IBM and Tata Communications Join Hedera Governing Council

Hedera Hashgraph has announced that IBM and Tata Communications have joined the Hedera Governing Council. The Council, which will comprise up to 39 multinational entities from a diverse array of industries, was designed to ensure decentralized and responsible governance for a next-generation Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) platform.

Mance Harmon, CEO of Hedera Hashgraph, said, “The addition of IBM and Tata Communications to the Hedera Governing Council is a powerful endorsement of the hashgraph consensus mechanism, and further decentralizes the governance of Hedera Hashgraph. Our governance model, which includes a robust system of checks and balances, ensures power can’t be consolidated, while at the same time providing a stable and scalable platform on which developers can build.”

All members of the Hedera Governing Council have equal say in approving updates to the Hedera platform codebase and in setting policies for the many nodes that will constitute Hedera’s decentralized network. Hedera’s governance model protects users by eliminating the risk of forks, guaranteeing the integrity of the codebase, and committing to make the source code open for review. Council members serve a maximum of two consecutive three-year terms and act as stewards of the platform.

The addition of these two firms further expands the Council’s diversity; it now includes leading enterprises from the telecommunications, technology, financial services, law, and retail sectors.

Jerry Cuomo, Vice President of Blockchain Technologies at IBM, said, “We are excited to join the Hedera Governing Council and explore relationships between public networks and industry-specific networks. Hyperledger has proven to be the de facto standard enterprises use to build, manage, and deploy blockchain-based ledgers. We believe Hedera could help provide an interesting way to enhance and simplify the deployment of Hyperledger Fabric in the enterprise, making it easier for groups to build and grow their networks.”

Ankur Jindal, Global Head of Corporate Venturing and Innovation at Tata Communications, a global digital infrastructure provider, said, “Innovations such as DLT, AI, and IoT change the way organizations and people interact with each other and with the world. These emerging technologies can be harnessed to strengthen our efforts to improve operational efficiencies and enable our customers’ digital transformation worldwide. We look forward to engaging with other forward-looking businesses on the Hedera Hashgraph Governing Council to help deliver the potential of DLT to the wider digital economy.”

Harmon concluded, “Distributed ledger technology is vital to the future of digital trust and commerce. The Hedera Governing Council’s pioneering approach to decentralized DLT governance lays the foundation for a fair and stable commercial platform, while the hashgraph distributed consensus algorithm provides the security and performance required by enterprise customers. Though Council members come from all over the world and from many different sectors, they all share the vision of a better digital future. We are excited to welcome IBM and Tata Communications to the Council.”