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VIA CEO Colin Gounden Gives Keynote Speech at Siemens, Intelligent Energi Event

Earlier this month, VIA CEO Colin Gounden gave the keynote speech during an event hosted at Siemens’ Denmark offices. The Danish Intelligent Energy Alliance, Intelligent Energi, organized the event for its members. Intelligent Energi’s goal was to encourage dialogue between network companies, suppliers, and academics about opportunities and challenges to adapt to variable and renewable generation in the electricity distribution network.

Colin shared VIA’s AI and blockchain expertise, with a particular focus on its AI results to improve operations and maintenance and its Trusted Analytics Chain (TAC) application. One major topic of discussion at the event was related to the massive transformation that electrification is having (e.g., changing consumption due to electric vehicles and electric heat pumps). In particular, participants agreed that to ensure the reliability of the grid under new stresses like electrification and renewables, improved sharing of digital information and AI are necessities.

Joe Babiec Presents at Swiss-US Energy Innovation Days (SUEID)

In August, VIA’s VP, Strategic Initiatives Joe Babiec was invited to introduce VIA’s Trusted Analytics Chain application (TAC) and its innovative use of blockchain technology to more than 100 energy industry leaders during an address at the Swiss-US Energy Innovation Days (SUEID) conference in Geneva, Switzerland.

SUEID, hosted by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy and swissnex Boston, is an annual, invitation-only event that unites industry and thought leaders across Switzerland and the US. This event convenes a dynamic community of corporate, government, and academic leaders eager to exchange ideas, explore potential collaborations, and showcase promising energy-related innovations. One major theme voiced by conference participants was the need to increase information sharing within the energy industry while also respecting privacy concerns like GDPR. Joe’s address highlighted TAC’s ability to facilitate advanced analysis while ensuring compliance with customer-imposed or government-mandated security and privacy requirements.

Joe was also invited to meet with some of Switzerland’s largest power companies as well as leading academics in the country’s blockchain community, all of whom were interested in learning more about TAC and exploring potential future collaborations with VIA.

To learn more about the event, visit SUEID’s website.

Colin Gounden and Joe Babiec Present at Energy Impact Partners Roundtable in NYC

In late July, VIA CEO Colin Gounden and VP, Strategic Initiatives Joe Babiec gave a presentation on VIA’s Trusted Analytics Chain (TAC) application at the Energy Impact Partners (EIP) Roundtable in New York City.

The event’s attendees, which included a mix of EIP’s utility partners, asked thoughtful questions about TAC implementation, as well as the application’s software and security details. One question that stood out to Colin and Joe was more related to specific use cases for TAC:

“Given TAC is able to share data privately and anonymously across companies,
could TAC then also be used for benchmarking the performance of assets, like power plants and wind turbines, in addition to advanced AI applications?”

The short answer is yes. In fact, we are currently developing a specific application on top of TAC to do just that. Companies today already spend a lot of money on third-party consultants to aggregate their data and generate anonymized comparisons of operating performance and physical asset performance. TAC offers a near real-time, cost effective way of sharing those same metrics.

To learn more about how VIA is helping the energy industry solve its biggest challenges, watch this interview Colin did during Iberdrola’s Innoday in May.

Colin Gounden Shares Expertise on Panel at Elemental Excelerator’s Interactive Event

VIA’s CEO Colin Gounden was handpicked to speak on a panel, moderated by California Energy Commissioner, Carla Peterman, at Elemental Excelerator’s (EEx) Interactive Event held in San Francisco last week. The panel, titled “Energy’s Digital Grid”, touched on the ways data is changing electrical grid operations in terms of predictability and visibility.

Over 200 people were in attendance, including some of the world’s largest utilities, as Colin talked about the ways VIA is applying artificial intelligence and blockchain technology to reduce risks associated with the aging electrical infrastructure. EEx captured a memorable quote from Colin, which was shared to Twitter:

For more information on VIA’s involvement in the EEx program, visit their website.

Iberdrola Innoday Recap: “We rely on power for everything”

In late May, VIA was invited to Iberdrola’s Innoday at its international campus in Madrid, Spain. The invite-only event was attended by over 600 people, with 25 companies showcasing the latest technology innovations to hit the energy industry. There were a number of technologies like drones for wind turbine inspection and AI solutions for the electrical grid being exhibited at the event.

