Nicola Dimitri holds a BA Statistics, Msc Statistics, Ph. D. Economics. He is also Life Member of Clare Hall College Cambridge (UK) and currently Research Associate at the Center for Blockchain Technologies, University College London (UK). He was formerly Italian Delegate for the 7th EU Framework Program (Cooperation-SSH), Deputy Rector and Department Head of the Economics Department at the University of Siena and Corvers Chair of Innovation Procurement at the Maastricht School of Management (NL). His academic interests and professional experience are in blockchain and cryptocurrencies, procurement, auctions and market design, game and decision theory, contracts, the economics of innovation, He published several papers in international journals and contributed, as editor and author, to various books.
Summer School 2021 Blockchain Center University of Zurich
Related Projects
Economics of Algorand
Asst. Prof. Dr. Pınar Çağlayan Aksoy
Associate Member
Pınar Çağlayan Aksoy is an assistant professor of civil law at Bilkent University, Ankara(Turkey). She is a member of Blockchain Turkey Platform and Istanbul Blockchain Women Community. As a member of the European Law Institute, she acts as a member of the Consultative Committee for the project titled “Blockchain Technology and Smart Contracts”. Her research deals with contract law, tort law as well as the legal implications of the newly emerging technologies, especially distributed ledger technology and smart contracts.
May 6, 2021: Crypto Asset Markets in the EU from a Consumer Protection Perspective, 2nd Conference on EU Law and Legal Issues in Turkey-EU Relations.
May 5, 2021: Blockchain and the Law on Protection of Personal Data, Turkish Personal Data Protection Authority Wednesday Seminars.
May 2, 2021: Smart Contracts from a Private Law Perspective, Suleyman Demirel University Academic Coordination Community, Blockchain Applications and Smart Contracts in the Digital Age Certificate Program.
May 1, 2021:The Theory of “Code is Law” and Smart Contracts, MEF ILSA, Law in the Changing World.
April 28, 2021: Smart Contracts and Impossibility of Performance, Kadir Has University Wednesday Seminar Series.
April 6, 2021: Blockchain and Smart Contracts in Light of the Developments on Digital Technology, Kadir Has University LitLab.
March 19, 2021: Blockchain and Smart Contracts, Turkish Digital Transformation Office.
March 10, 2020: Blockchain, Smart Contracts and Consumer Protection, Blockchain And Smart Contracts From A Private Law Perspective.
December 5, 2019: Blockchain and Law, Bilkent University- TUSIAD (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) Information Society Forum “Blockchain in Business Life 2019”.
Related Teaching
June 24-26, 2020: Blockchain and Smart Contracts, Summer School of Science Academy of Turkey.
Related Projects
International Academy of Comparative Law, Rapporteur for Turkey on the issue of “Smart Contracts” (Asuncion General Congress, 23-28 October 2022).
European Law Institute, Blockchain Technology and Smart Contracts, Member of Consultative Committee.
Connections with Industry
Istanbul Blockchain Women Community- Member
Blockchain Turkey Platform- Member
Dr. Carlo Campajola
Member
Dr Carlo Campajola holds a PhD cum laude in quantitative finance from the Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa, Italy), which he earned working on models of discrete autoregressive processes intersecting methods from statistical physics and financial econometrics. He previously graduated from the International Master in Physics of Complex Systems organised by the Polytechnic of Torino, the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste and the Campus Paris Saclay in Paris.
His current research activity, together with Prof. Dr Claudio J. Tessone, focuses on the analysis of cryptocurrencies from a complex systems perspective, with particular attention to the characterisation of individual properties of economic agents which affect the collective functioning of the system. Specific topics include analysis of transaction networks, modelling of the velocity of tokens and statistical methods for the detection of price manipulations.
