Bloq's Jeff Garzik elected to Linux Foundation Board of Directors

The Linux Foundation, the non-profit organisation enabling mass innovation through open source, has elected Jeff Garzik, CEO and co-founder of Bloq, as its representative to The Linux Foundation Board of Directors. This key appointment recognises Garzik's experience with and commitment to innovating with open-source technologies, said a statement.

Before co-founding Bloq to develop enterprise-grade blockchain solutions, Garzik was a Bitcoin core developer, and spent more than 10 years at Linux market leader, Red Hat. His work with the Linux kernel is now found in every Android phone and data centre running Linux today.

"Open source is vital to fostering and developing innovative technologies," said Garzik. "We saw this in the early days of Linux, and the parallels with blockchain-enabled technologies are undeniable. Red Hat made Linux accessible to enterprise companies, now Bloq is doing the same for blockchain."

Bloq is also a member of the Hyperledger Project, an open-source initiative of The Linux Foundation. Hyperledger is a collaborative effort to advance blockchain technology by identifying and addressing important features for a cross-industry open standard for distributed ledgers.

"We're pleased to welcome Jeff to The Linux Foundation Board of Directors," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of The Linux Foundation. "His election by his peers of over 200 Linux Foundation members is testament to Jeff's reputation as both a technologist and a strategist."

Garzik will be joining a board that features members from leading enterprise technology companies including Cisco, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Intel, Oracle and Samsung.