Associate Professor John Tsz Hon Yuen

Department of Software Systems and Cybersecurity, Monash University

Associate Professor Yuen specialises in cryptography, security, privacy, blockchain and FinTech. He is a member of the Central Bank Digital Currency Expert Group of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.

Prior to joining Monash, he served as an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Hong Kong.

Dr Leo Bao

Department of Banking and Finance, Monash University

Dr Bao employs theoretical, empirical and experimental methods to analyse human behaviour in economic and financial contexts.

His research aims to make the world a better place by promoting gender equality, enhancing market regulations, and deterring crime.

Associate Professor Cheng-Yun Tsang

Faculty of Law, Monash University

Dr Cheng-Yun Tsang is an Associate Professor at Monash University's Faculty of Law and an Executive Group Member at the Centre for Commercial Law and Regulatory Studies.

As a research-oriented educator, he has developed and taught courses such as 'FinTech and the Law', 'Banking Law' and 'Governance of Global Finance' at NCCU. At Monash Law, he teaches 'FinTech and the Law', 'FinTech Law and Regulation', 'FinTech Clinic' and 'Corporations Law'.

Dr Tsang leads significant government-funded and sponsored research projects on SupTech, Digital Identity, AML/CFT and open banking. His current research focuses on International Financial Law and FinTech regulation, including RegTech/SupTech, crypto assets, CBDC, regulatory coordination, data governance and sustainable finance.

To date, his projects have secured over 2 million AUD in funding.

Professor Man Ho (Allen) Au

Department of Computing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Professor Au works at the Department of Computing at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, specialising in information security, cryptography, blockchain technology, and their applications.

He has published over 200 papers in top journals and conferences, including CRYPTO, ASIACRYPT, ACM CCS, NDSS, IEEE S&P, SIGMOD, SOSP, IEEE TIFS and IEEE TDSC.

He received the 2023 BOCHK Science and Technology Innovation Prize in FinTech and the 2009 PET runner-up award for outstanding research in privacy-enhancing technologies. His team also won the ZPrize - Open Division Plonk-DIZK GPU Acceleration prize, with a cash award of 550K USD.

Professor Au has been recognised as an HKU Scholar in the top 1% worldwide by citations (2020-2022) and listed among the World's Top 2% Scientists by single-year and career-long impact by Stanford University (2022, 2023).

Professor Xiapu Daniel Luo

Department of Computing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Professor Luo is a professor at the Department of Computing, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research focuses on Blockchain and Smart Contracts Security, Mobile and IoT Security, Network Security and Privacy, and Software Engineering with papers published in top-tier security, software engineering, and networking venues.

Professor Luo's research led to more than 10 best/distinguished paper awards, including ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Awards at ICSE'24, ISSTA'22 and ICSE'21, Best Paper Award at INFOCOM'18, Best Research Paper Award at ISSRE'16, etc. and several awards from the industry. He received the BOCHK Science and Technology Innovation Prize (FinTech) 2013 for his contribution to blockchain security. He regularly serves in the program committees of top security and software engineering conferences and received Top Reviewer Award from CCS'22 and Distinguished TPC member Award from INFOCOM'23 and INFOCOM'24. Professor Luo is also currently an associate editor for IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking(ToN), IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC) and ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security (TOPS).

Rico Tang

Senior Advisor, FCC Analytics Limited

Mr Rico Tang is a Senior Advisor for FCC Analytics Limited, an award-winning RegTech company offering innovative AI-powered KYC and compliance solutions.

He has over 20 years of experience in financial technology, exchange business, global market data, regional business management and pension funds, with a track record of managing USD 140 million in the Asia Pacific.

Previously, Mr Tang led the FinTech team at Cyberport, developing a FinTech and blockchain ecosystem with over 400 firms, and founded a blockchain technology company at Hong Kong Science and Technology Park.

He has held senior positions at global financial technology companies and institutions, including Head of Transaction Business Asia for Thomson Reuters, Director of Reuters Hong Kong Fund Management, Advisory Board Member of the University of Hong Kong FinTech Index Series, and member of the Capability Building and Data Working Groups at the Green and Sustainable Finance Center (co-chaired by HKMA and SFC).

Cindy He

Industry and Innovation Manager, Transaction Banking, ANZ

Cindy is part of ANZ’s Industry and Innovation Team, helping to shape the bank’s institutional strategy on global trends and technologies disrupting transaction banking. Her projects centre on Web 3.0, Central Bank Digital Currency, tokenisation, trade digitisation and automation. For the 2023 Australian CBDC Pilot Project, she led ANZ’s Offline Payments use case and contributed to the Payday Super use case which tokenised payments of superannuation.

Cindy also leads the team’s industry and advocacy engagements, establishing partnerships with research institutes, policymakers and industry associations to support greater innovation across the Australian business ecosystem. Prior to banking, she has worked in journalism, government relations and in international trade and investment. She is admitted as a lawyer in Australia and continues to serve on various advisory groups and committees to support the real world application of emerging technologies.

Ben Chan

Co-Founder, WEB3IN TECH-LAB

Ben Chan heads the WEB3IN TECH-LAB team, focusing on integrating advanced technologies such as AI, Real World Asset Tokenization and compliant issuance of digital assets in blockchain projects.

He also created the NichoNFT AI-NFT platform and initiated the development of the Asteroid X platform for physical mining asset tokenisation in 2023, earning acclaim from industry leaders.

Karen Cohen

Founder and Director, Emerging Tech HUB

An award-winning community builder with a strong background in connecting humans to emerging tech, Karen Cohen has worked her way up from a traditional HR Background to running her own consultancy Emerging Tech Hub.

Helping her clients to hire, retain, grow and train talent, Karen has built communities for Blockchain, Women, Startups and Entrepreneurs with brands such as Inspiring Rare Birds, Stone & Chalk, NEM, Blockchain Centre, Asta Solutions and Algorand Foundation.

Karen's magic is in connecting humans to technology, as well as connecting humans to each other.

Bob He

Founder, Veritas Tech

Veritas Tech is a startup, with a mission to develop emerging technologies (Blockchain/DLT, AI, IoT) for a sustainable future.

Bob holds a European Engineer (EUR ING) title, with UK Chartered status in Engineering (CEng), Science (CSci) and IT (CITP). He started his career with Ericsson as a Systems Engineer, and then worked for Schneider Electric, as a Senior Engineer and Edison Expert.

His expertise lies in systems and solution architecture for large and complex mission-critical systems, with Distributed Operational (OT) and Information Technologies (IT).