Authors:
Alexandre Bovet, Carlo Campajola, Jorge F. Lazo, Francesco Mottes, Iacopo Pozzana, Valerio Restocchi, Pietro Saggese, Nicoló Vallarano, Tiziano Squartini, Claudio J. Tessone
2021 UZH – UTokyo – Tokyo NII zoomshop “MicroVelocity – rethinking the velocity of money for digital currency systems”
2020 Complexity Meets Finance Workshop – NetSci2020 (Sept 2020) “Money walks – rethinking the velocity of money for cryptocurrency systems”
Prof. Dr. Stefan Zeisberger
Member
Stefan Zeisberger is UZH Associate Professor for Fintech – Experimental Finance and also Professor of Financial Economics at Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. He is further member of the UZH Swiss FinTech Innovation Lab. Stefan graduated summa cum laude from the University of Münster, Germany, and afterwards held positions at different universities world-wide. His research focuses on behavioral finance, investor psychology, cryptocurrency trading and how technology affects investment decisions. His research has been published in various leading academic journals.
Joachim Rosenthal is Professor of Applied Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Zürich. From 2011-2013 he served as Chair of the Mathematics Department and from 2016-2020 he has been Vice Dean of the College of Science at the University of Zurich. From 1990 until 2006 he has been with the Department of Mathematics at the University of Notre Dame, USA, where he has been last “The Notre Dame Chair in Applied Mathematics” and Concurrent Professor of Electrical Engineering. Joachim Rosenthal is a Fellow of IEEE and a Honorary Professor of Universidad del Norte, Colombia.
Bruno Rodrigues, Muriel Franco, Eder John Scheid, Burkhard Stiller, Salil Kanhere: A Technology-driven Overview on Blockchain-based Academic Certificate Handling; in: Ramesh Sharma, Hakan Yildirim, Gulsun Meric (Edt.), “Blockchain Technology Applications in Education”, IGI Global, Pensylvania, U.S.A, January 2020, ISBN 978-1-522-59478-9.
Charles Miers, Guilherme Koslovski, Maurício Pillon, Marcos Simplício, Tereza Carvalho, Bruno Rodrigues, João Battisti: Análise de Mecanismos para Consenso Distribuído Aplicados a Blockchain; in: SBC (Edt.), “SBSeg 2019 Minicursos”, SBC, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, September 2019, pp 1–49.
Related Project
Burkhard Stiller, Sina Rafati, Sarah Grossenbacher: Application of Blockchain Technology in the Swiss Food Value Chain (Foodchains Project Report); Zürich, Switzerland, June 2019.
Prof. Dr. Gianluca Miscione
Member
Gianluca Miscione is tenured faculty member at the School of Business of University College Dublin. He conducted and contributed to research in Europe, Latin America, India, East Africa, and on the Internet. His research focus remained on the interplay between technologies and organizing processes with a specific interest on innovation, development, organizational change, social networks, and trust. His approach is informed by qualitative and mixed methodologies. Since 2014 a research line of his has been on Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain.
Wingreen S., Ennis P., Kavanagh D., Miscione G., “Sources of cryptocurrency value systems: The case of Bitcoin” (forthcoming) International Journal of Electronic Commerce (IJEC) (ABS:3, VHB:B, Impact Factor 2018: 3.439, ‘1st-ranked Electronic Commerce journal’)
Ziolkowski R., Miscione G., Schwabe G., (2020) “Decision Problems in Blockchain Systems: old wine in new bottles of walking in someone else shoes?” Journal of Management Information Systems (JMIS) Volume 37 Issue 2 (ABS:4*, OBRSS:2, VHB:A, FT50)
Zavolokina L., Miscione G., Schwabe G. (2019) “Buyers of Lemons: Addressing the Needs in Market for Lemons with Blockchain Technology” Electronic Markets journal (Impact Factor: 3.553, ABS:2, VHB:B)
Kavanagh D., Miscione G., (2019) “Carnival in the global village: Re-imagining information infrastructures” The Information Society (ABS:3, OBRSS:2)
Kavanagh D., Miscione G., Ennis P., (2018) “The Bitcoin Game: Ethno-Resonance as Method” Organization (ABS:3, OBRSS:2, VHB:B)
Miscione G., Richter C., Ziolkowski R. (2020) “Authenticating deeds / organizing society: Considerations for Blockchain-based Land Registries” in DeVries W. T. et al. “Responsible and Smart Land Management Interventions: An African Context” CRC Press (Taylor & Francis) (OBRSS:2, SENSE:B)
Conference Proceedings:
Ziolkowski R., Miscione G. Schwabe G., “Exploring Decentralized Autonomous Organizations: Towards Shared Interests and ‘Code is Constitution’” conditionally accepted at the International Conference for Information Systems 2020 (OBRSS:2, VHB:A)
Miscione G., et al. “Hanseatic Governance: Understanding Blockchain as Organizational Technology” International Conference for Information Systems (ICIS) 2019, Munich, Germany (OBRSS:2, VHB:A)
