Mainstreaming Cryptocurrency and the Future of Digital Finance

Hamed Taherdoost is an award-winning leader and research and development professional. He is faculty member of University Canada West, founder of Hamta Business Group and CTO of OBS Tech Limited. He holds PhD of Computer Science and Master of Information Security. He has over 20 years of experience in both industry and academic sectors. He started his career in 2001 as an electrical designer and programmer in Tablokar, a leading switchgear panel manufacturer in the Middle East. He has worked at international companies from Cyprus, the UK, Malta, Iran, Malaysia, and Canada and has been highly involved in development of several projects in different industries including oil and gas, healthcare, transportation, and information technology, holding positions as varied as Project Manager, R&D Manager, Tech Lead, and CTO. He has spent the last nine years helping start-ups to grow by implementing new projects and business lines. Apart from his experience in industry, he also has some achievements in academia. He has been a lecturer in three different parts of the world, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and North America. He has continued his path in teaching concentrating on research and development for over 13 years teaching to undergraduate students, postgraduates, and executive staff in different countries. He has also developed many R&D teams in different businesses inspiring project team members from various educational backgrounds to play effective roles in R&D teams. He has developed his customized approaches in teaching research methodology and shared his viewpoints in research methods area in more than 30 open-access publications over years. Besides, he has organized and chaired numerous workshops, conferences, and conference sessions respectively, and has delivered speeches as chief guest and keynote speaker. Moreover, he is the editorial, reviewer, and advisory board member of some authentic peer-reviewed journals publishing with Taylor & Francis, Springer, Emerald, Elsevier, MDPI, EAI, & IGI Publishing, and Inderscience. Hamed has been an active multidisciplinary researcher and R&D specialist involved in several academic and industrial research projects. He has been working with researchers from various disciplines and has been actively engaged in different research studies. His research achievements also include winning several best paper awards and outstanding reviewer awards. His views on science and technology have been published in top-ranked scientific publishers such as Elsevier, Springer, Emerald, IEEE, IGI Global, Inderscience, Taylor and Francis and Dr. Hamed has published over 160 scientific articles in authentic peer-reviewed international journals and conference proceedings (h-index = 32; i10-index = 53; May 2022), ten book chapters as well as eight books in the field of technology and research methodology. He was the finalist for the Innovation in Teaching of Research Methodology Excellence Awards at ECRM, UK in 2022 and was nominated as the finalists in Southeast Asian Startup Awards in 2020 by Global Startup Awards and has been listed on the Stanford-Elsevier list of World's top 2% of scientist by August 2021. He is a Certified Cyber Security Professional and Certified Graduate Technologist. He is senior member of IEEE, IAEEEE, IASED, and IEDRC and WGM of IFIP TC11 - Assurance and Information Security Management, and member of CSIAC), ACT-IAC, and AASHE. Currently, he is involved in several multidisciplinary research projects, including studying innovation in information technology, blockchain and cybersecurity, and technology acceptance.