Source: https://cryptoseq.medium.com/quant-networks-overledger-part-six-the-team-behind-overledger-and-partners-120d4bbb5d60

This is Part Six in the series looking at Quant Network, where we look at the some of the team, advisors and the partners which have been announced so far. Quant are only allowed to announce a partnership with the approval of the client and as such many will remain under NDA. They currently have over 70 deals in their pipeline with different clients — huge multinationals — globally, not just in Europe or the UK.

Part one can be found here and a link to the other parts can be found at the bottom of this article.

Team Behind Quant

Quant currently has offices in the UK, Switzerland, Australia, Armenia (Research Lab) and soon to be opening one in New York to meet client demand.

Gilbert Verdian — CEO

Before starting the company Quant, Gilbert Verdian was the CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) at Vocalink. Vocalink, which is owned by Mastercard, built and operates the infrastructure for the Faster Payments Service enabling real-time faster payments in the UK as well as expanding to other regions such as the US with RTP and FAST service in Singapore. Gilbert was in charge of Security for the Faster Payments service in the UK which deals with £6 Trillion every year. He was awarded the Cyber Security Awards CISO of the year in 2017. https://connect.vocalink.com/2017/july/a-winning-streak/.

Having over 20 years of industry experience, he has gained many contacts and understanding of how large companies and governments operate at the highest level. Gilbert was director for Cybersecurity at PWC, Security for HSBC and Ernst & Young as well as various government roles such as the CISO for the Australian NSW Health, Head of Security at the UK government for Ministry of Justice and HM Treasury in addition to being part of the committee for the European Commission, US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England.

Gilbert is the founder of the Blockchain ISO Standard TC307 and is the Chair of the UK’s national committee on Blockchain and Distributed Ledger technologies (DLT/1) which was discussed in Part Five

I could honestly write a 10 part series just on Gilbert’s CV alone, but you can find out more at the following link:

Rui Wang — Full Stack Developer

Rui is a passionate developer with 12 years software development experience across various sectors from healthcare to financial services. He has extensive in developing Java based financial applications and a very strong knowledge in blockchain technologies.

Over the course of his career he has had impressive achievements During his time working at the NHS he helped build their radiology applications and during his time at NCR he was responsible for building payment authentic and fraud prevention solutions for banks. For Quant, Rui not only brings strong experience with Ethereum and Bitcoin but is also our resident Hyperledger master.

Alexandru Chiriac — Full Stack Developer

Having just finished his final year at University College London, he is expecting to graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science. At UCL, he has gained blockchain experience by developing DApps for Ethereum, IOTA and Ripple, but also by being part of the blockchain student society.

Guy Dietrich, Managing Director of Rockefeller Capital joins the board of Quant Network

Guy Dietrich, Managing Director of Rockefeller Capital has joined the board of Quant Network, supporting the company’s expansion to the US

Guy Dietrich is a Managing Director at Rockefeller Capital Management in New York. He has over 35 years of investment experience and is responsible for advising ultra-high-net-worth clients, family offices, foundations, and endowments. Prior to joining Rockefeller, he led the largest private wealth management practice for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in the Silicon Valley. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College, was a Fellow at the Harvard University Advanced Leadership Institute, and was on the Advisory Board of the Stanford University Institute for Economic Policy Research.

Guy Dietrich, Managing Director, Rockefeller Capital commented:

“I’m delighted to join the Board of Quant Network. This is an exceptional team of experienced professionals in the cybersecurity and blockchain industry.”

Gilbert Verdian, CEO, Quant Network commented:

“We are very pleased to have Guy join Quant Network’s Board. His leadership experience, business expertise, and passion for emerging blockchain and distributed ledger technologies will prove to be valuable assets as we continue to execute on our long-term strategy and expand into the US market”

Advisors

Paolo Tasca

Paolo Tasca is a FinTech economist specialising in P2P financial systems. An advisor on blockchain technologies for different international organisations including the EU Parliament and the United Nations, Paolo is founder and Executive Director of the Centre for Blockchain Technologies (UCL CBT) at University College London. Previously, he was Lead Economist on digital currencies and P2P financial systems at Deutsche Bundesbank, Frankfurt. Paolo is the co-author of the bestseller FINTECH Book and the co-editor of the book Banking Beyond Banks and Money. In addition, he is author of various scientific papers about blockchain, which have been published by prestigious international scientific journals, such as the Harvard Business Review.

Paolo is also the Co-Founder and Governing Board Chair for the Retail BLockchain Consortium. The consortium is a global collaboration led by Oracle, UCL and MonoChain, and involves leading retailers, universities, technology companies, Blockchain companies and service providers which Quant Network will be joining.