Miscione G., Kavanagh D., “A claim upon what? Cryptocurrencies as scenes”, Theme 55: Open Organizing for an Open Society? Connecting Research on Organizational Openness at the 35thEuropean Group on Organization Studies (EGOS) Colloquium on “Enlightening the Future: The Challenge for Organizations” University of Edinburgh Business School, July 4–6, 2019, Edinburgh, UK (OBRSS:1)
Miscione G., “Tribal governance, the necessity of strategizing-as-practice”, European Group on Organization Studies (EGOS), July 3 – 6 2018, Tallinn, Estonia (OBRSS:1)
Miscione G., Zavolokina L., Ziolkowski R., Schwabe G. “Tribal Governance: The Business of Blockchain Authentication” Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) 2018, Hawaii, USA (OBRSS:1, VHB:C)
Kavanagh D. and Miscione G., “Infrastructures and their invisible carnivalesque”, 33rdEuropean Group on Organization Studies (EGOS) Colloquium 2017, Sub-theme: Thinking Infrastructures, Copenhagen, Denmark (OBRSS:1)
Miscione G., “Currencies as infrastructures” The Baseline podcast with Dan Frost
Miscione G., (2019) “Der Blockchain-Hype – braucht es ‘Ockhams Rasiermesser’?” [in German] for the Digital Society Initiative Insights series on Inside IT (https://www.inside-it.ch/articles/53576)
Related Presentation
University of Zürich, Institute for Informatics Colloquium on “Blockchain as organizational technology”, Zürich, Switzerland
Session on “Land and freedom? Perspectives on land registries and blockchain” at the UZH Blockchain Center PhD meet-up, Zürich, Switzerland
Seminar on “From authentication to ‘Hanseatic governance’: Blockchain as organizational technology” Department of Management, London School of Economics, London, UK
Session on “Blockchain Governance” and round table on “Blockchain infrastructures and their invisible carnivalesque” at the European Research Center for Information Systems (ERCIS) workshop held at the University of Münster, Institut für Angewandte Informatik, Germany
Visitor of the Goteborg Research Institute (GRI), the interdisciplinary research institute of the School of Business, Economics and Law of the University of Goteborg, Sweden. Three seminars delivered:
“Everything you always wished to know about Bitcoin but never dared to ask” open to all Goteborg University faculties.
“Understanding transformations as they happen: Blockchain and cryptocurrency as ‘scenes’” as part of the GRI research programme ‘Managing Transformations’
“Practices of digital visibility: Wikileaks and Snowden as global whistleblowing cases” at the Management and Organization department, School of Business, Economics and Law
Digital monies, autopoietic or autotelic?” at the Business School of the University of Zürich, Switzerland
“Sealing without sealers” at the Information Management group of the University of Zürich, Switzerland
“Chasing ghosts: Methodological challenges in tracking globally distributed organisational forms—the case of cryptocurrencies” with Paul J. Ennis and Donncha Kavanagh at the Joint Speculative Workshop on “Connections in Action: Keeping Track of Large Social Phenomena using Relational and ‘Micro-sociological’ approaches” organized by the University of Zürich and the University of Warwick, Warwick, UK
“Smartcontracts and smartcities, displacing power through authentication?” at the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis (NIRSA) Maynooth University, Ireland
“Prospectivas y consecuencias de la progresiva desvinculación de estados y monedas” [“Prospects and consequences of decoupling states and currencies”] Erasmus Week at the University of Valencia, Spain
“Coding Value – The Emergence of a new Architecture” at the Swiss FinTech Innovation Lab, Information Management Research Group – University of Zürich, Switzerland
“Blockchain Authentication – From Iron Cage to Silicon Enclosure?” Human Centred Computing, Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
“BitCoin between Scylla and Charybdis: not just business, not just informatics” research seminar at the Complex and Adaptive Systems Laboratory (CASL), UCD, Dublin, Ireland
“Designing the Impossible” at Money Talks seminar, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
“Pulling the rug from under the Leviathan’s feet” at “Consumer data, value creation and new currencies” workshop, Consumer Society Research Centre, University of Helsinki, Finland
Related Project
UCD Business School research project on
“Coding Value in the Digital Society”
Advisor of
the “Blockchain Car Dossier” research project
(co-financed by the Swiss Federal Commission for Technology and Innovation –
CTI)
“Blockchain consortia” with Deloitte
Dr. Zhao Yang
Member
Zhao Yang is a Postdoc at the Chair for Marketing and Market Research at the University of Zurich, where he also serves as project leader of the University Research Priority Program on Social Networks.
