Vinay Gupta is an engineer, strategist, digital visionary, and future-builder. London-based and Scottish-born, Gupta has worked to address a wide range of some of the most complex challenges and opportunities facing the 21st century. Currently the CEO of Mattereum, a platform that harnesses blockchain to automate and streamline the systems of global commercial law, Gupta has played a massively influential role in the development of the blockchain industry. Notably, in 2015, he coordinated the launch of the neutral, open-access internet and native currency system Ethereum. He has also served as strategic architect at the leading crypto venture ConsenSys, designed Dubai’s blockchain strategy, and serves as the Blockchain Fellow at the UK government’s Digital Catapult. Gupta also applies systems-thinking to issues surrounding environmental sustainability and resilience. A previous member of the Rocky Mountain Institute, one of the world’s top energy policy think tanks, Gupta advocated for solving oil supply issues through new technologies. In 2002, Gupta designed the hexayurt, a public domain disaster relief shelter easily constructed using four-by-eight sheets, the common industrial size of plywood. Intended for use by climate refugees, the hexayurt is also omnipresent in Black Rock Desert every year, iconic in the Burning Man counterculture.

Co-presented by the New Media Caucus: Border Control Symposium with support from the Dissonance Event Series.