Gavin Wood

Gavin Wood is a notable British software engineer and entrepreneur who is best recognized for his contributions to the development of two landmark blockchain networks: Ethereum and Polkadot.

Personal Stats

Age:	43
Source of wealth:	Product development, computer science
Residence:	UK
Citizenship:	UK
Marital status:	Unknown
Education:	University of York

Education

In 2002, Gavin Wood earned a Master of Engineering (MEng) in Computer Systems and Software Engineering from the University of York. In 2005, he completed his doctoral dissertation titled "Content-based visualisation to aid common navigation of musical audio."

Career

In 2000, Gavin Wood started his professional journey by joining InTechnology Plc as a programmer. Then he transitioned to Frontier Development in 2005, assuming the role of Sublead Programmer. In 2007 he became a software consultant at Microsoft, where he contributed his expertise until 2011. In 2013, he took on the position of Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at OxLegal.

In 2003, Wood's involvement in the world of cryptocurrencies began. He joined the Ethereum Foundation, serving as a co-founder and its first CTO. Alongside visionaries such as Vitalik Buterin, Charles Hoskinson, Anthony Di Iorio, and Joseph Lubin, Wood played a pivotal role in establishing the Ethereum blockchain. Describing it as "one computer for the entire planet," he envisioned a decentralized platform with groundbreaking potential.

Wood's contributions to Ethereum were substantial. He proposed and collaborated on the development of Solidity, a programming language specifically designed for writing smart contracts. Furthermore, he published a seminal paper in 2014, defining the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), the runtime system responsible for executing smart contracts on the Ethereum network. He departed from the Ethereum Foundation in January 2016.

Following his departure, Wood founded Parity Technologies, formerly known as Ethcore. This company focused on developing an Ethereum network client and creating blockchain software for businesses. In early 2016, Parity Technologies released the Parity Ethereum software client, utilizing the Rust programming language.Parity is best known for its work on Polkadot, a blockchain network that allows different blockchain platforms to communicate and share data with each other. Wood took the role of CTO at Parity in 2018.

Wood also established the Web3 Foundation a non-profit organization which aims at developing technologies for a decentralized internet, with a particular focus on the Polkadot network.

Personal Life

Wood was born in Lancaster, England, United Kingdom. He attended the Lancaster Royal Grammar School. He showed a keen interest in computer programming from an early age and began writing code when he was just eight years old.