During his PhD studies, Zhao was working on unethical customer behavior. He has been doing research related to selfish mining behavior on blockchain-based ecosystems since 2019.
General Electric (GE), International – Blockchain for businesses (presentation)
2020:
5th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Finance and Industry, Zurich, Switzerland – Blockchain in research and industry
2019:
Panelist and blockchain expert, participant from the Swiss delegation at the Bengaluru Tech Summit, Bengaluru, India
Davos Digital Forum, Switzerland – Business models with blockchain technology
Colloquium at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland – Design for trust in blockchain platforms
The 65th CC Corporate Data Quality Workshop in Zurich, Switzerland – cardossier. Managing the life cycle of a car with blockchain technology
International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology, Worcester, MA, USA – Why Should I Trust a Blockchain Platform? Designing for Trust in the Digital Car Dossier
52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2019), Maui, USA – Buyers of Lemons: Addressing Buyers’ Needs in the Market for Lemons with Blockchain Technology
2018:
International Conference for Information Systems (ICIS 2018), San Francisco, USA – Incentivizing Data Quality in Blockchains for Inter-Organizational Networks – Learning from the Digital Car Dossier
MISQE Workshop, International Conference for Information Systems (ICIS 2018), San Francisco, USA – Building Together: Lessons Learned from a Blockchain Consortium in the Car Ecosystem
Digital Innovation Course, University of Zurich, Switzerland – cardossier. Managing the life cycle of a car with blockchain technology (invited lecture)
ITSL, Switzerland – cardossier. Managing the life cycle of a car with blockchain technology
UZH Blockchain Centre, PhD Meetup, Switzerland – cardossier. Managing the life cycle of a car with blockchain technology
ETH/UZH Blockchain Meetup, Switzerland – cardossier. Blockchain-based ecosystem for vehicles
ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland – cardossier. Das blockchain-basierte Ökosystem für Fahrzeuge (invited lecture)
51st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2018), Big Island, USA – Blockchain Technologies from the Consumers’ Perspective: What Is There and Why Should Who Care?
51st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2018), Big Island, USA – Tribal Governance: The Business of Blockchain Authentication
2017:
Blockchain Workshop, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, ForDigital, Karlsruhe, Germany (poster session)
Related Teaching
Invited lecture “Blockchain platforms for business”, Grenoble Ecole de Management (MBA)
Invited lecture “Blockchain Applications for Business” (MSc), joint course by University of Bamberg, Friedrich–Alexander University Erlangen– Nürnberg and Virtuelle Hochschule Bayern
Lecture about consortium blockchains and their business value, UZH Blockchain Summer School (2020)
Information Management Seminar: Blockchain Technology (2018)
Dr. Bruno Rodrigues received his doctorate degree from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, in 2020, and his master’s degree in 2016 from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. He focuses his research on network security focused on aspects of building a collaborative network defense against cyber threats such as Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks. He co-authored 3 patents and published over 30 research papers and journals in related IEEE networking conferences (e.g., IEEE/IFIP NOMS, IEEE/IFIP IM, IEEE LCN) and leading IEEE journals (IEEE TSNM, IEEE Communications Magazine).
Bruno Rodrigues, Eder Scheid, Burkhard Stiller. Blockchains in the Age of Softwarization – Hands-on Experiences with Programming Smart Contracts and Their Security Pitfalls. IFIP/IEEE Network Operations and Management Symposium. 20-24 April. 2020. Budapest, Hungary.
Related Teaching
Course of Advanced Studies (CAS) and Communication Systems Lab, providing hands-on experience with Blockchain and Smart Contracts.
