Dr. Ernesto Damiani Selected for Expert-Level Group on Blockchain
A Khalifa University member of faculty has been selected by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development to join a high-level expert group that will define Italy’s strategy for blockchain.
Dr. Ernesto Damiani, Director of the KU Center for Cyber-Physical Systems (C2PS) and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, at KU, has been appointed as a committee member for his achievements in research and technology.
Italian Minister of Economic Development Luigi Di Maio made this statement regarding the committee members’ selection: “The numerous and qualified expressions of interest received in the selection of expert groups demonstrate the wealth of knowledge and experience that we have in Italy on emerging technologies. I thank all those who have expressed their availability and I am sure that together with the selected experts we will be able to build Strategies that are crucial for the development of our country in the name of innovation.”
The Italian government recently committed EUR100 million towards boosting blockchain and Artificial Intelligence (AI) based innovation.
Regarding his selection, Dr. Damiani said: “”I am glad of this appointment, which will give me a unique opportunity to help defining Italy’s strategy for blockchain adoption. I will focus on my own specialty: using public ledgers based on blockchain to improve trustworthiness of data to be fed to AI models. My selection is also an endorsement of the high quality work on blockchain we are currently doing within the C2PS, where blockchain and AI are two major research themes. I am sure that synergy between work done here in the UAE and similar initiatives in Europe will further increase worldwide visibility and reputation of KU research.”
In September the ministry had launched a call for applications from experts to be part of the committee to draft Italy’s National Strategy on distributed ledger technologies and blockchain. The call came around the same time Italy joined the European Blockchain Partnership, a multi-million dollar effort to create an international blockchain.
The ministry stated that the selections were made based on the criteria that were reported in initial call, including competence, relevant experience, as well as the proven ability to effectively disclose the needs and requests of stakeholders or the reference body.
Zarina Khan
Senior Editor
6 January 2019
