Way Kuo is President at City University of Hong Kong. He is a Member of US National Academy of Engineering, and a Foreign Member of Chinese Academy of Engineering and Russian Academy of Engineering.

Before joining CityU, Professor Kuo was on the Senior Management team of Oak Ridge National Lab and served as Dean of Engineering at the University of Tennessee and Head of the Department of Industrial Engineering at Texas A&M University. He received PhD in engineering in 1980 from Kansas State University, and BS in nuclear engineering in 1972 from National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan.

Professor Kuo specialises in design for reliability of electronics systems. Among other well recognized technical books, his popular science book Critical Reflections on Nuclear and Renewable Energy has created an impact since its publication in 2013 by Commonwealth Publishing Group in Taiwan. The book has been translated into English, Japanese, French, Russian, and Korean, published in Massachusetts, Tokyo, Paris, Moscow and Seoul, respectively. This book has also been published in Hong Kong and Beijing in both traditional and simpli ed Chinese under different titles.

Dr. S. Joe Qin obtained his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Automatic Control from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, in 1984 and 1987, respectively, and his Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering from University of Maryland at College Park in 1992. He began his professional career in 1992 as a principal engineer at Emerson Process Management, a subsidiary of Emerson Electric, to work on advanced process control. After having developed two advanced control products, he joined the University of Texas at Austin as an assistant professor in 1995. He was promoted to associate professor and professor in 2000 and 2003, respectively, and was the holder of the Paul D. and Betty Robertson Meek and American Petrofina Foundation Centennial Professorship in Chemical Engineering until 2007. From 2007 to 2019 he was the Fluor Professor at the Viterbi School of Engineering of the University of Southern California. He was co-director the Texas-Wisconsin-California Control Consortium (TWCCC) where he was Co-PI for 24 years to conduct research on industry-sponsored projects. His research has directly impacted around 50 corporations who have been members of the Consortium. He is currently Chair Professor of Data Science at the City University of Hong Kong.

Dr. Qin’s research interests include data analytics, machine learning, latent variable methods; high-dimensional time series latent variable modeling, process monitoring and fault diagnosis, model predictive control, system identification, semiconductor manufacturing control, and data-driven control and optimization. He has over 400 publications in international journals, book chapters, conference papers, and conference presentations with peer-reviewed abstracts. He delivered over 50 invited plenary or keynote speeches and over 120 invited technical seminars worldwide.

He is a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the 2011 Northrop Grumman Best Teaching award at Viterbi School of Engineering, the DuPont Young Professor Award, Halliburton/Brown & Root Young Faculty Excellence Award, NSF-China Outstanding Young Investigator Award, and recipient of the IFAC Best Paper Prize for a model predictive control survey paper published in Control Engineering Practice. He served as Senior Editor of Journal of Process Control, Editor of Control Engineering Practice, Member of the Editorial Board for Journal of Chemometrics, and Associate Editor for several other journals.

Prof. Qian YAO is currently the Head of the Technology Supervision Bureau of the China Securities Regulatory. He was the former General Manager at China Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation (CSDC), and the first Director of the PBoC’s Digital Currency Research Institute. Prof. YAO is a professor level senior engineer. He is also a Researcher at Counsellors’ Office Financial Studies Center, General Secretary at China Financial Standardization Technical Committee, the member of Blockchain Expert Committee at Chinese Institute of Electronics, and Academic Committee of Center for Post-doctoral Studies at People’s Bank of China Financial Studies Institute.

Professor Harald Uhlig is a Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago where previously he acted as the chairman for the Department of Economics. He is a current consultant at both the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. In 2017, he was named an Honorary Professor at Henan University in China. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1990.

Steven Kou is a Questrom Professor in Management and Professor of Finance at Boston University. Previously, he taught at National University of Singapore (from 2013 to 2018), Columbia University (from 1998 to 2014), University of Michigan (1996-1998), and Rutgers University (1995-1996). He teaches courses on FinTech and quantitative finance. Currently he is a co-area-editor for Operations Research and a co-editor for Digital Finance, and has served on editorial boards of many journals, such as Management Science, Mathematics of Operations Research, and Mathematical Finance. He is a fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and won the Erlang Prize from INFORMS in 2002. Some of his research results have been incorporated into standard MBA textbooks and have implemented in commercial software packages and terminals, e.g. in Bloomberg Terminals.

Dr. Zhang is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Crypto Review and a Senior Economist at Bates White Economic Consulting, a litigation consulting firm based in Washington, DC. He is an expert in the economic mechanism design, cryptocurrency and especially the blockchain technical features of Bitcoin’s ecosystem. Before he joined Bates Whites, he was an Assistant Professor of Finance at College of Business at City University of Hong Kong. He joined CityU in 2014 after receiving his Ph.D. from Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. His dissertation is about measuring informed trading in limit order markets. Before doctoral study, Dr. Zhang obtained his M.A. in Economics from Indiana University, and B.S. in Mathematics from Zhejiang University. Dr. Zhang specializes in Financial Market Microstructure, Investment, and Derivatives. His current research focuses on informed trading, market liquidity, leverage, and their impact on security pricing and investment decisions. Dr. Zhang has taught Algorithmic Trading and Option Pricing at CityU, and serves as faculty advisor of CityU's award winning delegation to Rotman International Trading Competition.