Related Projects
CONCORDIA (Cyber Security Competence for Research and Innovation)
Dr. Thomas Puschmann
Member
Thomas Puschmann is Founder and Director of the Swiss Fintech Innovation Lab.
He started research in this topic already back in 2008 where the digital banking, fintech and blockchain field was in its infancy. His interests are fintech, sustainable digital finance, digital banking, insurtech, cryptocurrencies, blockchain and smart contracts. In addition, Thomas is member of the Swiss Innovation Council Innosuisse, member of the Blockchain Taskforce of the Swiss Federal Council, Founder and President of the Association Swiss Digital Trade Platform, Founder and Executive Director of Swiss Fintech Innovations, and Chairman of the Swiss Association for Standardization for Distributed Ledger Technologies as part of ISO.
Prior to his work in research, Thomas spent five years in consulting where his last position was a member of the executive board at ESPRiT Consulting (today Q_Perior) and The Information Management Group.
Corinne Zellweger-Gutknecht is a professor of private law, corporate and commercial law at the University of Basel and a professor of private law, financial market and monetary law at the Kalaidos University of Applied Sciences. Besides, she teaches monetary law at the University of Zurich Faculty of Law. Corinne researches in the fields of monetary, currency and central banking law, and interdisciplinary issues between private and financial market law. She is particularly interested in the influence of digitization on public as well as private money, payment systems and the financial market, and the registration of crypto currencies in private, insolvency and currency law. Corinne serves an adviser to authorities such as the Confederation, BIS, SNB and FINMA. Her ongoing research concerns predominantly the area of monetary law, cybercurrencies and digital legal tender. Among others she is leading a study on the admissibility of euro banknotes under the ECB Legal Research Programme 2020.
THE ECB AND € E‐BANKNOTES – Could the ECB issue an electronic equivalent of paper‐based euro banknotes? Under which conditions might such ʹelectronic banknotesʹ have legal tender status? Study prepared under the 2020 ECB Legal Research Programme 2020 (Topic 2); see SSRN
Related Presentation
November 13, 2018; Vermögensrecht im Wandel: Berechtigung, Transfer und Verkehrsschutz im Zeitalter von Bitcoin und Blockchain, Schweizer Verband der Richter in Handelssachen (SVRH), Zurich
October 26, 2018; Virtuelle Währungen und andere Wertdaten – Versuch einer vermögensrechtlichen Einordnung, Wissenschaftliche Arbeitsgruppe Blockchain, Zurich
June 15, 2018; Vermögenswerte und Zahlungsvorgänge auf der Blockchain, St.Galler Bankrechtstag, Zurich
July 7, 2017; The issue of digital currencies by state central banks (and what private law might learn from it), St Hilda’s College, Oxford
May 26, 2017; Legal tender and central-bank issued currency, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), London
March 13, 2017; Digital Currencies: Questions, Analysis of Legal Issues and Initial Answers, Symposium esisuisse/EFDI/UZH-UFSP Finreg, Zurich
November 3, 2017, Central Bank Digital Currencies – An Outline of Legal Issues, Swiss Monetary Law Forum, Zürichs
Related Teaching
Spring term 2020: Monetary law (6 ECTS; module offered in the Master’s degree programs at the Faculty of Law), including the regulatory regime in private and public law for cryptocurrency; the legal structure of stable coins
Spring term 2019: Monetary law (6 ECTS; module offered in the Master’s degree programs at the Faculty of Law), including the regulatory regime in private and public law for cryptocurrency; the legal structure of stable coins
Spring term 2018: Monetary law (6 ECTS; module offered in the Master’s degree programs at the Faculty of Law), including blockchain-based initial coin offerings
January 22, 2019; Cryptocurrencies, UZH-UNSW Sydney Winter/Summer School on Law and Technology, University of Zurich, Zurich
Related Project
Scholarship under the ECB Legal Research Programme 2020 (topic 2; e-banknotes)
Adviser to the Working Group on Digital Innovations of the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) regarding legal issues relating to digital currencies
Adviser to the Swiss Government’s blockchain/ICO working group (Federal Office of Justice) regarding the legal framework for blockchain and distributed ledger technology (a consultation proposal is to be published by the end of March 2019)
Adviser to the Swiss National Bank (SNB)
Adviser to the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) regarding sovereign money (Vollgeld); Central Bank Digital Currency and reserves for all; hybrid forms such as reserve backed deposits with commercial banks and FinTech companies
Prof. Dr. Alexander F. Wagner
Member
Alexander Wagner is a Swiss Finance Institute Professor of Finance at the University of Zurich. He obtained his PhD in Political Economy from Harvard University and studied economics and law in his hometown Linz, Austria. His research focuses on corporate governance and behavioral finance. He is an independent counsel for PwC and chairman of the Swipra foundation. His talk on “What really motivates people to be honest in business” was featured on TED.com.
