Academic Centers

On Thursday August 16th, the Potomac Institute hosted Mr. Kevin Zawicki of Guardtime Federal, who discussed alternative blockchain technologies for government applications. The promise of an immutable public trust anchor is a driving force behind the excitement to apply Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) blockchains to many business processes. Unfortunately, some key features of DLTs make them unattractive to, and potentially unusable for, certain customers. Fortunately, there are other "blockchain" technologies available that can be used to provide a desired immutable public trust anchor without some of the challenges associated with DLTs. Mr.Zawickidiscussed use cases showing how the Guardtime Federal Keyless Signature Infrastructure (KSI) alternative blockchain effectively leverages a public trust anchor in a federated execution business process to allow distributed verification, assuring end-to-end integrity of the data, the business process, and even the product. You can view Mr. Zawicki’s presentation here.

Prior to joining Guardtime Federal in 2015, Mr.Zawickispent 20 years in various capacities working in acquisition for the DoD. He started as a program analyst at the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, then moved to the Air Force's B-2 program. He began taking on System Administration duties for local networks and eventually transitioned to full-time IT support for the Directorate of Special Programs, Air Force Acquisition. For the last 12 years of his tenure, he served as the IT Lead for the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office.

 Mr.Zawickihas a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Delaware and a Master of Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.