Steering Committee now governs Libra technical development

January 16, 2020

Michael Engle, Libra Association

On December 16, 2019, the council of the Libra Association* voted to establish a Technical Steering Committee (TSC) for the Libra project and elected five members that each contribute a unique perspective and bring valuable domain expertise to the project.

The role of the TSC is to oversee and coordinate the technical design and development of the Libra network. Responsibilities include:

Directing the technical roadmap for the Libra network
Forming Technical Working Groups to fast-track research into selected specific issues
Guiding codebase development
Building a healthy and engaged Libra developer community

Establishing an independent TSC that is responsible for technical development of the Libra network is an important step forward for the Libra project. It has always been the Association’s vision that the Libra project would be self-governing and independent of any one organization’s control.

As a project rooted in technological innovation, technical stewardship is a significant component of self-governance for the Libra project. In Q1 2020, the TSC will publish its technical governance framework and associated documents. This will include the process by which the open source community can propose technical changes to the network and a transparent process for evaluating those proposals.

Meet the TSC members

Diogo Monica, Co-Founder and President at Anchorage

Diogo is the President and co-founder of Anchorage, an industry-leading digital asset custodian. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the Technical University of Lisbon, has worked in software security for over 15 years, and is a published author of several peer-reviewed papers in distributed systems and information security. As an early employee at Square, Diogo led the platform security team that built the infrastructure that Square uses today, in the process developing widely recognized best-in-class production security practices. At Docker, he built and led the security team, and his code today helps secure hundreds of millions of servers worldwide as one of the core underpinnings of modern infrastructure: containers.

“For the Libra Blockchain to serve billions of users worldwide, security must be its foundation. We are using the best of modern security engineering to prepare the Libra network to operate on a global scale.” – Diogo Monica

George Cabrera III, Libra Core Product Lead at Novi**

George, a 20-year software engineering veteran, has been working as the product lead for Libra Core for over a year. In the past, George worked as a technical lead at Network Appliance and at Facebook in the Core Data team designing Facebook’s core caching system. He also spent three years leading the technical integration of both Instagram and WhatsApp into Facebook. He then moved onto helping create the Telecom Infra Project and Facebook’s Connectivity team. Finally, as an early team member, he supported the Libra project as a product manager to and through the delivery of the Libra testnet and continues in his role as one of the most senior technical staff in Novi.

“The Libra Association’s mission is to be a financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people, and having a group to guide the design, building, and ongoing maintenance of that infrastructure is vital to its success. The creation of this committee represents a notable milestone for Libra’s openness and sustainability as we forge ahead towards our mainnet launch.” – George Cabrera III

Joe Lallouz, CEO and Founder at Bison Trails

Joe is the CEO of Bison Trails, an industry-leading blockchain infrastructure company and developer of a protocol-agnostic infrastructure platform committed to democratizing access to blockchain networks. Under Joe’s leadership, Bison Trails built a reputation as a trusted partner for protocol teams working to develop and deploy new blockchain projects. Joe is one of the world’s experts on blockchain network scalability, security, and decentralization: critical areas to a network’s adoption and success. As a Libra Association Member, Bison Trails launched the first validator node on the Libra testnet after Novi and is actively engaged supporting the protocol’s development.

“Our goal is to ensure the Libra network is decentralized, secure, and well-orchestrated, with the infrastructure in place to support billions of transactions. This aligns well with our vision of democratizing access to the decentralized future.” – Joe Lallouz

Nick Grossman, Partner at Union Square Ventures

Nick is a partner at Union Square Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm with a long track record of investments in areas including social networking, developer tools, fintech, and cryptocurrency/blockchain infrastructure. Nick has extensive experience leading and advising startups, particularly around security, data, privacy, and regulatory issues. Previously, he led an incubator for startups at the intersection of cities and data at OpenPlans, with a focus on leading open source projects, building open data platforms, and supporting open standards efforts. Nick has an undergraduate degree from Stanford University, and has held academic affiliations at the MIT Media Lab and Harvard Law School.

“Libra has the potential to be a breakthrough project in the digital asset and payments space. To achieve this potential, the project must demonstrate credible independence and be welcoming to potential partners and contributors.” – Nick Grossman

Ric Shreves, Director, Emerging Technology at Mercy Corps

In his role as Director of Emerging Technology at Mercy Corps, Ric explores new approaches and innovations for humanitarian aid and development, including the potential of distributed ledgers and digital currencies. Before joining Mercy Corps, Ric worked for two decades as an IT consultant and author of over a dozen books on open source technologies. His clients included BASF, The Economist Group, the Stock Exchange of Thailand, Colgate-Palmolive, and many others. In 2008, Ric served as the President of the market-leading open source content management system, Mambo (The Mambo Foundation), giving him experience with the challenges of managing open source projects and community and developer relations.

“Designed from the outset to be transparent by default, and governed with the philosophy of open source participation, the Libra network represents a unique opportunity to build a financially inclusive world.” – Ric Shreves

What’s next?

Watch this space to learn more about our technical governance. We will be releasing more information about how members of the developer community can get involved with technical development of the Libra network, including the process for submitting a Libra Improvement Proposal. We are also looking to fill a new role, that of Technical Program Manager, that will be responsible for shepherding the product roadmap alongside the Technical Steering Committee and helping facilitate developer community involvement. Visit our Careers page to learn about this and other job opportunities with the Libra Association.

*On December 1, 2020, the Libra Association was renamed to Diem Association.
**Novi was first announced as Calibra in 2019.