Disclaimer: Dr. Zhong Zhang’s involvement in “Crypto Review” and all activities associated with “Crypto Review” are solely his own and do not reflect the views or opinions of Bates White or its clients. The opinions expressed represent only those of the author, and do not represent the views or opinions of Bates White, LLC or of other Bates White employees or affiliates.

J. Leon Zhao is currently Chair Professor in Information Systems, City University of Hong Kong (CityU), where he was Head of Information Systems from 2009 to 2015. Before joining CityU, He was Interim Head and Eller Professor in MIS, University of Arizona. He holds Ph.D. in Information Systems from Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. He is currently director of the CityU Center on Global Internet Finance (since 2015), the CityUSRI Lab on Enterprise Process Innovation and Computing (since 2007), and CityUCRI Center on Blockchain-centric Business Innovation (since 2017). His research has been funded by CityU, NSF, NSFC, RGC, SAP, IBM, Shenzhen Government among others; as PI, he has received over 20 million HKD in total research funding (including two recent grants on blockchain). He received IBM Faculty Award at the University of Arizona in 2005 and Chang Jiang Scholar Chair Professorship at Tsinghua University in 2009. His research is in information technology and applications, with a special focus on FinTech and Blockchain. He has been co-editor of Springer journal on Financial Innovation, Senior Editor of Decision Support Systems, and Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Service Computing, ACM Transactions on MIS, and Electronic Commerce Research and Applications among others. Since 2003, He has co-edited over 20 special issues in various academic journals; most recently, he is co-editor of Big Data Special Issue for MIS Quarterly (published in December 2016) and co-editor of FinTech for Information Systems Research (to be completed in 2020). He has chaired numerous conferences and is the lead founder of several academic conferences including China Summer Workshop on Information Management (since 2007) and International Conference on Smart Finance (since 2016).

Academic Qualification

• PhD in Systems Engineering and Management Information Systems, University of Arizona, USA, 1992

Research Interests • Internet finance, especially the financial supermarket as well as its business model, technologies, and services

• Risk measurement and management: credit, market, operational, and tail (extreme event) risk

• Trading strategies, trade planning and execution of Algo Trading and High Frequency trading

• Investment and portfolio management: equities, commodities, FX, fixed income, derivatives, and structured products

• Pricing and risk assessment of structured products that built with derivatives and exotic options

Dr. Lawrence Ma has over 20 years of academics, finance and technology development and business experiences. He is currently the President of Hong Kong Blockchain Society, Committee Member of China’s Central University of Finance and Economic’s Da Xin Blockchain Research Center Expert Committee Society and founder and CEO of eMALI.IO. Inaugurated in 2017, Hong Kong Blockchain Society is dedicated to take part in building a vibrant blockchain community and ecosystem in Hong Kong. eMALI is a Hong Kong based blockchain company. The primary focus of eMALI is to develop blockchain applications in Public and Fin/Insur Tech sectors. eMALI has been (Dec 2016) chosen as a winner of AIA Blockchain Global Challenge; a competition with entries from 19 countries. He received his BA in Mathematics from Yale University, MS in Mathematics from Stanford University, and PhD in Mathematics from Cornell University.

Dr. Michael C S Wong serves as EMBA Director and Associate Professor of Finance at City University of Hong Kong. He specializes on international banking, risk management and financial markets. Dr. Wong architected the first Basel-standard internal ratings-based (IRB) system in Hong Kong in 2003-2005 and wealth management due diligence models after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. His risk management models are currently implemented by more than 25 regional and global financial institutions operating in Asia. Dr. Wong reviewed risk control and stress testing models for banking institutions, submitted independent risk assessment reports to company boards and regulators, and provided expert witness on legal disputes involving complex financial transactions. He served as a founding member of Global Association of Risk Professionals’ (GARP) FRM Committee, an examiner of professional examinations of both Hong Kong Securities and Investment Institute (HKSI) and Hong Kong Institute of Bankers (HKIB), a member of the Advisory Board of China Bond Rating in Beijing, a non-executive director of Bank of Communications Trustee, the founder of CT Risk Solutions, the Chairman of CTRISKS Rating, a member of Market Misconduct Tribunal in Hong Kong, a member of Task Force of Hong Kong Insurance Authority, and a committee member of Hong Kong Blockchain Society. He obtained his postgraduate degrees from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, University of Essex and University of Cambridge, and executive training at Berkeley, MIT and Cambridge. Dr. Wong has 60+ academic works published. His articles are included in leading academic journals, such as MIS Quarterly, the Journal of the Operational Research Society, the Journal of Futures Markets, the Journal of Forecasting and Omega. He was a long-serving director of MSc programs in Finance (1998-2015) at CityU and was granted university-wide Teaching Excellence Award by the university in1999.