Wagner, Alexander; Weber, Rolf (2017). Corporate Governance auf der Blockchain. Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Finanzmarktrecht, 1:59-70.
Related Projects
Barth, Andreas; Laturnus, Valerie; Mansouri, Sasan; Wagner, Alexander (2020). ICO Analysts, Working Paper
Prof. Dr. Florent Thouvenin
Member
Florent Thouvenin is associate professor of information and communication law at the University of Zurich. He is chair of the executive board of the Center for Information Technology, Society, and Law (ITSL), director of the Digital Society Initiative (DSI) of the University of Zurich and an associate fellow at the Collegium Helveticum. His research deals with legal issues of information technology, currently with a strong focus on privacy and copyright law. He is interested in various legal issues triggered by Blockchain applications.
Blockchain und Datenschutz, Une approche kaléidoscopique des smart contracts en droit suisse, Neuchâtel, 13. September 2018
Paolo Tasca
Associate Member
Paolo Tasca is a Digital Economist specialising in P2P financial systems. He has advised on blockchain technologies different international organisations including the EU Parliament and the United Nations. Paolo is a serial entrepreneur in the blockchain space and is also the founder and Executive Director of the Centre for Blockchain Technologies at University College London (UCL CBT). Recently, he has also been appointed Adjunct Fellow of Griffith University Law Futures Centre in Brisbane and Honorary Research Professor of Sogang Univ. Blockchain Research Center in Seoul. Previously, he was Lead Economist on digital currencies and P2P financial systems at the German Central Bank, Deutsche Bundesbank in Frankfurt.
Sven Seuken is a tenured Associate Professor at the Department of Informatics of the University of Zurich and head of the Computation and Economics Research Group. During the Fall of 2018, he is also a Visiting Associate Professor at Stanford University. His research lies at the intersection of Computer Science and Game Theory, with a focus on (electronic) market design.
He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Harvard University under the guidance of David C. Parkes. Since joining the University of Zurich in 2011 he has received several awards and research grants, including a Google Faculty Research Award and an ERC Starting Grant. In 2017, he was ranked as one of the “Top 40 under 40” in the category “society and science” by the German business magazine Capital.
He is also interested in practical applications of market design: he is the Chief Economist at BandwidthX, Inc. (USA), and he is a senior market design advisor for Tremor Technologies, Inc. (USA) and Covee Network (Switzerland).
Since 1 April 2017 Uwe Serdült holds a dual position as a full professor in the “e-Society Lab”, College of Information Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University, Japan, and principle investigator at the Center for Democracy Studies Aarau (ZDA) at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, for digital democracy projects.
In this dual position, he teaches and does interdisciplinary research in several domains of e-society. Within the field of digital democracy, he is especially interested in internet based platforms and tools for citizens (e-participation) as well as public administrations (e-government) in order to enhance transparency and deliberation in an information society.
Currently he is about to start a project investigating the potential of blockchain technology to reform the governance of political campaign financing.
Serdült, Uwe (2019) Reconnecting Citizens to Politics via Blockchain – Starting the Debate, EGOV-CeDEM-ePart 2019, IFIP WG8.5, 2-4 September 2019, University of Camerino, San Benedetto Del Tronto, Italy, 185-190.
Gfeller, Katja; Braun Binder, Nadja; Serdült, Uwe (2019) Demokratie im digitalen Zeitalter: Das Beispiel von Initiative und Referendum in der Schweiz, in: Kübler, Daniel; Glaser, Andreas und Waldis, Monika (Hrsg.) Brennpunkt Demokratie: 10 Jahre Zentrum für Demokratie Aarau. Baden, hier+jetzt, 47-63.
