Li Jun: I am Li Jun, Founder of Ontology. I have a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Master’s in Communication Engineering, MBA, and PMP. I am a senior blockchain architect and blockchain solutions professional with 17 years’ work experience in IT and fintech. I previously provided technical architecture, management, and planning support for top international IT firms and major Chinese financial exchanges. I have taken part in the architecture design and technical management of many major systems and have built up multiple technical teams and systems from scratch.
I began working for a foreign-owned company in 2001 where I was running two large localization projects: Lenovo and Haier. The experience of doing localization for these two leading companies in IT and manufacturing deepened my understanding of the market. Around 2010, I joined China Financial Futures Exchange (CFFEX) where I took charge of financial derivatives, the operation and structure of the financial and capital market. Financial derivatives are the Holy Grail of the financial industry and are difficult to understand to say the least. The experience helped me figure out what are the pain points that prevent traditional businesses from building trust and what kind of trust mechanism can help build it. The Ontology design was aimed in part to address these pain points.
Around 2014, CFFEX set up a blockchain technology research team and I was the technical leader. As the research progressed, I began to realize the biggest cost of the financial system, and the collaboration of the society at large, is the need for risk control. The core of risk control is to build a trust system, which is very costly. The advent of blockchain offers a new and low-cost model of rebuilding a social trust mechanism, which will disrupt the financial industry and even the whole society.
“Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy” by Melanie Swan has had a far-reaching impact on me. I have read the English version five times and made many notes. This book was more or less the reason why I decided to go into the blockchain industry.
My dream is to use blockchain technology to change how we do business and collaborate. Although the experience of running big projects in large corporations and building up teams from scratch makes things much easier for me, starting a business in the blockchain industry is in many ways new to me.
Blockcast.cc: How is blockchain being used in Ontology? And what is the main objective and plan of it?
Li Jun: I named the project “Ontology” for two reasons. I like reading philosophy. Ontology is one of the fundamental philosophical theories in western philosophy. Another reason is that in 2008, I became a part of a project named “Semantic Web” (now the Knowledge Graph) , which is China’s first platform working on the Semantic Web and was backed by Paul Allen, Co-Founder of Microsoft. One of the fundamental protocols behind the Semantic Web is Ontology. So the word Ontology applies both to philosophy and information technology. I think it is a fitting name for a blockchain project that provides infrastructure.
Ontology is a high-performance public blockchain project & a distributed trust collaboration platform. The Ontology blockchain framework supports public blockchain systems and is able to customize public blockchains for applications. Ontology also supports collaboration among chain networks with protocol groups. As our slogan “Ready for all Businesses” implies, Ontology’s main objective is to serve real businesses.
Blockcast.cc: What are your views on the current crypto and blockchain market? And what is the opportunity?
Li Jun: Although IT technology and the Internet have been around for 20 years, overall blockchain is by far the most promising technology to build a trust public infrastructure.
After many generations of technological and systematic development, from tribes to states, Industrial Revolutions to information connectivity, mankind has been improving the “trust” collaboration mechanism, but there have been new challenges at the same time. Today, human collaboration is still facing many challenges, such as privacy protection, ownership of personal data, data and authenticity. Blockchain is by far the most promising technology to overcome these challenges and bring “trust collaboration” to a new level.
Looking back on the Ecosystem White Paper published when Ontology was launched two years, I am proud to see we have been heading in the right direction, and we need to continue this journey. The fact that many European churched took centuries to be built does not mean the work architects and stonemasons had done in the first decade is wasted. Technologies that can change how we collaborate take a long time to reach finality. For anyone who still has the ability and willingness to continue, “carrying on” is perhaps the end itself.
Blockcast.cc: Can you provide a quote or what you believe in for the readers? Eg “I believe in blockchain, it can change the world.”
Li Jun: “Trust” has been the greatest challenge for human collaboration throughout history. Ontology is willing to work with all our partners who share the common goal to redefine trust. Ontology – Trust Redefined
Blockcast.cc: Thank you for your time Jun! You have given us so many useful information on Ontology and how this tech can help to improve the industry. Thank you once again!
