Protocol cares about provenance, as it implies attribution, forensics and fair value capture. Provenance of data starts with the data generation device itself, hence the need for trusted data oracles is a holy grail for the supply side in the Ocean network. Even better is that these trusted data sources can come from IoT or embedded devices and have hardware security to prevent attacks. Add a secure compute layer? weeveOS can do it all.
Sebastian gave us great insights in their Token Curation development such as the graded TCR. More importantly is that many of their developments, research and insights are being widely shared in the open source community. This proves that Sebastian has his values truly aligned with Ocean Protocol: democratize access to knowledge and intelligence, and that communities precede economies.
Two Minutes with Sebastian Gajek
Why are you supporting Ocean Protocol?
Ocean Protocol amasses all that is needed to change the digital world of tomorrow and I am humbled that I have a ‘Berghain Bouncer’ nod to enter into Ocean’s ocean and help make waves. It is my firm belief that data, as an emerging digital asset, prerequisites with a need for assessment in order to activate it’s value. With this being said, Ocean’s innovative techniques in Mechanism Design are carving the path forward for this to happen. The talented team always delivers on ambitious visions and I see no reason to doubt their ability to change the digital world of tomorrow (*Grabs arm bands and jumps in*).
What capabilities will you bring as an Advisor?
As a human who wears two hats, one being a researcher and the other being an entrepreneur, I look forward to continue supporting and helping Ocean in the following ways. Firstly, I am a Professor of Cryptography and Information Security and have been designing protocols and systems for just short of two decades. Blockchain and specifically blockchain-based protocols like the Ocean Protocol is a perfect application in my expertise. I look forward to help out here when needed. My second hat pertains to Weeve, a company I founded, which addresses the problem of Trusted IoT Data Oracles using novel cryptographic proof techniques and protocols, efficient enough to be executed on IoT devices, and their monetization through data marketplaces. With these proofs, called Testimonies, the value of the truthfulness and information integrity is publicly verifiable. Therefore, with data attestation we thwart fake data and can curate high-quality Data Networks. As truthful and cryptographically verifiable data is the gas to the Ocean Protocol, it was natural to establish a partnership and work alongside each other. I am looking forward to the continued collaboration in order to build a Data Economy of truthful, factual and valuable Digital Data Assets.
Why do you support the team?
Clearly the team must be emphasised. The three musketeers (Bruce, Dimitri, Trent) are ingenius with the guts to advance blockchain-based AI “where no man has gone before” (Star Trek). From all the blockchain projects out there Ocean Protocol is clearly among the most elaborated ones and utilizes the power of blockchain in an out-of-the-box way. This already shows the ambitions and capabilities of the team. The team does also an awesome job to build a community utilizing the Ocean Protocol. That is key to a wide adoption of their platform.
Biography
Sebastian Gajek is a Doctor of Cryptography with over 15 years of experience. He is also a professor at the Flensburg University of Applied Sciences and lectures on cryptography, system security and the blockchain. Prof. Dr. Sebastian Gajek is Weeve’s CTO. He has a strong focus on the topics of cryptographic algorithm design and system security. Prior to Weeve, he held a research position at NEC Laboratories Europe, where he transferred foundational security research to products. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Tel Aviv University and obtained his PhD from the renowned Horst-Görtz Institute for IT-Security, one of the leading academic institutes for information security in Europe.
He received his Doctoral Degree at age 28 and professorship at the age of 35. He has filed more than 15 patents, and he has been the author and co-author on more than 25 peer-reviewed papers published at international conferences. He speaks 5 languages, including German, English, Hebrew, C and Solidity.
Originally published at blog.oceanprotocol.com on October 2, 2018.
