October 2018–Consensus AI Community Update

Developer News

The Consensus team is reaching crucial milestones in our development roadmap. We are in the process of rigorously testing different aspects of the network, these include:

• Research on the Proof-of-Compute (PoC) consensus algorithm is ongoing, we are preparing the materials for release. We are experimenting with and testing the feasibility of the proposed verifiable computation approach
• Further R&D of the data storage layer, primarily concerned with data privacy in the distributed setting
• Initial ML training smart contract implementation and integration on the testnet
• R&D concerning encoding for TensorFlow/Keras models

Mining Software Update

Today we launched updated command line tools for mining SEN on Linux and MacOS (Windows build coming out shortly) — Sentient Miner v.0.1.0. The new update is written in GoLang (instead of C) and now includes:

• Stratum protocol support (pool mining)
• In preparation for the upcoming launch of a Sentient Mining Pool
• Faster hashrates
• Early tests show a 60% increase in reported hashrate on AMD Radeon hardware
• Multi-GPU and CPU support
• Only one instance needed to run on multiple devices

In the coming weeks, we’ll be launching a mining pool server for SEN as well as updating the wallet GUI to incorporate the new miner software. This GUI update will include the ability to mine with CPUs as well as GPU hardware, performance visualizations, and connect to the pool server.

To find out more about Sentient Miner v.0.1.0, please read the article here.

Consensus Names New Chief Technology Officer

Consensus is excited to announce that Jonathan D’Orleans has joined the team as CTO. Jonathan will work at the intersection of all technical and development work happening at Consensus — from blockchain and protocol development, to web and mobile applications, and integrating research from the R&D team being led by our CEO, Oleg.

Jonathan has led innovation teams for the past 12 years. He has worked across multiple industries and business domains developing secure, scalable solutions using cutting-edge technologies such as AI, NLP, and graphs, in combination with microservice reactive systems, to solve the hardest problems.

One of the projects Jonathan worked on that made him an especially great fit for Consensus was the work he did with the city of Fortaleza, Brazil, to strategically fight and reduce crime. He built a simulator using historical data to predict future criminal activity thus allowing the city to make decisions on where to deploy police officers at any given time.

Jonathan aims to continue innovating by leading and exploring modern technologies to ultimately build a better society. His vision and passion matched that of Consensus and we are happy to have him join our team.

According to Jonathan, one of the most attractive aspects of Consensus is the potential to reimagine governance structures.

“Since the creation of the Internet, no one was truly capable of transforming our economy and shaping our society in a planetary scale to reach a more fair and sustainable world. This is largely due to the fact that large institutions centralize power, thus controlling most aspects of our lives,” says Jonathan.

Jonathan believes the solution lies within the words of Fuller:

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

― Buckminster Fuller

Canadian FinTech & AI Awards Nomination

Consensus is happy to announce our nomination for AI Company of the Year at the 4th Annual Canadian FinTech & AI Awards being held in Toronto at the end of November.

This award is for an AI company that has shown the most entrepreneurial success in the past year. Success is measured by innovation and application of AI in the international marketplace. While Consensus is just at the beginning of our journey, we are very pleased that the community around us shares our vision and recognizes our success thus far.

Consensus Attended Open Data Summit 2018 in Niagara

Oleg Gutsol, CEO, and Dustin Plett, CSO, attended the Canadian Open Data Summit 2018 on November 8th and 9th in Niagara Falls.

CODS18 is an annual conference held in Canada to bolster the Open Data movement. The event welcomes public-sector data and policy professionals from First Nations, municipalities, regions, provinces, states, as well as national and international governments.

The summit is an opportunity for policy advisors, the private sector, and think tanks to discuss topics ranging from civic technology and smart cities, ethics of collection & use of data, uses of open data, and the area of most interest to Consensus, participatory open government.