Our series of seminars in collaboration with City, University of London, continues this month on “NFTs and Financial Fraud Prevention”. Our speakers will present recent results that will enable the audience to understand NFT pricing and the statistical properties of the market. Machine learning algorithms for investigating the predictability of NFT sales and how visual features are good predictors for price will be presented. The role of rarity in shaping the market of NFTs will also be discussed along with legal and fraud-related issues in these kinds of tokens. The talks will be followed by a panel discussion.

Professor Roy will moderate the Masterclass and challenge the new developments with a multidisciplinary lens! Coming with soft computing and cyber security interest, he will be interested to hear your views on technological developments and any end user challenges. He is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the Elsevier Applied Soft Computing journal, Fellow of the IET, and a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists (WCIT).

Dr Andrea Baronchelli is an Associate Professor in Mathematics at City University of London and Token Economy theme lead at The Alan Turing Institute. He researches how we shape, and are shaped by, the socio-technical systems we inhabit using data science, mathematical modelling, and lab experiments with human subjects. His work has appeared in a wide range of journals including Science, PNAS and Nature Human Behaviour, has been extensively covered by the media, and has been recognized by the 2019 “Young Scientist Award for Socio and Econophysics” of the German Physical Society.

Dr Charis Savvides is lawyer, Partner at Stelios Americanos & Co LLC, one of the largest, full service, law firms in Cyprus. He is also lecturer at the University of Nicosia, where he has been a faculty member of the Law School for a number of years and of the Department of Digital Innovation of the Business School since 2020. He is also member of the Institute for the Future of the University of Nicosia.

Dr Savvides’ areas of interest and practice include, amongst others, the regulatory framework of digital services and digital markets, especially in the areas of corporate, investment and financial law. He is a legal advisor to investment funds, investment firms and crypto-asset services providers. Furthermore, he is an expert panel member of the European Union Blockchain Observatory & Forum, a member of the Cyprus Investment Funds Association (CIFA) and a member of the Technology Committee of the Cyprus Bar Association.

Dr Klitos Christodoulou is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management and MIS – Digital Currency at the University of Nicosia (UNIC). He is also a research faculty at the Institute For the Future (IFF) at the same University since Oct. 2018. He holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science and an M.Sc. in Advanced Computer Science – with specialisation in Advanced Applications, both from the University of Manchester, UK. In 2014, Klitos obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the School of Computer Science at the University of Manchester, UK. He has been an adjunct staff member of the Information Management Group (IMG) in the School of Computer Science, at the University of Manchester where he engaged in various research and teaching activities. Klitos served as a chair and committee member in a variety of International conferences. Currently, he serves as an Associate Editor at the Frontiers in Blockchain Journal and Guest Editor on the special issue of Future Internet (MDPI Journal) on Blockchain Applications. His research interests span both Data Management challenges; with a focus on Machine Learning techniques, and Distributed Ledger Technologies; with an emphasis on Blockchain ledgers. He has given numerous invited talks and tutorials involved Blockchain technologies. Klitos teaches courses on Blockchain Applications and Blockchain Programming under UNIC’s MSc in Digital Currency programme. He is also a member of the ISO/TC 307 Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies group. Klitos is also an active member for developing the Cyprus National Strategy for Blockchain. In addition, Klitos is the Principal Investigator of the Ripple grant and participates as a research member to a number of EU funded projects e.g., EUNOMIA (Horizon 2020) and DLT4ALL (Erasmus+) projects.