EthCC Voices: Barnabé Monnot, Research Scientist at the Ethereum Foundation
Barnabe tells us how EthCC not only introduced him to his business partner but motivated them to kickstart a new project together.
Welcome to EthCC Voices, the Medium Series from the speakers of EthCC[3]. Taking place on 3–5 March 2020, the conference organised by Ethereum France is regarded as Europe’s leading Ethereum conference for the community by the community!
Today I’m in conversation with Barnabé Monnot Research Scientist at the Ethereum Foundation to talk about the research work he does that involves participating in community events around the world, and the type of applications to turn to when old solutions have fallen short.
Let’s get started, how did your background lead you to the Ethereum Foundation and what is your role at present?:
“My name is Barnabé Monnot, I recently joined the Ethereum Foundation as part of a new research team, the Robust Incentives Group, where we look at problems having to do with mechanism design for protocol security and decentralised applications. I joined my current role after spending a year and a half participating in community events such as Devcon, EthSingapore and EthParis, and starting hackingresear.ch. Last summer, I completed a PhD in Engineering Systems and Design in Singapore, where I still live.”
Why did you want to be a part of EthCC 3 & what do you plan to do at the conference?
“I attended last year (thanks to a student scholarship!) and was impressed by the number and quality of the talks and the “community” feel of the conference. I plan to give a talk myself this year, to raise awareness on our new research initiative. I am 100% looking forward to meeting all my friends who live all around the world. And finally Paris is my hometown so I am always looking for an excuse to come back! Really hitting a lot of targets with this one.”
How has EthCC impacted your community so far?
“I’ll interpret “my community” as “the people close to me” for this one. And impacted it has! EthCC is where I met Sacha Saint Leger in person for the first time, with whom I had been collaborating with over Twitter for a few months to create hackingresear.ch. The atmosphere of EthCC (and the EthParis hackathon, which we both attended) really motivated us to work more on this project, and kickstarted both our future projects in this space.”
Are there any tracks on the agenda that particularly interest you or add certain value to the conversation?
“I am obviously interested in eth2 and cryptoeconomics, but I will definitely keep a lookout for the Blockchain for Good track. Earlier this year I participated with a few other EF people in SG in a Climate Collabathon where we built an incentivised data reporting system with a few crypto primitives that we’ve all come to know and love (zero-knowledge proofs, staking on stuff). As all this tech gets more and more usable right out of the box and I really get the sense that these “for good” applications (like climate, emerging economies or public goods provisions) is where we can make a difference rapidly. It’s clear that the old solutions have fallen short so everyone is looking for good ideas wherever they can — hopefully we can bring it on!”
Do you want to learn more about Ethereum?
“I always do!”
This series was created by YAP Global for EthCC[3]. YAP Global is an international PR firm with a focus on helping fintech, blockchain & cryptocurrency startups tell their stories.