Chris Adelsbach

Chris is a London-based entrepreneur, FinTech investor, advisor, and mentor. He is a Managing Director at Techstars, the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed. Techstars has partners such as Amazon, Barclays, Boeing, Ford, Google, Honda, IBM, Microsoft, PWC, Sony, Target, Total, Verizon, Western Union etc.

Chris is also an Angel investor with private portfolio of 55 companies that have had >$750m of follow on investment. He was awarded the UKBAA Angel Investor of the year 2018/19. Early investor into Monese, Everledger, Atom Bank, Smart Pension, Shieldpay, Sharegain, Cuvva, Railsbank, Commuterclub and a host of other leading Fintechs.

Renier Janse van Rensburg

Over 20 years’ assurance, advisory and change management experience in governance, risk and compliance roles on domestic and international assignments at large multinational tier 1 organisations and big four professional services firms. His experience includes extensive work on risk, regulatory and technology change, internal control frameworks, internal and external audit.

Professional Background:
• 40% Banking: HSBC [GBM], RBS [CB & GTS], Deutsche Bank, UBS, DrKW [IB] (Risk, Regulation)
• 30% Consulting: Capco, EY, PwC, Deloitte, Gobodo Inc. (Audit, Assurance, Advisory)
• 30% Other: Startups [Fintech, Regtech & Blockchain]; Brokerage [CFT]; Insurance [Liberty] (Risk, Regulation, Audit, Assurance, Advisory, Operating Model)

Volker Skwarek

Professor, Head of Blockchain Research Group at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. Educated as Electrical Engineer, spent more than 1 decade in managing responsibility for research and technical development in automotive industry. Now professor for embedded systems, convenor in ISO TC 307 (Blockchain) for WG 3, “Smart Contracts”, and leading a research group for blockchains with ultra low powered devices.

Partners

INATBA

As mentioned in the previous article Quant Network is a founding member in the European Union’s launch of the International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA) consisting of 105 founding members and Gilbert Verdian was selected as an official signatory at the event. Other members of INATBA include Accenture, Accord Project, Alastria,Banco Santander, BBVA, Consensys, Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, Fujitsu, IOTA, Ledger, SAP, SIA, Swift, Telefonica, We.Trade and many more. You can read more about this in my previous article here which also provides details of the ISO standard TC 307 which Gilbert Verdian founded which currently has 53 countries working towards.

Hyperledger

 

Quant Network is joining Hyperledger, an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies.

Hyperledger is a multi-project, multi-stakeholder effort that includes 12 enterprise blockchain and distributed ledger technologies. Hyperledger enables organisations to build robust, industry-specific applications, platforms and hardware systems to support their business transactions by creating enterprise-grade open source distributed ledger frameworks and code bases. More than 270 organisations are now contributing to the growth of Hyperledger’s open source distributed ledger frameworks and tools. Some of the companies involved are Accentrue, Airbus, American Express, Baidu, Cisco, Deutsche Bank, DTCC, Fujitsu, Hitachi, IBM, Intel, J.P.Morgan, SAP, BBVA, Bosch, Deloitte, Fedex, Huawei, Lenovo, NTT Data, Oracle, PWC, R3, Ripple, Samsung, We.trade, Bank of England, Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, Federal Reserve, MOBI etc. Full list of members can be seen here.

Quant Network’s blockchain operating system, Overledger, has had a Hyperledger Fabric connector since 2018. Joining the Hyperledger community will help us further strengthen integration and enable interoperability with Hyperledger’s technnologies. Additionally, Hyperledger members will have the opportunity to gain access to the Overledger operating system, which can provide them with choice and ease of implementing Hyperledger as well as any other blockchain and distributed ledger technology and the ability to seamlessly integrate these technologies with legacy systems.

Quant Network is appointed company Guarantor of Pay.UK

Quant Network has been accepted as a company guarantor of Pay.UK, the UK’s largest payment network, alongside banks and other FinTech companies. Through this relationship, Quant Network will shape the payment ecosystem to promote competition, innovation and openness, as well as setting the strategic direction of the Payments infrastructure and adopting the New Payments Architecture (NPA).

Every day, individuals and businesses use the services Pay.UK provides to get their salaries, pay their bills and make online and mobile banking payments. Pay.UK moves more than £6.7 trillion every year, through Bacs Direct Credit, Direct Debit, Faster Payments, cheques and Paym.