Germann, Micha and Serdült, Uwe (2017) Internet Voting and Turnout: Evidence from Switzerland, Electoral Studies 47, 1-12. doi: 10.1016/j.electstud.2017.03.001
Serdült, Uwe (2010) Referendum Campaign Regulations in Switzerland, in: Gilland Lutz, Karin and Hug, Simon (Eds.) Financing Referendum Campaigns. New York, Palgrave/MacMillan, 165-179.
Related Project
Governance and Public Acceptance of Blockchain Technology Enabled Campaign Financing Vouchers.
Connections with industry
Procivis Thinktank, advisor
PIT Solutions, advisory board member
Prof. Dr. Christian Schwarzenegger
Member
Following his studies at the University of Zurich, Prof. Dr. Christian Schwarzenegger worked as an assistant at the University’s Institute of Criminology. He earned his doctoral degree in 1992 and, a year later, was admitted to the bar in the canton of Schaffhausen. From 1994 to 1999 Prof. Schwarzenegger was assistant professor for European law, comparative law, criminal law, and criminology at the universities of Niigata and Aichi in Japan. He then returned to UZH to take on the position of assistant professor with tenure-track. After completing his habilitation in 2008, Christian Schwarzenegger was appointed associate professor; in 2010 he was named full professor for criminal law, criminal procedure law, and criminology at UZH. He was dean of the Faculty of Law from 2012 to 2014.
Prof. Schwarzenegger’s research focuses on victim surveys, family violence, and public perception of crime control as well as computer crime and cybercrime. He also conducts research projects on community crime prevention with the city of Zurich’s police department.
Karl Schmedders has been a Professor of Quantitative Business Administration in the Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology at the University in Zurich since 2008. In addition, he is a Visiting Professor of Executive Education at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University in Evanston, U.S.A. Karl received a Ph.D. in operations research from Stanford University in 1996. After a two-year post-doc at the Hoover Institution, a think tank on the Stanford campus, he became an assistant professor of managerial economics and decision sciences at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He was promoted to associate professor in 2001 and received tenure at Kellogg in 2005. He continued to work at Kellogg until his departure to Zurich.
His research focuses on computational economics and finance. He applies numerical solution techniques to complex economic and financial models shedding light on relevant practical problems. He has published numerous research articles in international academic journals such as Econometrica, The Review of Economic Studies, The Journal of Finance, and The Review of Financial Studies, among others. Karl was the area editor of the field «Computational Economics» at the INFORMS journal «Operations Research» from 2015-2017. He served as a co-editor of the Econometric Society Journal “Quantitative Economics” from 2013-2017. Karl has received numerous teaching awards at Stanford, Kellogg, and WHU, including the 1996 Walter J. Gores Award, Stanford University‘s most prestigious teaching award, and the 2002 L.G. Lavengood Professor of the Year Award at Kellogg. While ruefully non-athletic himself, Karl is a passionate football (soccer) fan and a member of the club FC Bayern München as well as the German National Team Fan Club.
Prof. Dr. Peter Georg Picht,LL.M. (Yale) studied law at Munich University and Yale Law School, did his PhD (summa cum laude) at Munich University/the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, and holds a masters degree from Yale Law School.
He has been working, i.a., with the EU Commission’s DG for Competition, as a Senior Research Fellow with the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, as well as with the law firms Allen&Overy and Linklaters.
Prof. Picht is in the early phases of a project on blockchain-based IP transactions
Prof. Dr. David Oesch
Member
David Oesch is a Full Professor of Financial Accounting at the University of Zurich. His research interests focus on empirical financial accounting and corporate governance. He is interested in Blockchain applications to financial and managerial accounting.
Lorenz M. Hilty is Professor at the Department of Informatics at UZH and the Sustainability Delegate of UZH. He is interested in blockchain applications in the context of sustainable development.
Alfred Früh is a Professor of Private Law with focus on Life Sciences-Law and Intellectual Property Law at the University of Basel. Until 2020, he was the Managing Director of the Center of Information Technology, Society, and Law (ITSL) at the University of Zurich. Prior to that, he was a Guest Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich and worked as an attorney with a major Swiss law firm.
