Virginia Tech computer science alumnus Dan Larimer ’03 is at the epicenter of the development of blockchain technology as a force for decentralizing transactions in a digital world with seemingly endless applications. Larimer, the chief technical officer of Block.one, has shepherded blockchains’ adoption across industries and leads efforts that seek to develop high performance smart contracts.

Larimer will lead a discussion on Virginia Tech’s Blacksburg campus March 20 in Torgersen Hall room 2150 at 7 p.m. Free pizza and beverages will be provided. The event is hosted by the student-run Virginia Tech chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery.

Larimer will share his experiences as a serial entrepreneur at the forefront of cultural change and emerging technologies, specifically blockchain technology, with reference to its scalability and engineering challenges and the importance of the technology to drive innovation in a multitude of fields.
A pioneer of blockchain technology, Larimer has been working in the blockchain space for years and is the creator of EOS.IO, a blockchain technology that rivals the scale and scope of all prior blockchains.

Previously Larimer focused on developing innovative technologies ranging from virtual reality simulators to second-generation crypto currencies, most notably BitShares. He is a specialist in software development and the inventor of the widely adopted “Proof of Stake” and “Decentralized Autonomous Corporations” concepts.

Read More

In Haiti, the workday starts early, at 4 a.m.

The sun won’t be fully out for several more hours when Mario Calixte, an alumnus of Virginia Tech and member of the Hokie Nation,
heads to his day job in the bustle of motorbikes, pedestrians, and burros that jockey for space in the morning traffic in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.

Calixte, who has a bachelor’s degree from the College of Engineering in computer science and a master’s in instructional design and technology from the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, works at the Ecole Supérieure d’Infotronique d’Haïti, where he advises students and develops curriculums for those who attend the country’s flagship university.

But that’s just one of his jobs.

Read more.

 

Read More

Matthew Hicks has been appointed as an assistant professor of computer science in Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering. He is one of 27 new faculty members hired by the college for the 2017-18 academic year.

Hicks’ research seeks to address challenges in developing improved security of low-level hardware code, hardware devices for security systems, battery-less devices, and approximate computing techniques used in studying machine energy efficiency. Findings of his lab have been used by military contractors, hardware security startups, and have inspired others in the fields of security and academia to devise code analysis techniques aimed at uncovering malicious hardware.

Prior to coming to Virginia Tech, Hicks was a member of the technical staff at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory, where he conducted research in a hardware security research group that served as the intersection between academia and the defense industry. Before his appointment at the Lincoln Laboratory, Hicks was a lecturer at the University of Michigan, where he taught courses on security and programming.

In 2016, Hicks won the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy Distinguished Paper Award and was a finalist in the Pwnie Awards for Most Innovative Research.

Hicks earned a bachelor’s in computer science from the University of Central Florida in 2006, a master’s in 2008, and a doctorate in 2013; both in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Written by Amy Loeffler

Read More