Pay.UK was formed in 2017, having brought together BACS, Faster Payments, Cheque and Credit Clearing, and UK Payments Administration to provide a more aligned and simpler financial infrastructure for the whole of the UK and is accountable to the Bank of England and the Payment Systems Regulator. The Bank of England have also been testing Blockchain technologies with their new RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement) Infrastructure

Crowdz

Crowdz builds fully digitized business tools and programs integrated with trade finance designed to enhance the speed, efficiency, and financial performance of global commerce.

• Headed by Cisco’s former global supply-chain leader
• In business since 2014, with 270+ beta clients
• 2018 alumnus of Barclays London Techstars Fintech Accelerator
• Headquartered in Silicon Valley, USA, with offices in the UK, China, India, & Korea
• Funded by investors in the US and UK.
• Seven pending patents.

Crowdz have partnered with Barclaycard, part of Barclays Bank, to integrate into their payment solutions

Ed Black, Director of Innovation & Product at Barclaycard said:

“Recent innovation in the consumer payments area has not been enjoyed in the business-to-business payments market. This is largely due to cumbersome, time-consuming and expensive processes on legacy systems making it a very complex environment to improve. Working with Crowdz we are pushing the boundaries to offer a state-of-the-art, digital solution for B2B payments that will enable everybody in the supply to chain to thrive.”

Payson Johnston, President and CEO of Crowdz, a Silicon Valley trade-finance and financial-technology company, stated that, “Although Crowdz uses the Ethereum blockchain as the foundation for our Invoice Auction Exchange, we have needed a solution that allows for invoices and other documents to be transferred from one blockchain to another — for example, among Hyperledger, Corda, and EOS. With the Overledger solution from Quant Network, it is now possible to pass data among different blockchains. Crowdz looks forward to working with Quant Network to enable the true multi-blockchain environment that our customers demand.”

Silicon Valley-based Crowdz — the leading blockchain-based trade finance company — was also selected to participate in the blockchain track for the 500 Startups San Francisco-based Seed Accelerator program, one of the most competitive and rigorous technology accelerators in the world.

This fall, the 500 Startups accelerator team spent weeks reviewing and interviewing nearly 2,000 program application for Batch 24 of its Seed Accelerator. The world-renowned accelerator ultimately accepted just 22 companies — a mere one percent of the applicants — of which only five became part of the 500 Startups blockchain track.

To find out more about crowdz visit their website here

AUCloud and UK CLoud

 

Quant Network and AUCloud are pleased to announce a formal partnership to apply the world’s first Blockchain Operating System to sovereign cloud computing creating greater security and functionality for Australian government, defence and critical national industry. This Blockchain-as-a-Service will overcome the current siloed design of deploying multiple blockchain systems, creating an easy to use and more secure set of national capabilities.

Scott Wilkie, Director of AUCloud stated that Australian Government, Department of Defence and major industries are using or testing blockchain to interact with their supply chain, critical infrastructure, national record keeping and financial services. These organisations require the interoperable functionality that can only come with an operating system like Overledger and the security of the leading sovereign Australian cloud platform. Without Overledger, none of these projects or systems will be able to communicate with each other or enable cross party collaboration.

Gilbert Verdian, Founder and CEO of Quant Network additionally noted “we have been working with AUCloud for more than year on how best to integrate our Blockchain Operating System onto the AUCloud platform to provide highly secure and interoperable Blockchain-as-a-Service for Australian Government and Defence and the critical national industries and supply chains that serve the nation. The idea for Overledger stemmed from the challenges faced while working in senior roles across definitive projects for both the UK and Australian Governments and subsequently led to founding the Blockchain ISO Standard TC307 in 2016.”

Brad Bastow, CTO AUCloud (previously CTO Department of the Prime Minster & Cabinet) stated that “applying world leading blockchain technologies to enhancing the cyber security of cloud IaaS and PaaS can significantly improve the ease of adoption and reduces risks for all government users and citizens. We aim to bring the most effective and assured technologies as-a-Service and Quant Network have some of the most advanced blockchain technology in the world in this respect.”

Quant Network Joins MOBI

 

MOBI is a new consortium for blockchain innovation in the mobility industry. The consortium was founded by leading automakers including Renault, Ford, GM, and BMW, and now represents more than 80 percent of global auto manufacturing by volume. Other members include Bosch, IBM, Cognizant, Accenture, Consensys, IOTA, R3, VeChain, Hyperledger, Ocean Protocol and Honda (Full list can be seen here)

“Quant Network is pleased to be collaborating with MOBI,” said Gilbert Verdian, CEO of Quant Network. “Mobility, IOT and transportation will be powered by distributed networks and are vital to the creation of future cities and communities. We are excited for the opportunity for Quant Network and MOBI to collaborate in advancing the future of mobility and the machine economy today. Our Overledger operating system will enable interconnectivity and interoperability of data between manufacturers, devices, transportation and autonomous vehicles.”