CEO Colin Gounden attended Innoday and was the only participant to both be invited to speak on stage and give an exclusive video interview with Iberdrola. In the interview, Colin talked about the current state of the energy industry, how it will change over time, and the critical role VIA will play in the future of the energy. Check out the full video interview below, featured on Iberdrola’s website:

 

Colin Gounden Presents at FERC Technical Conference

Colin Gounden, CEO of VIA, gave a presentation last week at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) conference, “Increasing Market and Planning Efficiency and Enhancing Resilience through Improved Software.” This is the second time Colin has been selected to present at this invitation-only conference.

During his presentation, titled “AI for forecasting and resiliency in energy” Colin discussed the issues that limit AI learning to improve grid resiliency. These include too little data / signal, too much data, physically distributed data, and information privacy. His presentation focused on how VIA’s application, Trusted Analytics Chain (TAC), addresses these four common AI training data issues.

The three-day conference culminated with a final session with multiple speakers focused on the importance of data access and data sharing. There was widespread consensus from participants that improved access to energy data and modeling frameworks would allow faster and better analytical solutions. In particular, widening the scope for expert collaboration would have a dramatic impact on the quality of technical solutions that could improve grid resiliency and day ahead forecasting.

View the presentation slides:

For a copy of Colin’s presentation, please visit the FERC event page.

Colin Gounden Speaks at the 9th Asian Leadership Conference in Seoul, Korea

Colin Gounden was invited to speak at the 9th Asian Leadership Conference (ALC) in Seoul, Korea earlier this week. During the session titled “Blockchain in our Lives” Colin discussed VIA’s blockchain application, Trusted Analytics Chain (TAC) and the benefits its smart contract functionality in particular, can have for the energy industry. The session also featured five other executives involved in the blockchain space, including Mike Kayamori, CEO of Quoine, Asia’s largest ever ICO.

ALC is an annual international conference hosted by The Chosunilbo, one of the largest newspapers in Korea. The theme of this year’s conference was “Globalization in Crisis: Navigating the World with New Opportunities” which featured speakers from all over the world, including former Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney and Gerhard Schröder, former Chancellor of Germany, among others.

 

Colin Gounden speaking at ALC 2018.

Colin Gounden Speaks at EUCI Blockchain Technology for the Energy Sector Event in Houston

Colin Gounden was a featured speaker at EUCI’s latest event “Blockchain Technology for the Energy Sector” on May 9th in Houston, TX. The event focused on the fundamentals of blockchain technology and the opportunities it presents to the energy industry.

Colin’s session, titled “Realizing the Value of Utility Data Through Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence,” highlighted the ways blockchain, and more specifically VIA’s Trusted Analytics Chain (TAC), can provide utilities with more rigorous AI solutions (like predictive maintenance and contingency planning) and streamline compliance filings with regulatory agencies. For more information about Colin’s presentation or VIA’s blockchain solution, email us at info@solvewithvia.com.

Pepper Hamilton Features Colin Gounden at Energy Blockchain Event

VIA CEO Colin Gounden was a featured speaker alongside Scott Clavenna, Chairman of Greentech Media, at Pepper Hamilton’s Energy Blockchain event last week. Hosted at the firm’s Boston office, the event focused on current applications of blockchain in the energy industry as well as opportunities and obstacles facing further development of the technology. Colin’s presentation addressed how VIA is supporting utilities in their efforts to adopt these solutions.

VIA is developing a blockchain application, Trusted Analytics Chain (TAC), currently in beta testing. TAC will allow businesses to pool their data in order to improve analytical outcomes without having to physically transfer or aggregate the data. By moving the algorithm instead of the data, TAC ensures all client data remains on premise. Additionally, the application uses homomorphic encryption and differential privacy to keep client data secure and anonymous, which solves some of the key concerns utilities have about implementing AI solutions. To learn more about this and other solutions VIA provides, please visit our website.

Blockchain energy VIA

Scott Clavenna (left) and Colin Gounden both presented and led Q&A sessions about the growing opportunities for blockchain in energy.

blockchain energy VIA

Gounden spoke to VIA’s work supporting utilities’ adoption of AI initiatives.