# about

- URL: https://alexobadia.com/about/
- Author: Alex Obadia

Currently
- Programme Director at the [Advanced Research & Invention Agency](https://www.aria.org.uk/), a fixed-term (3y) role to design and launch r&d moonshots that can benefit the UK and the whole world
	- [Scaling Trust](https://scalingtrust.org.uk), writing up to £10m checks to fund the infra & research needed for AI agents to securely coordinate across digital and physical worlds programmatically, at scale, and without intermediaries -- see our [portfolio](https://scalingtrust.org.uk/blog/building-the-scaling-trust-portfolio/)
	- [Trust Everything, Everywhere](https://aria.org.uk/media/4eohsxiq/trust-everything-everywhere-opportunity-space.pdf), writing up to £500k checks to seed misfit exploratory r&d into cyber-physical trust infrastructure: quantum security, DNA/protein cryptography, verifiable robotics, neurosecurity, and more

Past projects
- [Deep Quantum](https://deepquantum.xyz)-- a [quantumpunk](https://quantumpunks.org/) r&d group working on accelerating quantum networking tech to build a safer internet, defend digital rights, and usher the next era of quantum technologies
- [Flashbots](https://flashbots.net) -- r&d org dedicated to keeping decentralized financial systems transparent, efficient, and fair through open research, open-source software, and community engagement
- Cambrial -- portfolio of market-neutral crypto quantitative trading funds
- [Zero Knowledge London](https://www.youtube.com/@Zero-Knowledge/videos) -- meetup series on applied cryptography and other privacy technologies
- [Access](https://www.accessthemusic.co.uk/) -- city-themed electronic music parties

Additional interests
- Progress Studies and Metascience: how innovation has been, is, and could be organized in the future to tackle new problems
- Local-first hard tech: new energy transmission, local manufacturing, at-home bio synthesizers, and other technologies for citizen science, sovereignty, and local resilience at the city level and below
- Institutions 2.0: improving our society's 'shock absorbers' to dampen the incoming 'shocks' we are facing (eg. agi, climate disasters) and accelerate the rate at which we can absorb shocks, especially interested in bottom-up approaches
- Buddhism: zen and tibetan buddhism, and buddhist culture more broadly; some retreats and reads i've loved are in [on spirituality](https://alexobadia.com/blog/on-spirituality/) and the [spirituality section of my links](https://alexobadia.com/links/#spirituality)

Investing and advisory\*

I write angel checks into teams building r&d orgs (sometimes with other angels via [deep crypto](https://deepcrypto.xyz/) and [deep quantum](https://deepquantum.xyz)), and LP in crypto quant trading funds.

I advise [Chainbound](https://chainbound.io), and sit on the Foresight Institute's [Secure AI Advisory Circle](https://foresight.org/secure-ai/).

If you're looking for advice or investment, or would like to chat about anything else on this page, reach out!

\* modulo conflicts of interest with my role at ARIA.