April 19, 2018
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Title: On Engineering Economic Systems
Abstract: Core concepts of Blockchain and Smart Contract Technologies will be reviewed and characterized as an infrastructure layer over which formally engineered economic systems are possible. While this technology space is young and still maturing, the tools that exist today have already been used to implement economic networks with high degrees of observability. Agents within these networks have implemented localized controllers which take state dependent actions within these networks. The emerging field blending economics, mechanism design, optimization, signal processing and control engineering shares a great deal with the network science area of research. The goal of this talk is to connect key concepts in these mature fields with interesting practical problems in the emerging space. The talk will conclude with a discussion of opportunities and perils facing the nascent field.
Bio: Michael Zargham completed his PhD in Electrical and Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 2014, with a focus on optimization networked and socio-technical systems, advised by Ali Jadbabaie. He is the Founder and CEO at BlockScience, a research and analytics firm focused on design, simulation, data collection and analysis of engineered economic networks built on blockchain infrastructure.