Robert Mao, a serial entrepreneur and public speaker, is the driving force behind ArcBlock, a prominent platform that enables developers to create dApps, DID, blockchain, and LLM applications. With a background in social computing from his tenure at Microsoft Research, Robert is widely respected for his expertise in Decentralized Identity and blockchain technology. Notably, he has authored over 30 papers, journal articles, and patents, as well as two books on blockchain.

Most recently, he leads the development of AIGNE, an open-source, TypeScript-native framework for building autonomous multi-agent systems. Inspired by functional programming and designed for full-stack environments — from browser to cloud — AIGNE provides the foundation for building decentralized, privacy-preserving AI applications.