About author ABOUT AUTHOR Brian Heinen Founder, Food System Transformation Researcher and Blockchain Innovation Business Developer @brianheinen Drawing from 20 years of collaborating with a global community of multinational stake holders, influencers, suppliers, contacts, and other professional resources to orchestrate collaborative and turn-key solutions in Innovation Development and Transformational Business Creation. Since 2013, when he started as the Executive Producer of the Bitcoin Foundation 2014 Initiative, Brian has researched and advocated for blockchain solutions. This continued in his role as co-owner of the 350,000 Procurement Professionals Group, when he started to research the value of blockchain’s immutability and inclusive governance narrative in transforming the food value chain. Now days, Brian sits in-between academic, start-ups, SMEs and large multinationals to help wrap their minds around the measurable added value of using blockchain to transform the ecosystem business model and reduce food waste and loss. In 2019, Brian received a grant from the European Institute of Technology (EIT Food) to study a M.Sc. in Food System Transformation and Management (University of Reading + AU of Madrid) and is now writing a graduate portfolio on the role of conformity framework to give structure to harmonized data ontology and ecosystem interoperability standards for blockchain integration in the food value chain. He has helped launched and developed blockchain projects that have raised over 35 million USD in funding and produced business development projects with budgets upwards of a million-dollars. He was a strategic consultant at Allfoodexperts - the Farm-to-fork Open Innovation Community Platform. Brian has debated his blockchain and agriculture research at the European Parliament alongside Members of Parliament, the European Commission, EIT Digital, and various IEEE industry leaders, and presented his research at numerous other industry events. You can read more in his latest Inside Food & Drink article and Parliamentary Magazine articles. Brian owns the Blockchain in Europe group, Blockchain ambassador for Funding Box Community, and a founding member of the IEEE 2418.3 ‘Standards for the framework of DLT use in Agriculture’ Working Group - bringing conformity to how we connect our ecosystems.
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