IOTA Foundation Welcomes Two New Members to Expand and Improve Operations

The IOTA foundation has recruited two new members, Andrea Villa and Dyrell Chapman, to assist in expanding and improving their current operations, according to blog posts published by the foundation.

Villa is described as a “self-taught computer hacker, devops, and entrepreneur” who has worked for over a decade in system administration, networks, and information security.

Welcome Andrea Villa to the IOTA Foundationhttps://t.co/7TaKckHKee#IOTA

— IOTA (@iotatoken) May 15, 2018

The blog post announcing Villa’s arrival did not specify what role he will be playing in the foundation, but his experience seems to indicate that he will be working on maintaining and improving security on the IOTA network.

Villa “[believes] IOTA faces several security challenges in terms of protocol, implementation, operations, and infrastructure that require pro-active scrutiny and solving.”

“The Tangle technology may very well constitute the future foundation of a large range of applications,” he added. “Being part of the effort to deliver a usable and secure IOTA to the general public is both challenging and exciting.”

Dyrell Chapman

The Foundation's other new member, Dyrell Chapman, is described as an “Architectural Technologist and technology enthusiast” who currently holds a position as Chief Enterprise Architect at Geometric Energy Corporation. A specific role for Dyrell in the IOTA foundation was also not given.

“I believe Iota to be an evolutionary jump in DLT development and I look forward to having the chance to help make the Iota dream come true,” he said. “Decentralisation and smart contracting are the future, and I strongly believe Iota to be cutting edge with respect to their secure and scalable approach to distributed computing and ledger technology.”

Welcome Dyrell Chapman to the IOTA Foundationhttps://t.co/oxEg360KYq#IOTA

— IOTA (@iotatoken) May 16, 2018

Since the beginning of 2018, IOTA has been steadily working on garnering a series of partnerships and collaborations, as well as launching community development efforts.

In January, IOTA partnered with ITIC to launch “a global alliance of smart mobility testbeds.” Then, in February, the Foundation launched a $37 million IOTA Ecosystem for global community development.

In November 2017, IOTA announced the launch of a data marketplace with more than twenty corporate participants, including Microsoft and Fujitsu.

At press time, IOTA ranked as the 9th-largest cryptocurrency in the world in terms of market cap; a single IOTA token was worth $1.91, down from a peak of roughly $2.50 earlier this month.