Since late 2019, he is a member of the OECD’s Blockchain Expert Policy Advisory Board (BEPAB). His research concerns the law of the Digital Society and particularly focuses on data governance, new technologies and legal norms that govern (i.e. promote, allow or limit) transparency in the digital age.
Legal Tech: Was bringt die Blockchain-Revolution?, seminar for master students, Faculty of Law, University of Zurich
Module «Legal Tech» in the LL.M. Program International Business Law, University of Zurich
Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Data Science, University of St. Gallen (together with T. Busch und K. Stanoevska-Slabeva)
CAS Big Data and AI for Managers, Module «Data as Strategic Asset», University of St. Gallen
Related Project
OECD BEPAB Membership – Draft of OECD Blockchain Principles and Guidelines
Prof. Dr. Erich Walter Farkas
Member
Walter Farkas is a Professor of Quantitative Finance at the Department of Banking and Finance at the University of Zurich and an associate faculty member of the Department of Mathematics of ETH Zurich. Since 2013 he is a faculty member of the Swiss Finance institute (SFI) – a network of all Finance and Finance related professors from Universities from Switzerland.
Helmut M. Dietl is Professor of Services & Operations Management at the Department of Business at the University of Zurich. His research areas include, among others, the Management of Service Platforms. In particular, he is interested in the disintermediation of proprietory service platforms with the help of blockchain technology and smart contracts.
Wozu noch Geldpolitik? Hier sind die Bitcoins, Beitrag zur Cash-Kolumne vom 17.12.2012
Bitcoin, Blockchain und Smart Contracts, Beitrag zur Cash-Kolumne vom 18.06.2017
Raiffeisen für die Zukunft: Traditionelles Geschäftsmodell für Geschäftsfelder der Zukunft. In: Theurl, T.: Raiffeisen 2018: Ökonomische Innovation – Gesellschaftliche Orientierung. Wiesbaden: DG Verlag, 117-144.
Organisation – Theorie und Praxis aus ökonomischer Sicht, 8. Auflage, Schäffer-Poeschel Verlag Stuttgart 2020
Related Teaching
Helmut Dietl offered a Master Seminar on Business plans for Blockchains in the fall terms 2017, 2019 and 2020
Blockchains are part of his curriculum in Services & Operations Management.
Connections with industry
Swiss Economics
Prof. Dr. Marco Dell’Erba
Member
Marco Dell’Erba is an assistant professor of financial market law and corporate law at the University of Zurich, where he is also a member of the Blockchain Center and the Digital Society Initiative. He is a fellow at the Institute for Corporate Governance & Finance at the New York University School of Law and a member of the advisory board of the Research Network for Sustainable Finance, a research initiative involving leading academic institutions.
I am
Professor of Public Law at the University of Basel. My research interests
include digital democracy, e-voting (in political referendums and elections),
fully automated administrative procedures as well as fully automated taxation
procedures.
Before coming to Basel I was Assistant Professor of Public Law at the
University of Zurich. Prior to that I was Coordinator of the program
“Transformation of the state in times of digitization” at the German Research
Institute on Public Administration (Speyer). I completed my habilitation thesis
in 2017 at the German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer (Venia:
Public Law, European Law, Finance and Tax Law, Administrative Science).
Dr. Thomas Bocek is a lecturer for distributed systems and ledgers at the OST Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences. He is a blockchain researcher and CTO of Axelra AG, a tech venture building company focusing on digitalization and blockchains. Thomas is interested in building minimum viable products, blockchain, peer-to-peer networks, and communication systems.
669 – Overlay Networks, Decentralized Systems and Their Applications
Prof. Dr. Abraham Bernstein, Ph.D.
Member
I am a Full Professor at the Department of Informatics (Institut für Informatik) of the University of Zurich. I mainly conduct research on the Semantic Web and Knowledge Discovery. My work draws from both social science (organizational psychology/sociology) and technical (computer science, artificial intelligence) foundations.
Before coming to Zurich I was an Assistant Professor, at the Information Systems Department in New York University’s Stern School of Business, and received a Ph.D. at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, where I worked with Prof. Thomas W. Malone at the Center for Coordination Science.
