Michele Marchesi

Prof. Michele Marchesi will introduce the workshop with a keynote lecture on:

"Why Blockchain is important for software developers, and why Software 
Engineering is important for Blockchain software"

The past few years, cryptocurrencies and blockchain applications has 
been one of the most rapidly emerging fields, leading to a strong 
demand of software development.
Several new projects have been emerging almost daily, with an impetus 
that was not seen since the days of the dawn of the Internet. However, 
the need of being timely on the market and the lack of experience in a 
brand new field led to epic disasters, such as those of DAO in 2016, 
and the many hacks successfully performed on cryptocurrency exchanges, 
the biggest being those of MtGox in 2014, and Bitfinex in 2016.
The application of sound SE practice to Blockchain software development 
might be crucial to the success of this new field. At the same time, 
Blockchain development raises unique new issues, that should be 
addressed by Software Engineering.