Interview with Moshe Shadmon, CEO, AnyLog - Speaker at Global Blockchain Conference - Boston Sep 25 - 27 2018 Posted on : Jul 02 - 2018

We feature speakers at Global Blockchain Conference - Sep 25 - 27 2018 – Boston to catch up and find out what he or she is working on now and what's coming next. This week we're talking to Moshe Shadmon, CEO,  AnyLog Topic - "Real Time Management Of IoT Data Using The Blockchain And A Distributed Network"

Interview with  Moshe Shadmon

1. Tell us about yourself and your background.

I am the founder and CEO of Anylog, a decentralized network that manages IoT data. Previously, I was the founder of ScaleDB, a time-series database company. I am also the founder of several other database companies and have 25 years of experience in building products addressing real-time processing of large data sets.
Some of my research work can be found here - https://dblp.org/pers/hd/s/Shadmon:Moshe.

2.  What have you been working on recently?

I am currently working on AnyLog which is a distributed network that manages IoT data. AnyLog uses storage and computing resources offered by miners (for rewards) to create a massively parallel computer to process IoT data. Using a unique and innovative approach (leveraging a distributed network and a blockchain), AnyLog allows users to store, share, query, and monetize IoT data in real time, with no reliance on a centralized authority.
AnyLog inherently solves the problems of scalability, real time availability and high costs associated with the huge amounts of IoT data and it replaces the IoT silos of data with a global and unified  platform. In the same way that Google offers a unified interface to websites' data, AnyLog offers a unified interface to IoT data.

3. Where are we now today in terms of the state of Blockchain, and where do you think we’ll go over the next five years?

The promise of blockchain is to provide decentralized control, trust, transparency, security and data resiliency. Therefore, I think we will see new business models which were not possible before. AnyLog creates a marketplace for data as it connects devices with services that provide storage and CPU power (very much like Airbnb for data). However, it does that in a decentralized way which is scalable and can be done at a low cost. A centralized approach, on the other hand, means transferring data from billions of devices through a centralized administrator. This approach requires huge investments in the infrastructure and therefore it is not a practical approach.

4. You’ve already hired Y number of  people approximately. What would be your pitch to folks out there to join your Organization? Why does your organization matter in the world

They will be joining an amazing team - the AnyLog team includes some of the world's best database and blockchain researchers and industry experts.  AnyLog will change the way IoT data is managed.

5. What are some of the best takeaways that the attendees can have from your talk?

For years companies managed data in centralized databases. The Bitcoin and Ethereum platform demonstrated self managed platforms that provide resiliency and high availability without a centralized authority. Companies like AnyLog are extending the usage of this technology from the back-end of financial applications to be the back-end of other types of applications, such as for the management of IoT data.

6. What are the top 5 Blockchain Use cases in enterprises?

a) Data management
b) Data security
c) Financial services - Santander, RBC, JP Morgan, Citibank, BNY Mellon, American Express, Visa, MasterCard, and Goldman Sachs among others are all conducting multiple blockchain-related efforts
d) The retail industry is focused on supply chain use cases. Famously, Walmart is trialing the use of blockchain to track the movement and origins of food. Alibaba announced in late 2017 that it has been developing an in-house private blockchain network to track product authenticity in the supply chain and reduce counterfeiting.
e) Aviation - Airbus conducted a PoC with Blockchain at Berkeley for jet plane parts tracking. Lufthansa is testing a blockchain-based travel app and Air France is considering distributed ledger technology for its supply chain and to track workflows within aircraft maintenance systems.

7. Which company do you think is winning the global Blockchain race?
I don't think there are winners, yet. I do think there are interesting projects such as DAGlabs and Dfinity.

8. Any closing remarks
In the enterprise world, we see rapid acceleration of blockchain-related investment and activity. However, very few companies have developed technologies ready for large-scale production.
I expect to see further investment in blockchain R&D, strategic investment, and acquisitions as the technology and its use cases become more mainstream and understood by management teams.
Finally, as the experts leading the field address critical technical and implementation challenges, we will start to see production-level enterprise applications. I believe that AnyLog would be one of these applications.