Hedera Hashgraph, a next-generation public ledger designed to have highly diversified governance and the most distributed consensus at scale, today announced it has named Brett McDowell as the Founding Executive Director and Vice Chair of the Hedera Hashgraph Governing Council. Last week Hashgraph announced its first members of the Hedera Hashgraph Governing Council at Hedera’s first Annual Assembly and the initial Governing Council meeting held last week in Seoul, South Korea.
“As we have laid out from the beginning, we believe that a strong governing council is crucial for the long-term stability and decentralization of a public ledger,” stated Hedera CEO Mance Harmon. “In conjunction with bringing the initial group of Governing Council members on board, we are pleased to also take the next step in its development with the appointment of Brett to the roles of Executive Director and Vice Chair. His experience in running some of the largest, most distributed coalitions in the technology industry will be invaluable as we grow this council to maturity.”
McDowell brings over 20 years of IT industry coalition experience to the new role, including founding executive roles at the Kantara Initiative, IDESG, DMARC.org, and FIDO Alliance, where he still serves. In addition, McDowell has also served on the board or advisory boards of MAAWG, NCSA, StopBadWare and PCI SSC.
“Throughout my career, I have looked to join innovative organizations that are making a fundamental difference in the ways people use and benefit from internet technology,” noted Brett McDowell, Executive Director of the Hedera Hashgraph Governing Council. “Hedera has not only disruptive technology that sets the bar for DLT performance and security, but also a best-of-breed governance model that will ensure the network is protected from abuse and fragmentation – making it suitable for mass adoption. I am delighted to be joining Hedera at this time to advise and help further develop this global governing council.”
McDowell was previously head of ecosystem security at PayPal, where he developed strategies and launched initiatives to improve internet security. He is a fellow at the National Center for Digital Government at UMASS and serves on the Boston Federal Reserve Bank’s Mobile Payments Industry Workgroup.
During last week’s Governing Council meeting, the following Council committees were proposed and are now in the process of being formally chartered for approval at the next Council meeting:
- Finance Committee. The Finance Committee will maintain oversight responsibility with respect to financial affairs of the Council and review the financial objectives, financial policies, capital structure, and financing requirements of the Council.
- Technical Steering & Product Committee. The Technical Steering & Product Committee will focus on improving the Hedera network’s underlying technology.
- Membership Committee. The Membership Committee will recommend objective qualifications and criteria for identifying organizations qualified to serve as members of the Council.
- Legal & Regulatory Committee. The Legal & Regulatory Committee will advise Hedera on a variety of global legal, regulatory, and compliance matters.
- Marketing Committee. The Marketing Committee will advise the Council on marketing, public relations, and other outreach matters.
- Hedera network roadmap
During its inaugural meeting, the Governing Council said that it had also discussed the ongoing development of the Hedera network and approved plans and the timeline for expanding user access to the network.
After launching the Hedera network in August 2018, Hedera opened the network for initial users to participate in a community testing program. During the initial phase of the testing program, 5,000 users reportedly created accounts and tested the platform’s cryptocurrency services, and hundreds of developers began to test and build applications on testnets. Hedera will next launch phase two of the community testing program, opening the network to significantly more developers and users to create accounts and test the Hedera smart contract and file service components of the Hedera platform.
After testing programs are complete, Hedera said that it expects to open access to the beta version of the network so that anyone can sign up for a Hedera account, use the network, and develop applications on the platform. The Council authorized Hedera to provide this “open access” to the network once certain technical and regulatory milestones are met, which is expected to occur in the summer of 2019.
Crowdfund Insider reached out to the platform for more details about its expansion:
“The first couple of months of 2019 have been promising for Hedera Hashgraph, with new appointments to the Executive Team and the initial five members of the Hedera Governing Council. These have been important steps for us and we look forward to harnessing the expertise of the new members,” responded Harmon via email. “The coming months will see the further testing of our network; in addition to our cryptocurrency service we will also be testing smart contracts and our file service. As we move towards open access of the network later this year it is important that we test all the services relentlessly. I have no doubt that 2019 will continue to bring exciting times for the Hedera team and network.”