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Trent McConaghy is an entrepreneur with 20 years of deep technology experience with a focus on machine learning, data visualization and user experience. He is the Founder of Ocean Protocol.
Trent has a Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, and Bachelor’s degrees in Engineering and in Computer science from the University of Saskatchewan where he won awards for the top Doctor of Philosophy thesis and top undergraduate thesis.
He started his career by doing AI research for national defense in the 1990s, while still an undergraduate.
Then, in his first startup (ADA), he explored the relation between human creativity and AI-based machine creativity. Synopsys acquired ADA in 2004.
He extended that work during his PhD from 2004-2008, and found a way to reconcile machine creativity with existing engineering knowledge.
In his second startup (Solido), he leveraged AI to help drive Moore's Law, which was under threat due to high manufacturing variations. Now, Solido software is used for most modern chip designs. Siemens acquired Solido in 2017.
His third and current startup is all about democratizing data for the planet. He hatched the ascribe NFT platform in 2013, and the BigchainDB blockchain database in 2015. His focus is on Ocean Protocol, since 2017.
- Being a papa to three wonderful children and husband.
- Token Engineering (TE). Building TokenSPICE simulator, Writing, helping grow TE community, using TE in Ocean. Coined the term.
- Member of MetaCartel Ventures, a DAO of founders, builders, engineers, community builders, and more. Advisor to a handful of AI & blockchain projects.
- Co-organize Berlin ML meetup with 10K+ members.
- PhD in EE from KU Leuven, Belgium. Awarded #1 thesis worldwide in the field.
- BE EE and BsC CS from U Saskatchewan, Canada. Awarded #1 final year thesis.
- Did ML research for Canadian Department of National Defense, in the second half of the 90s.
- Wrote 2 Books on AI/ML, circuits and creativity. Also 35 Papers and 20 Patents on AI/ML.
- Informally advised Germany, Netherlands, Estonia, and other governments about blockchain & AI strategies. Including public discussions.
- Ambassador to AI XPRIZE. Member of Advisory Board of Lifeboat Foundation
- Keynotes & invited talks. Examples: TedX, DLD, Consensus, Convoco Forum, Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Berkeley, Santa Fe Institute, Jet Propulsion Lab, Sony, Nvidia, Samsung, IFA+ Summit, PyData Berlin, Data Natives, more.
- Co-organized workshops on AI/ML and circuits. TPC / reviewer for many conferences & journals. Lecturer at Data Science Retreat.
- Organized meetup "Singularity Meets Self Improvement".
- Member of Advisory Group for the e-Residency team of the Government of Estonia.
- More past projects: painting, BCI hacking, hypnosis, video game programming, surfing.
- Raised in a pig farm in Canada, hacking away on cold winter nights. Wrote a 3D CAD tool, a wordprocessor, and dozens of games.
Trent McConaghy made 3 investments.
Dec 23, 2021 Synesis One — Initial Coin Offering - $9.5M
Nov 4, 2021 Odyssey — Seed Round - €4M
Oct 1, 2020 Boson Protocol — Pre Seed Round - £218K
