IEEE Canada Blockchain Forum 2026 (4th edition)

TL;DR go here to check the program AND register: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/542487 The IEEE Blockchain Forum is returning for the fourth time as part of Toronto Tech Week. The goal of this compact one-day event is to congregate builders, researchers, academics, and engineers building blockchain protocols, infrastructure, and decentralized software applications. Theme Join us to explore the intersection of payments and agentic AI, where stablecoins might meet OpenClaw and ERC-8004 among others... Lunch will be provided. How to register (IMPORTANT: it's not on Luma!) This Luma page is only a façade to showcase the event. More information about the program and the registration process is provided on the official IEEE site. Program Consult the full program available online for the details. Room 1: Seminar Room - for the Thought Leaders 9 am – Registration 9:30 am - Welcome and introduction - Conference Chair Marc Lijour, Secretary of the IEEE Blockchain Technical Community 9:40 am - Opening Keynote by Alex McDougall, CEO of The FUTR Corporation: The Missing Layer: Why Agentic Commerce Needs a Consumer Data Protocol 10 am - Short Keynote by Sheereen Khan, Founder and CEO of Regulativity: An update on the Canadian regulatory landscape 10:10 am - Panel #1 - Stablecoins: A New Era of Payments in Canada Felipe Priuli, Program Director for CAD Digital (CADD) Kesem Frank, CEO of Canada Stablecorp (QCAD) Kevin Zhang, Founder and CEO of LOON Moderator: Evan Thomas 11 am - Short Keynote by Hilary Carter, SVP Research at The Linux Foundation: What's the Role of Open Source for Canadian Sovereignty? 11:10 am - Panel #2 - Sovereignty by Design Ali Abou Daya, CEO of Transactix Financial Inc. Thomas You, Associate Partner at Maverix Private Equity Gaëlle Martin-Cocher, IEEE Canada Moderator: Marc Lijour === NOON: LUNCH BREAK (food will be served in the Boardroom) === 1 pm - Short Keynote by Christopher Chen, Head of InvestHK Canada: Opportunities within the Hong Kong Fintech/Web3 eco-system 1:10 pm - Panel #3 - How does Canada compete on the global stage? Rajeev Bamra, Global Head of Strategy, Digital Economy at Moody's Ratings Stuart Davis, President of Surpass Insights Inc. Torstein Braaten, Chief Compliance at Stablecorp Moderator: Rondev Bhattacharya 2 pm - Short Keynote by Bernice Cheung, VP, Financial Services & Cultural Markets Research at Environics Research Group: The State of FinTech Adoption and the rise of Self-Driving Money 2:10 pm - Panel #4 - Gaining Momentum from Innovation to Adoption Nisrine, Innovation Lead at Interac James Emerson, Senior Manager in KPMG’s Digital Asset Center of Excellence Adam Cai, CEO at Virgo Group Moderator: Asad Saeed == SNACK BREAK == 3:30 pm - Short Keynote by Eyal Sivan, Principal Consultant / Podcast Host at Mr. Open Banking: Open Banking and AI - A Perfect Match 3:40 pm - Panel #5 - The New Frontier of Trust in Agentic AI & Blockchain Michelle Beyo, CEO of FINAVATOR Carlos Andres Delgado, Fintech, AI & Banking Expert Diana Oreto, Blockchain & Digital Assets Expert Moderator: Michelle Beyo 4:30 pm - Neworking Room 2: Main Theatre – Audience of Engineers 9 am – Registration 9:40 am - Welcome and introduction - Chair Marc Lijour (IEEE Blockchain) 9:50 am - Opening Keynote by Griff Green, Co-Founder, Giveth & DappNode & TheDAO Security Fund Response Lead: Blockchain UX & Security: Lessons from the Trenches 10:10 am - Short Keynote by Anil Nadiminti, Senior Solutions Architect, AWS (FinTech & Web3):When AI Agents Pay: Building x402 Applications on AWS 10:25 am - Short Keynote by Kevin Liu, Founder of GOAT Network: Settled in Six Chains: Building x402 as a Merchant Payment Rail for the Agent Economy 10:40 am - Short Keynote by Douglas Heintzman, Chief Catalyst/Co-Founder & CEO, Blockchain Research Institute (BRI)/Syncura: Digital Trust Infrastructure: Laying the Digital Rails for a Sovereign Future 10:50 am - == Coffee & Networking Break == 11:10 am - Short Keynote by Vikas Malhotra, Founder / IEEE IC Chair, WOPLLI(R) Technologies, Navandine, IEEE, Trust over IP Foundation, W3C: Building Safer Environments with Control, Decentralization and Distribution 11:20 am - Short Keynote by Kshitiz Sharma, Founder & CEO of TensorPilot: Bridging LLMs and Blockchain: Building Secure, Agentic Workflows with TensorPilot 11:35 am - Short Keynote by Simon Kubbinga Simon Stern, Lead Dev Rel, Superteam Canada: Solana, Superteam, and Agentic Commerce 11:50 am - Short Keynote by Tity Lyngdoh, Founder and CEO of Dolphinze: From Global Workforce to Global Payment Rails: Rebuilding Contractor Payments Infrastructure 12:05 pm - Lightning Talks #1 - Building the next generation of payments and Agentic AI Lawrence Ley, Professor, George Brown College: Agentic AI & Blockchain: The Autonomous Future of Decentralized Intelligence Jerry Qian, Founder & CEO, OPTN Labs: Bitcoin Covenants - Enforcing Transaction Outcomes 12:25 pm - Q&A 12:30 pm - == LUNCH Break == 1:30 pm - Short Keynote by Federico Gatta, PhD Student: Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa), Visiting Researcher University of Toronto (UofT): Deviations from Tradition: Stylized Facts in the Era of DeFi 1:45 pm - Short Keynote by Ignacy Nieweglowski, Student Researcher, Yale Applied Cryptography Lab, Blockchain economics researcher: PoliFi Tokens and the Trump Effect 2:00 pm - Short Keynote by Ngozi Nora Agwu, Independent Researcher, Digital Finance and Infrastructure Policy: Beyond Hype: Governance Barriers to Blockchain-Enabled Infrastructure 2:15 pm - Lightning Talks #2 - Academic Dr. Marina Flat: AI Governance in Distributed Ecosystems: Accountability by Design Revanth Reddy Airre, Chapter Chair & Global Student Coordinator | Eng @Hippocratic AI, IEEE Blockchain Technical Community: From Reasoning to Settlement: A Five-Layer Architecture for Agent Payments on the Decentralized Network Srisht Fateh Singh, Ph.D. Student, University of Toronto (UofT): Modeling Loss-Versus-Rebalancing in Automated Market Makers via Continuous-Installment Options 2:55 pm - Q&A 3 pm - == Networking Break - Snacks == 3:30 pm - Short Keynote by Shashank Motepalli, Founder of Ekai Labs: Auditable Context Handoff in the Agent-to-Agent Economy 3:45 pm - Short Keynote by Jesse Abramowitz, Senior Protocol Engineer of Source Network: Multi Party Computation at the Edge 4:00 pm - Short Keynote by Vedant Harlalka, Founder and Pearson Scholar, Auditorium AI/University of Toronto: AI, Data, and Frostbite: Building Startups in Canada 4:15 pm - Short Keynote by Rayan Sekhraoui, Business Development Manager at OVHcloud: Sovereign Infrastructure for Web3 — Why Decentralized Apps Need Independent Cloud 4:30 pm - Networking 5 pm - Closing Many thanks to our sponsors: the Government of Ontario for the location, as well as  Invest Hong Kong (Canada), Moody's Ratings, Compass360 Consulting, GOAT Network, Limina Counsel, OVHcloud, and Tetra Digital Group! Special thanks to our Community Partner Superteam! Built by Toronto, for the World Toronto Tech Week is a citywide celebration of the people building what’s next. From May 25–29, 2026, founders, investors, and builders come together for hundreds of community-led events across Toronto, connecting tens of thousands of people around Canadian tech. Torontotechweek.com