Dr. Nicolas Kokkalis Head of Technology Stanford PhD and instructor of Stanford’s first decentralized applications class; combining distributed systems and human computer interaction to bring cryptocurrency to everyday people.
Dr. Nicolas Kokkalis have been a technologist all his life, which led him to do a Ph.D. at Stanford University and to continue to become a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Computer Science department there. As part of his postdoc, he introduced and taught CS359B, the Decentralized Applications on Blockchain class, in Stanford’s Computer Science department. That’s where he encountered firsthand the difficulty of getting the technological advances of blockchain into the hands of everyday people. He believes that today's technology can empower people more than ever.
As a young undergraduate, he designed and built a novel computer motherboard from scratch in the lab. In his early PhD work, he created a framework for writing smart contracts on fault tolerant distributed systems, before blockchain and Ethereum came to exist, and published it as his MS thesis. He also created an online games platform, Gameyola, where millions of people entertained themselves for a collective of over 2,000 man years; for his later PhD work, he tried to restore those man years by writing a crowd-powered email assistant that saved people time when processing their emails and tasks. Also, he was the founding CTO at StartX, a non-profit startup accelerator for Stanford students that has helped over 2000 entrepreneurs.
He is a strong and long term believer of the technical, financial and social potential of cryptocurrencies, but frustrated by their current limitations. He is committed to bringing the power of blockchain to more people by improving the current experience and building value for everyone. He is doing this by employing a user-centric design philosophy that turns the development process of new blockchains upside down: Launch in Beta; invite members to the network; iterate the protocol together with the members; decentralize the resulting design.
The result is currently available as the Pi Network, a new cryptocurrency and peer-to-peer network, which is currently operational in 150+ countries and 32 languages. Pi Network is 100% his professional commitment, while his loving wife and son take up 100% of his personal commitment.
Dr. Chengdiao Fan Head of Product Stanford PhD in Computational Anthropology harnessing social computing to unlock human potential on a global scale.
Dr. Chengdiao Fan finished her Ph.D. in Anthropological Sciences from Stanford University, with expertise in human behavior and human groups studies.
Her research interests have focused on human-computer interaction and social computing -- specifically, how we use technology to positively impact human behavior and societies.
Her previous research projects and published papers include designing software systems to improve productivity, scale social communications and surface untapped social capital for people. She also founded a startup that builds an email productivity platform that scales conversations by crowdsourcing.
What excites her about blockchain technology is the merging of decentralization with an economic instrument. This technological marvel can mobilize individuals all over the world to participate and be rewarded for their contributions.
Just as the internet enabled the world to be more connected through information exchanges, blockchain and cryptocurrencies enable closer and more frequent collaborations with value exchanges. She believes their potential is far beyond the realm of finance, and will create values that have otherwise not been created or captured on individual, societal and global levels.
Her hope for Pi is the establishment of an inclusive economy for global citizens to unleash and capture their own value, and in turn create value for society and the world.
She speaks English & Chinese, she's a scientist, an engineer, a wife and the mother of a 3-year old.
