Dr. Gavin Wood with his innovations of decentralized technology like Ethereum and Polkadot, has reformed the cryptocurrency world. This innovation has helped developers create their own applications on its secure and reliable platform. His technology has quickly gained traction around the global community and has opened the door to possibilities for other industries to reap its benefits in the future.
Early Life
He was born in small town of Lancaster, England. The shocking facts about Wood is that he grew up in a household afraid of “electricity-based accidents” and in spite of this he develop a deep fascination about technology.
He attended Lancaster Royal Grammar School. In 2002, he earned his Master of Engineering (MEng) in Computer Systems and Software Engineering from the University of York. In 2005, he completed his doctoral dissertation entitled, “Content-based visualization to facilitate common navigation of musical audio”.
Before entering the cryptocurrency industry, he worked at different software companies such as InTechnology Plc, Frontier Developments as the Engine Sub Lead Programmer, Microsoft Research Cambridge as a Research & Software consultant, Lancaster Logic Response as a Technical Director and OxLegal as Director of Technology.
Working At The Ethereum Foundation
Back in 2009, when bitcoin was launched, Dr. Gavin Wood was immersed in computer visualization and had no interest in the growing hype surrounding cryptocurrencies. It was during a tech conference in 2013, that he was introduced to Vitalik Buterin, and upon the request of Buterin, he read the incomplete Ethereum whitepaper, and within a few weeks, he decided to join the team of the Ethereum Foundation.
He was one of the founding members of the Ethereum blockchain along with other great innovators such as Vitalik Buterin, Anthony Di Iorio, Joseph Lubin and Charles Hoskinson. He described this blockchain as “one computer running the entire planet”. He was the brain and force behind the development of Solidity a programming language that enables smart contracts to be written.
He also published a well-written paper that defined the Ethereum Virtual Machine a program that runs Ethereum smart contracts in 2014. He also served as the First Chief Technology Officer of the Ethereum Foundation. However, he left the foundation in 2016.
The Parity Technologies
Wood founded Parity Technologies formerly known as Ethcore in collaboration with Jutta Steiner who previously worked as the director of The Ethereum Foundation. The company creates software using blockchain technology and develops clients for the Ethereum network.
In early 2016, they launched software called Parity Ethereum written in the Rust programming language. In 2018, he held the position of Chief Web Officer of the company.
The Web3 Foundation
With the aim of developing a decentralized internet infrastructure and technology he established the Web3 foundation. The first project Polkadot which was based on a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism that allows developers to build their own blockchain technology that communicates and transacts directly with other ledgers and the developers decide how fast they want to confirm blocks of transactions as well as how much fees they want to charge.
He created Kusama, an open-source platform that allows developers to test new technologies at the cost lower than other established networks in the market. It is an initial-stage experimental development environment for Polkabot.
On October 21, 2022, he resigned from his position as the CEO of Parity Technologies stating that quitting the CEO position will allow him to fully concentrate on developing and solving issues in the Polkadot ecosystem.
Conclusion
Dr. Gavin Wood have paved path for a new era of digital financial freedom. His innovation and hard work have made him the most inspiring and influential individual in the crypto community. Thus, we call him a reformer who shaped the future of digital technology.