Mr. Ping DU is currently the Chairman of Shuju Bay Area Big Data Research Institute, Secretary-General of the National Development Planning Expert Committee of the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan", Secretary-General of the National Strategic Emerging Industries Development Expert Advisory Committee. He was the former Executive Deputy Director of the National Information Center, Director of the National E-Government Extranet Management Center, Director of Engineering Center at National Development and Reform Commission, and Director of China Smart City Research Center. He is also the Vice Chairman of China Information Association, Vice Chairman of China Regional Economics Association, Vice Chairman of China Cloud System Pioneer Strategic Alliance, and Executive Director of China Sustainable Development Research Association.

Ms. Marie-Line Ricard is an Associate Partner of Sia Partners (Paris Office), leading “Blockchain & Crypto assets” cross-industry practice at international level. Former Partner in charge of Risk & Regulatory Department of PwC France, and founder of the Blockchain Lab for the same firm, she is an engineer with 23 years of experience in developing new businesses, and leading complex transformation / innovation programs.

Mr. Danru BAO is currently the Independent Director of China Construction Bank Trust Pension Management Co., Ltd. He has long been engaged in research work on pension and social insurance management. He was the former Deputy Director of Shanghai Human Resources and Social Security Bureau. He was in charge of the supervision of urban pension insurance, rural pension insurance, work injury welfare insurance and social insurance fund. Mr. Bao was also Director of the research office at LuWan District Committee, Director of LuWan District Planning and Economic Commission, Director of LuWan District Government Research Office, and Director of Shanghai Social Insurance Fund Settlement Management Center, etc. His publications include "Research on the Establishment of Occupational Annuity Plan in Shanghai", "Research on the Statistics and Evaluation Index System of Urban Social Insurance", "Reflection on Retirement Age and Pension Insurance Related Issues", etc.

Dr. Feng Xiao is currently the Vice Chairman and Executive Director of China Wanxiang Holding Co., Ltd., Chairman and CEO of Shanghai Wanxiang Blockchain Inc., Vice Chairman of MinSheng Life Insurance Co., Ltd., Chairman of Wanxiang Trust Co., Ltd., Chairman of Minsheng Tonghui Asset Management Co., Ltd and Chairman of All-in Payment Network Services Co. Ltd., and DATAYES Inc., Chairman of ZheShang Fund Management Co., Ltd. He holds a PhD in Economics from China Nankai University. Dr. Xiao has over 20 years’ experience in Chinese securities and asset management industry. He was the founder of Bosera Funds, which is one of the first and largest mutual funds in China.

Mr. Kao is currently the Project Manager of BitoEX, and General Manager of Insight Software. His former positions include Solution Manager of Advantech, Software Department Manager of, Software Supervisor and Product Marketing Manager of AVerMedia Technologies Inc., etc. Mr. Kao has rich experience in product design, marketing, and ICO & Blockchain project management.

Alex Yang is CEO of V Systems, a blockchain project led by Sunny King, a legendary developer and creator of Proof-of-Stake consensus. As CEO of VSYS, Alex is driving the project to solve the core scalability and stability problems in the development of the blockchain industry. His deep experience of the industry has been gained through his investing activity where he has sponsored many worldleading blockchain foundations.

Prior to moving into venture capital investing, Alex was based in Hong Kong as head of APAC structured rates trading at Nomura International, and VP of exotic derivatives trading at UBS. He started his career as a quantitative developer at Jump Trading in Chicago.

Alex has a PhD from Northwestern University and a BA in Mathematics from Peking University.

Mr. Jason Lau is currently the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Crypto.com where he drives the global cybersecurity and information privacy strategy. Jason led his team to become the first cryptocurrency company in the world to have company-wide certifications in ISO 27001:2013, PCI:DSS 3.2.1 and to conform with the Cryptocurrency Security Standard (CCSS). Prior to this, Jason was a regional Cybersecurity Advisor at Microsoft, leading Microsoft’s cybersecurity and GDPR initiatives in Asia Pacific. Jason is also an Adjunct Professor of cybersecurity and data privacy at one of Asia’s leading business schools, and the regional lead, co-chair and faculty member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).

Jason has over 20 years in consulting experience for Fortune 500 companies in the fields of management consulting, cybersecurity, IT governance, privacy and risk management, and holds certifications such as CISSP, CDPSE, CGEIT, CISA, CISM, CRISC, CIPP/E, CIPM, CEH, CNDA, CSM, HCISPP and more. Jason holds a bachelor degree in engineering (Honors) and bachelor degree in commerce, and completed executive programs at Stanford and Harvard.

Mr. Emil Chan is the Chairman of Fintech Committee of Smart City Consortium in Hong Kong, with over 20-year experience in managing IT and business transformation projects in international financial institutions. He had worked for several sizeable international banks including Credit Suisse and BayernLB as the roles of First Vice President, Head of IT in Asia Pacific, Project Director and Operations Manager AP. He has extensive experience in both Business and IT consulting encompassing the design, setup, leading and managing of cross-border projects throughout Asia. He is the adjunct professor, visiting lecturer as well as advisor of various departments of local renowned universities.