Deadline extended to 9 June - Blockchains and the Web Workshop, 29–30 June

Hello,

W3C is pleased to extend the call for participation in our workshop:
     Blockchains and the Web Workshop
     29–30 June 2016, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
     https://www.w3.org/2016/04/blockchain-workshop/

The new deadline is Thursday, 9 June.

Based on feedback, we've made it easier to indicate interest in  
participating in this event, without committing to a position; you can  
still submit a position statement, but you can alternately fill out the  
Expression of Interest form:

   https://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/1/blockchain-workshop/

For our keynote, we are honored to have Dr. Arvind Narayanan, a noted  
academic expert on Bitcoin, cryptography, security, and privacy.

Thanks to MIT Media Lab for hosting the workshop and to Bloomberg and NTT  
for sponsorship. Their generosity has allowed us to increase the capacity  
of the event to more than 70 attendees.

Leading up to the event, Media Lab's Dazza Greenwood is hosting a weekly  
webinar with notable attendees:

   https://plus.google.com/u/0/106495999951056949288/posts


Background:

Many projects and companies are looking at ways to use the Bitcoin  
blockchain or other public or private distributed ledgers, to record an  
immutable timestamped public record that can be independently verified by  
any stakeholder.

What does this mean for Web technologies, beyond payments? What emerging  
capabilities could blockchains enable for the Web, such as distributed  
identity management? Conversely, should features be added to the Web  
Platform and to browsers to enable blockchain use cases, such as a  
JavaScript blockchain API to write to blockchain nodes? What will help Web  
developers to take advantage of blockchains?

We already have participation from diverse players in the blockchain  
community: Representatives from communities such as Bitcoin, Hyperledger,  
and Ethereum; browser developers interested in adding support for  
blockchain APIs, identity systems, and other functionality; digital  
currency projects; financial institutions; developers of blockchain  
systems who want to improve interoperability; privacy/security  
researchers; and more.

Expected topics of discussion include:

Technical enhancements to blockchains, such as:
* Smart contracts and conditional execution contexts
* Blockchain APIs, such as JavaScript or REST APIs
* Decentralization primitives, such as transaction initiation, key  
signing, wallet management
* Ledger interchange formats and protocols

Application areas, such as:
* Identity systems, including privacy, security, and confidentiality  
factors
* Rights expression and licensing
* Decentralized processing, computing, and storage infrastructure

Other considerations, such as:
* Optimal use cases for blockchains
* Surveys of existing blockchain software systems
* Testing mechanisms to increase interoperability, robustness, stability,  
and confidence in blockchain systems

For more on the workshop, including proposed session tracks to organize  
the discussion, please see the workshop details and submission
instructions:
     https://www.w3.org/2016/04/blockchain-workshop/

If you have any questions, please contact organizer Doug Schepers  
<schepers@w3.org> or Technology and Society Domain Lead Wendy Seltzer  
<wseltzer@w3.org>.

This announcement follows section 8 of the Process Document:
      https://www.w3.org/2015/Process-20150901/#GAEvents

We look forward to seeing you there.

For Doug Schepers, W3C staff contact;
Wendy Seltzer, W3C Policy Counsel and Technology and Society Domain Lead;
Coralie Mercier, Head of W3C Marketing & Communications


-- 
Coralie Mercier  -  W3C Marketing & Communications -  http://www.w3.org
mailto:coralie@w3.org +336 4322 0001 http://www.w3.org/People/CMercier/

Received on Saturday, 4 June 2016 08:08:26 UTC