With over 100 member companies and growing, MOBI is collaborating with a wide variety of players in the mobility and blockchain space. We are working with many of the world’s largest automakers and mobility ecosystem players, along with numerous start-ups, nonprofits, governments, transit agencies, and technology companies. By working together, we can make mobility services more efficient, affordable, greener, safer and less congested.

Oracle

 

Quant Network have been accepted into the Oracle Global Start-up Ecosystem — a move that will enable us to benefit from Oracle’s global customers, and product and market expertise.

The program serves startups at scale by building a thriving global startup community based on mutually beneficial partnerships that enable next-generation growth, business development, and drive cloud-based innovation for startups, customers, and Oracle.

Some of the benefits of Quant Network’s involvement in this ecosystem include access to engagement with Oracle’s 430,000+ customers; access to Oracle’s product and development teams; world-class global mentoring program and curriculum; and proof of concept (POC) development.

Accord Project

 

Quant Network have joined the Accord Project and are providing the Technology with Overledger and Treaty Contracts.

The Accord Project is the organization for the development of techno-legal standards for smart legal contracts and distributed ledger applications in the legal industry. The Project incubates the standard contracting protocol for the legal industry. The Accord Project protocol is blockchain agnostic. The purpose of the Project is to enable lawyers, law firms, trade associations, and corporates to help establish open standards for the future of contracting; and to produce open-source code for smart legal contracts and distributed ledger usage in the legal industry. The Project operates in collaboration with IEEE, the International Association for Contract and Commercial Management, Hyperledger, R3, Decentralized Identity Foundation, and a number of leading trade associations, industry and standards organizations, and world leading law firms.

 

 

 

 

Alchemmy Consulting

 

Quant Network have partnered with Alchemmy Consulting to create a Blockchain Factory with Alchemmy to do rapid prototyping and solutioneering for their Enterprise clients. Alchemmy help with the engagement scoping, project management and client delivery and Quant provide the technology and expertise.

Alchemmy have worked with a broad range of clients, from medium sized businesses to FTSE 250 companies. They work across a number of sectors including Legal, Retail, Financial Services, Transport, Travel, Telecommunications and the Public Sector, in which they have delivered business transformation, and system integration projects, among many others. They have extensive experience of working with global clients on projects across Europe, North America and Australia.

They both were recently featured on Sky TV talking about digital challenges faced by the UK Public Sector.

AWS Partner Network

 

Quant Network has achieved Technology Partner status with Amazon’s AWS Partner Network (APN). A move that will enable more than a million active customers to benefit from our Overledger blockchain operating system who use AWS Cloud solutions to deliver flexibility, scalability, and reliability.

The AWS Partner Network (APN) is the global partner program for AWS. It is focused on helping APN Partners build successful AWS-based businesses or solutions by providing business, technical, marketing, and go-to-market support.

Quant Network CEO Gilbert Verdian stated, “We are pleased to be a partner to Amazon AWS which puts us another step closer to achieving our vision. Moreover, this partnership provides us with the invaluable opportunity to engage with over a million AWS customers who through this partnership can now innovate and create new business models from the use of Overledger to build industry-changing multi-chain applications on an interoperable platform.”

Interopen

 

The health and social care sector is notorious for holding vital information on different systems that cannot communicate with one another, negatively impacting patient care and user experience. As a member of INTEROpen, Quant Network will collaborate on the design and application of technical interoperability standards, covering areas such as data exchange, data validation, defining APIs and governance. Quant Network’s blockchain operating system, Overledger, has the ability to interconnect existing legacy systems to one another as well as to blockchain. The origin of the idea for Overledger stemmed from the founder’s time in Healthcare faced with solving the same challenges.

Gilbert Verdian, Founder and CEO of Quant Network, stated that “Quant Network is pleased to be collaborating with INTEROPen. With the increased stress on health services in the UK, we believe that digital transformation is needed now more than ever. Our Overledger operating system can reduce the risks and costs involved in digital transformation with minimal disruption to patients. We are also excited about the opportunities for blockchain adoption that may come from our involvement with INTEROPen.”

Quant Network exclusive partner to China’s blockchain research hub for China Ministry of Commerce

 

Quant Network announce exclusive partnership with Jiangsu Huaxin Blockchain Research Insitute (JBI) the first state-owned research hub dedicated to exploring blockchain technology for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce.

