MANITOBA BLOCKCHAIN ASSOCIATION
Meet The Team

CO FOUNDER
ITAY NUDEL
Itay holds his bachelors degree in Computer Science from the University of Manitoba offering a technical understanding of blockchain technology. He has experience as a software developer and building a decentralized application (dApp) writing smart contracts in Ethereum’s programming language Solidity. Itay also has a strong understanding of cryptography and distributed systems. ​

CO FOUNDER
ARI KIMELMAN
Ari holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Manitoba and a master’s degree from The Nova School of Business and Economics, where he researched the efficacy of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations. He currently works at RedStone Oracles, an industry leading blockchain oracle. In 2023, Ari founded the University of Manitoba Blockchain Club.

CORE MEMBER - ACADEMIC LEAD
DR. SARA ROUHANI
Dr. Sara Rouhani completed her PhD in Computer Science writing her doctoral thesis on blockchain technology. She is head of The University of Manitoba Trustworthy Computing & Distributed Technologies Laboratory (TCDT). The TCDT lab is dedicated to develop reliable and secure solutions using decentralized and distributed technologies, including blockchain, digital identities and distributed Machine Learning.

CORE MEMBER - ACADEMIC LEAD
DR. SAULO DOS SANTOS
Dr. Saulo Dos Santos is a Computer Science professor at the University of Manitoba, completing his PhD research on the Lightning Network, Bitcoin's layer two scaling solution. He has also co-authored publications on topics like decentralized finance. Saulo has been studying decentralized technologies for several years with a special passion for Bitcoin. ​​​​​

CORE MEMBER - ACADEMIC LEAD
DR. PRIYANKA BHARDWAJ
Dr. Priyanka Bhardwaj is a Computer Science instructor at the University of Winnipeg and Robertson College. She completed her PhD research on using blockchain technology to improve the security of cloud computing at Suresh Gyan Vihar University. Priyanka advocates for the need for educational institutions to adopt a culture of embracing emerging technologies like blockchain.​​​​​
