Draft:Leemon Baird

Leemon Baird is an American computer scientist, entrepreneur, and the co-founder of Hedera Hashgraph, a public distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform. Baird is known for the invention of the hashgraph consensus algorithm, which offers an alternative to blockchain technology based on a Directed acyclic graph.

Early Life and Education
Leemon Baird received his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the United States Air Force Academy. He earned his Master's degree and PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, where his doctoral research focused on machine learning and cybersecurity.

Career
Prior to entering the tech industry, Baird served as a professor of computer science at the United States Air Force Academy. He has co-founded several tech startups, including Hedera Hashgraph in 2015, with Mance Harmon. Baird worked as Chief Scientist for Hedera Hashgraph between until May 2022, when he left the role to center on the role as Co-CEO at Swirlds Labs, a company that builds open-source components for the Hedera ecosystem. In April 2024, Baird stepped down from the role as Co-CEO to take on a new Chief Scientist position devoted to technical development.

Contributions to Technology
Baird has published numerous papers and articles in the field of computer science, specifically focusing on distributed systems, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and algorithm design. His main creation, the hashgraph consensus algorithm, is argued to enable high-throughput, low-latency consensus without extensive computational and energy demands.

Hedera
With the hashgraph being his main technical contribution, the Hedera network is Baird's most important addition to the blockchain ecosystem. One of Baird's and Harmon's main innovations in this regard is the creation of a Governing Council to set the rules of the network.

The Hedera network has significantly grown since its official launch in 2018. The network has processed more than 30 billion transactions, launched an asset tokenization service, and the Council currently counts with high profile members including: Google, IBM, Boeing, LG, University College London, Deutsche Telekom, DLA Piper, FIS, Magalu, Tata Communications, Avery Dennison, Chainlink Labs, Wipro, Standard Bank Group and Zain Group. The network's native token, HBAR, usually fluctuates between #20 and #30 in Coinmarketcap.