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<h1>About the Authors</h1>
<p><strong>Andreas M. Antonopoulos</strong> is a noted technologist and serial entrepreneur who has become one of the most well-known and well-respected figures in bitcoin. As an engaging public speaker, teacher, and writer, Andreas makes complex subjects accessible and easy to understand. As an advisor, he helps startups recognize, evaluate, and navigate security and business risks.</p>

<p>Andreas grew up with the internet, starting his first company, an early BBS and proto-ISP, as a teenager in his home in Greece. He earned degrees in computer science, data communications, and distributed systems from University College London (UCL)&#x2014;recently ranked among the world&#x2019;s top 10 universities. After moving to the United States, Andreas cofounded and managed a successful technology research company, and in that role advised dozens of Fortune 500 company executives on networking, security, data centers, and cloud computing. More than 200 of his articles on security, cloud computing, and data centers have been published in print and syndicated worldwide. He holds two patents in networking and security.</p>

<p>In 1990, Andreas started teaching various IT topics in private, professional, and academic environments. He honed his speaking skills in front of audiences ranging in size from five executives in a boardroom to thousands of people in large conferences. With more than 400 speaking engagements under his belt he is considered a world-class and charismatic public speaker and teacher. In 2014, he was appointed as a teaching fellow with the University of Nicosia, the first university in the world to offer a masters degree in digital currency. In this role, he helped develop the curriculum and cotaught the Introduction to Digital Currencies course, offered as a massive open online course (MOOC) through the university.</p>

<p>As a bitcoin entrepreneur, Andreas has founded a number of bitcoin businesses and launched several community open source projects. He serves as an advisor to several bitcoin and cryptocurrency companies. He is a widely published author of articles and blog posts on bitcoin, a permanent host on the popular Let&#x2019;s Talk Bitcoin podcast, and a frequent speaker at technology and security conferences worldwide.</p>


<p><strong>Gavin Wood: </strong>
When Gavin first read about Bitcoin in 2011, he was largely uninterested, focusing too much on the currency aspect rather than the technology. However, when he revisited it in early 2013, he began to realise new possibilities opening up between the fields of ITC and game theory, and the inevitable social change to which this would lead. A mutual friend made the introduction to Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum Founder) in late 2014 and Ethereum has dominated Gavin Wood's life since.Gavin coded the first functional implementation of Ethereum, devised the Solidity contract language and wrote the Yellow Paper, the first formal specification of any blockchain protocol and one of the key ways Ethereum distinguishes itself from other blockchain-based systems. Prior to Ethereum, Gavin earned a masters degree and doctorate in computer science. He consulted for Microsoft Research on technical aspects of embedded domain­-specific languages, and was involved in several startups in the areas of realtime semantic extraction and presentation for music, visual meta­-programming systems and automated legal text analysis.
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