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About Me

Location
Ontario, Canada
Languages
English

Ben is a tech builder with expertise in entrepreneurship and public policy, a PhD in Societal Computing from Carnegie Mellon University’s #1-ranked School of Computer Science, and credentials as a Project Management Professional, Certified Ethereum Professional, and practitioner on multiple major cloud computing platforms.

Ben regularly wins revenues and recognition for excellence in rapid full-stack implementation of innovative ideas that put user experience first, and has won several contests related to key skills in tech entrepreneurship, including investor pitching and deal evaluation. He is also skilled in presentations and communication of technical information to expert and nonexpert audiences.

Ben has commits in several widely-used open-source software repositories and was part of the committee behind the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance’s first industry standard for cybersecurity audits of Solidity smart contracts.

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 5.00 rating from 4 reviews
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Experience

Recent Work

  • Built demo crowdsourcing site in nonprofit medical/pharmaceutical space 0-1 w/Next.JS, React, Material UI, Tailwind CSS; deployed w/Google Cloud.
  • Initial investor outreach for a startup tokenizing real estate on blockchain.
  • Fractional CTO at a technology company reducing the risk of truck accidents.
  • Led blockchain consulting practice, including full-stack application development, at a tech consulting firm >6 years, with an international professional technical society / consortium builder / standards development organization / digital library host as a primary client, plus intrapreneurship work.
  • Coauthoring legal briefs with attorneys (in a volunteer capacity), with significant wins.

Rapid full-stack developer prototyping innovative entrepreneurial ideas, incl. cross-domain innovation, sample points:

  • Prizewinning projects at ETHGlobal hackathons incl. HackFS, Online (2x), Bogotá, & Waterloo.
  • Won both of Coinbase’s 2023 open challenges on HeroX, & several on same platform before.
  • Winning Solver on other challenge platforms like InnoCentive, & MIT Climate CoLab.
  • Won design contest for energy-efficient landmark SW PA holiday structure.
  • Won a citywide Civic Hackathon and formed a nonprofit with teammates.
  • Led team to 2nd place win in Bosch/Bezirk Internet of Things hackathon.
  • Won “Data Science, Journalism, & the Future of Justice” HUBweek hackathon.
  • Led team to national finals of Johnson & Johnson “Innovate 4 Healthcare” competition.

Open Source:

Pseudonymous commits in several widely-used open-source repositories. Core steward of open-source libraries with millions of weekly downloads.

Qualifications

Education & Professional Development

  • PhD, Societal Computing, Carnegie Mellon University, #1-ranked School of Computer Science (GPA: 3.98)
  • MS, Computation, Organizations, & Society, Carnegie Mellon University
  • BS, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Lafayette College, Summa Cum Laude (GPA: 3.94)
  • BA, Community Development, Lafayette College

Professional Certifications

  • AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, Amazon Web Services
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals
  • Project Management Professional (PMP), Project Management Institute (PMI)
  • Certified Ethereum Professional (CEP), C4 (cryptoconsortium.org)
  • Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Advanced Innovation Group Pro Excellence (AIGPE)
  • Information Technology Professional (ITP), Information & Communications Tech Council (ICTC)

Technical Skills

  • TypeScript & JavaScript w/Node + Next.js + React, Solidity (incl. work on first cybersecurity audit standard), Python, Go, Java, PHP, MySQL, NoSQL, Graph Databases, Ruby on Rails, CSS, HTML, Bash, XSLT, VBA, Basic, SPSS, SAS, MATLAB, Gremlin, Python, R, C++, Verilog, etc.; fast learner.

Professional Societies & Affiliations

  • ACM SIGCHI (Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction), Collective Intelligence
  • Greenpill Coordi-Nation (regenerative digital infrastructure network)
  • IEEE SSIT (Society on Social Implications of Technology) & Eta Kappa Nu (honor society), SIGHT, Blockchain Community, Systems Council, Big Data Community, & others
  • Elections Verification Network (EVN): National network of experts on elections technology
  • Sigma Xi; Tau Beta Pi (Engineering Honor Society), past chapter president and alumni chapter cofounder
  • Standards Development: SAE International, Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, MOBI, IEEE (AI ethics), UL, government-led groups
  • NESA life member, Eagle Scout with Gold Palm, U.S. National Eagle Scout of the Year 2nd place by American Legion
  • Mensa & Triple Nine Society
  • Various sustainability and outdoors-focused organizations

Knowledge Areas Knowledge Areas are the business domains and areas, or specialties, with which consultants, partners, and experts are most familiar.

Industries These are the industries and sectors in which consultants, partners, and experts have demonstrated knowledge and experience.