In the China Government’s 2020 plan, one of the five key focus areas is — “innovation” with a view to “ move up in the value chain by abandoning old heavy industry and building up bases of modern formation-intensive infrastructure”. As such, it is not surprising to know that how invested and dedicated to exploring the benefits of blockchain technology they are.

JBI established the partnership in recognition of the crucial role that Quant Network and their cutting-edge blockchain operating system Overledger will play in unlocking the true potential of blockchain technology. They recognize that without Overledger — the major limitations of current blockchain technology include the lack of interoperability and single-ledger dependence will hold them back from achieving their ultimate goals.

Overledger also seamlessly connects existing networks and the Internet to the blockchain, allowing Government and Enterprises to harness the power of blockchain to address real-world challenges. In China, some of those real world challenges that will be explored include anti-money laundering as well as broader applications in the healthcare and supply chain sectors.

Quant Network and the JBI have signed a MoU for a five-year cooperation.

Global Legal Blockchain Consortium

 

The Global Legal Blockchain Consortium is comprised of over 140 large companies, law firms, software companies, and universities that have joined together to develop standards to govern the use of blockchain technology in the business of law. Specifically, the consortium is focused on:

• Data integrity and authenticity for contracts, documents, and similar data.
• Data privacy and security for contracts, documents, and communications.
• Interoperability between large corporate legal departments and law firms.
• Productivity improvements and cost savings in the operation of legal departments and law firms.
• Use of blockchain to fortify and augment existing legal technology investments adding important functionality to legacy systems to extend their useful life.

The GLBC recognizes that blockchain technology is not yet a mature technology, so the consortium will not be confined to a single blockchain. The GLBC embraces the fact that members are investing in various blockchains, and it is the goal of GLBC members to harmonize the way the legal industry interacts with multiple blockchain technologies.

“We are excited to see that Quant Network is participating in the GLBC,” said Pierson Grider, Global Organiser, GLBC. “Their involvement with the Global ISO Standard TC307 will benefit the GLBC community in helping set standards in blockchain for the legal industry.”

 

Alliance Block

 

Quant Network has partnered with AllianceBlock — an AI-powered decentralized investment and financing ecosystem, which allows corporates to quickly, cheaply and safely raise funds, whether it be equity, debt or tokens.

The new partnership allows AllianceBlock to offer Quant Network’s Overledger solution to blockchain projects and SMEs listed on the AllianceBlock platform. There are major limitations to current blockchain technology and Overledger provides a unique solution by making interoperability between different blockchains very easy and straightforward. Overledger is the world’s first blockchain operating system (OS) that not only connects blockchains to one another, but also connects existing networks to blockchain and facilitates the creation of internet scale multi-chain applications (mApps).

Gilbert Verdian, Founder and CEO of Quant Network, stated “We are excited to partner with AllianceBlock so that we can jointly help foster innovation and expand the blockchain ecosystem. Our Overledger operating system and Sentry AML & KYC product can help new start ups create products that weren’t possible before. This will allow Overledger to become a mainstream tool, offering an easy access to blockchain, and hence, the democratization of blockchain technology.”

“AllianceBlock will use Overledger to leverage multiple blockchains and create multi-chains token swaps. This partnership offers the possibility to open a new set of real-world applications leveraging different features from different chains. AllianceBlock is delighted about this partnership which will help blockchain projects and SMEs wield blockchain technology very easily” said Rachid Ajaja, Co-founder of AllianceBlock.

“This is the logical next step for us as an all-in-one financing and investment platform to support the growth and spread of blockchain technology into financial services” said Ajaja.

Overledger supports ADC Global Blockchain Summit Hackathon

 

A Recent Hackathon was held at Lot Fourteen in conjunction with Data61 and IBM for groups to explore how Blockchain can be used to provide solutions for a challenge supplied in conjunction with the South Australian Government.

Quant Network are supporting participants and teams to build new multi-chain applications powered by Overledger to solve the hackathon use cases and challenges.

Atlantic Power Exchange

 

In Part Seven I will look at the QNT Token and its utility and can be found here

Part One — Blockchain Fundamentals

Part Two — The Layers Of Overledger

Part Three — Verification and the Tokenisation of data

Part Four — Features Overledger provides to MAPPs

Part Five — Creating the Standards for Interoperability

Part Six — The Team behind Overledger and Partners (This Article)

Part Seven — The QNT Token

Part Eight — Enabling Enterprise Mass Adoption