Richard Pibernik received his doctorate degree from Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. From 2004 to 2007 he was a research affiliate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Professor within the MIT-Zaragoza International Logistics Programme at the Zaragoza Logistics Centre in Spain. From 2007 to 2012 he was a Professor of Supply Chain Management at the EBS Business School in Wiesbaden, and from 2010-2012 Otto Mønsted Visiting Professor at Copenhagen Business School. As of 2012 Richard is a chaired Professor of Logistics and Quantitative Methods in Business Administration at the University of Würzburg. At the same time he is an Adjunct Professor at the Zaragoza Logistics Centre, Spain, and a Visiting Professor at the Malaysia Institute of Supply Chain Innovation. Both Zaragoza Logistics Center and the Malaysia Institute of Supply Chain Innovation are nodes of MIT's Global SCALE Network, an international alliance of leading-edge research and education centers dedicated to the development and dissemination of global innovation in supply chain and logistics.

Richard’s research is focused on quantitative methods for supply chain and logistics management. In particular, he works on data-driven approaches to supply chain management that integrate machine learning and traditional optimization models in supply chain management, supply chain information systems, and integrated planning approaches. He currently heads a research group consisting of eight researchers that is dedicated to data-driven approaches in supply chain and operations management, and also works actively in research project addressing healthcare supply chains for developing countries.

Richard has published his research in numerous renowned international journals such as Management Science, Production and Operations Management, Naval Research Logistics, and has been responsible, as a principal investigator, for many projects that were funded by industry and public funding agencies. He received grants from public funding agencies (EU, German Research Foundation, and the Governments of Germany and Spain), and carried out projects with large corporations (e.g. Lufthansa, Alcatel-Lucent, SAP), consulting firms (e.g. McKinsey), and many SME’s in Germany, Spain, and other countries. He is currently working with many companies in projects focused on data-driven supply chain management, supply chain analytics, and exploitation of big data in supply chain management.

Born and raised in Sungai Besi, Kuala Lumpur, Blocklime CEO
Harpreet Maan is armed with natural inquisitiveness, becoming a software development graduate and a blockchain developer by the age of 22.

Harpreet envisions a future where blockchain not only solves real
life issues but truly established the trust between the technology
and people. With this vision, he founded Blocklime, a Malaysian
company cater to distributed ledger technology (DLT) and
blockchain development. He has also started on thought leadership
focusing on DLT and blockchain technology and its potential
applications in fintech, insurtech, and regtech.

On his blockchain journey, he realizes that the blockchain ecosystem has a lack of blockchain talent especially in SEA region as well as many are still unaware of the blockchain technology. With that, he strongly believes that it is crucial to build talents and increase Blockchain awareness by building blockchain communities and organising blockchain training by Blocklime.

He envisions that the potential and impact of DLT technologies will
be great for the betterment of society and acts as an enabler to
pave access to the adoption of both blockchain and DLT
technologies.

Along his journey in Blockchain he gained a position in the ISO
Committee as a National committee member on ISO standards for
" Blockchain & Electronic Distributed Ledger Technologies". He is an
Ambassador for Hedera Hashgraph and Hyperledger. He is also a
member of MDEC Digital Expert Panel to assist on Blockchain adoption in education & industry.