Recent Work

  • Built demo crowdsourcing site in nonprofit medical/pharmaceutical space 0-1 w/Next.JS, React, Material UI, Tailwind CSS; deployed w/Google Cloud.
  • Initial investor outreach for a startup tokenizing real estate on blockchain.
  • Fractional CTO at a technology company reducing the risk of truck accidents.
  • Led blockchain consulting practice, including full-stack application development, at a tech consulting firm >6 years, with an international professional technical society / consortium builder / standards development organization / digital library host as a primary client, plus intrapreneurship work.
  • Coauthoring legal briefs with attorneys (in a volunteer capacity), with significant wins.

Rapid full-stack developer prototyping innovative entrepreneurial ideas, incl. cross-domain innovation, sample points:

  • Prizewinning projects at ETHGlobal hackathons incl. HackFS, Online (2x), Bogotá, & Waterloo.
  • Won both of Coinbase’s 2023 open challenges on HeroX, & several on same platform before.
  • Winning Solver on other challenge platforms like InnoCentive, & MIT Climate CoLab.
  • Won design contest for energy-efficient landmark SW PA holiday structure.
  • Won a citywide Civic Hackathon and formed a nonprofit with teammates.
  • Led team to 2nd place win in Bosch/Bezirk Internet of Things hackathon.
  • Won “Data Science, Journalism, & the Future of Justice” HUBweek hackathon.
  • Led team to national finals of Johnson & Johnson “Innovate 4 Healthcare” competition.

Open Source:

Pseudonymous commits in several widely-used open-source repositories. Core steward of open-source libraries with millions of weekly downloads.

Education & Professional Development

  • PhD, Societal Computing, Carnegie Mellon University, #1-ranked School of Computer Science (GPA: 3.98)
  • MS, Computation, Organizations, & Society, Carnegie Mellon University
  • BS, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Lafayette College, Summa Cum Laude (GPA: 3.94)
  • BA, Community Development, Lafayette College

Professional Certifications

  • AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, Amazon Web Services
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals
  • Project Management Professional (PMP), Project Management Institute (PMI)
  • Certified Ethereum Professional (CEP), C4 (cryptoconsortium.org)
  • Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Advanced Innovation Group Pro Excellence (AIGPE)
  • Information Technology Professional (ITP), Information & Communications Tech Council (ICTC)

Technical Skills

  • TypeScript & JavaScript w/Node + Next.js + React, Solidity (incl. work on first cybersecurity audit standard), Python, Go, Java, PHP, MySQL, NoSQL, Graph Databases, Ruby on Rails, CSS, HTML, Bash, XSLT, VBA, Basic, SPSS, SAS, MATLAB, Gremlin, Python, R, C++, Verilog, etc.; fast learner.

Professional Societies & Affiliations

  • ACM SIGCHI (Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction), Collective Intelligence
  • Greenpill Coordi-Nation (regenerative digital infrastructure network)
  • IEEE SSIT (Society on Social Implications of Technology) & Eta Kappa Nu (honor society), SIGHT, Blockchain Community, Systems Council, Big Data Community, & others
  • Elections Verification Network (EVN): National network of experts on elections technology
  • Sigma Xi; Tau Beta Pi (Engineering Honor Society), past chapter president and alumni chapter cofounder
  • Standards Development: SAE International, Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, MOBI, IEEE (AI ethics), UL, government-led groups
  • NESA life member, Eagle Scout with Gold Palm, U.S. National Eagle Scout of the Year 2nd place by American Legion
  • Mensa & Triple Nine Society
  • Various sustainability and outdoors-focused organizations

Ben's Store

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Reviews

  • Trevor J
    5 out of 5

    –

    Ben was tasked with designing a database, using blockchain technology to work to record suppliers’ qualifications to manufacture engine and airframe components to industry standards. This allowed secure access to show: - Who was qualified. - When they were first qualified. - Renewal dated. - Expired qualifications. - Issue of a formal qualification certificate.Ben's Skills: - Understanding complex requirements capture. - Data manipulation. - Blockchain design. - Project management. - On time delivery. - Good communicator, verbal and written.

  • Geraint W
    5 out of 5

    –

    Ben designed, integrated and continued to refine the blockchain upon which the ASPQP TS200 database is reliant. The TS200 database is the globally visible deliverable of the ASPQP Program and is used by aerospace stockists/distributors worldwide. Ben is a very relatable person with high EQ underpinned by a deep knowledge and understanding of the products that he works with.

  • Mike M
    5 out of 5

    –

    Ben proved himself to be very creative and responsive through brainstorming, prototyping, implementation, customer assessment, and maintenance of the work he provided.

  • Laurie S
    5 out of 5

    –

    Ben is more than just a talented programmer with deep skills and a good understanding of blockchain distributed database technology. He is also a strategic thinker and business partner. He is willing to put in extra effort to really understand the data and business case, and then design the best solution (which may or may not be blockchain). He understands the challenges of converting, cleansing, and tagging raw data to make it suitable and reliable for databases and search engines to work properly.

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