Islam El-ashi
AI Lead at DFINITY
Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolIslam El-ashi is an AI Lead and seasoned software engineer with 16 years of experience building distributed systems, blockchain integrations, and low-latency advertising infrastructure. Based in Zurich, he led the Bitcoin integration for DFINITY’s Internet Computer—enabling smart contracts to hold, send, and receive Bitcoin—and contributed back-end improvements to high-profile projects like Internet Identity. A pragmatic engineer and founder, he co-founded Elk to create decentralized IoT developer hardware and has a track record of shipping production systems at Twitter and TellApart. He combines deep systems and backend expertise with machine learning roots from internships at Evernote and Google, making him comfortable across execution layers, governance, and infrastructure. Curiosity-driven and multidisciplinary, he has pursued projects as eclectic as sending cameras to space and sequencing his own mitochondrial DNA, reflecting a taste for unconventional engineering challenges.
16 years of coding experience
11 years of employment as a software developer
Non-Degree (Exchange Student) Computer Science, Non-Degree (Exchange Student) Computer Science at National University of SingaporeMIT Global Entrepreneurship Bootcamp - Class 5 Certificate in New Ventures Leadership, MIT Global Entrepreneurship Bootcamp - Class 5 Certificate in New Ventures Leadership at Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyNon-Degree (Exchange Student) Computer Science, Non-Degree (Exchange Student) Computer Science at National Taiwan UniversityBachelor of Computer Science, Bachelor of Computer Science at University of Waterloo
Arabic, English, German
Stackoverflow
245reputation
17kreached
4answers
3questions
Github Skills (24)
internet-computer10
back-end-development10
apidoc10
user-authentication10
bitcoin10
authentication10
bitcoins10
api10
cryptography10
blockchain10
ca10
rust10
chain9
icx9
unit-testing8
Programming languages (16)
Github contributions (5)
dfinity/ic
Dec 2021 - Jan 2023
Internet Computer blockchain source: the client/replica software run by nodes
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:15 reviews, 185 commits, 2 branches in 1 year 1 month
Contributions summary:Islam's commits primarily involve implementing components for the Bitcoin integration, including a Bitcoin payload builder and the addition of internal and external endpoints for the management canister to interact with the Bitcoin network. The user introduced a `BitcoinStateBits` structure to prepare for future state migration and updated error handling for several endpoints. Moreover, they have been refactoring types and adding essential features such as pagination and test support, aligning the codebase with the project's overall goals.
replicablockchainnodesdfinityinternet
dfinity/examples
Jul 2022 - Jan 2023
Example applications, microservices, and code samples for the Internet Computer
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:16 reviews, 60 commits, 19 PRs in 6 months
Contributions summary:Islam primarily contributed to the development of a basic Bitcoin wallet and associated APIs within the context of the Internet Computer (IC) blockchain. Their work involved implementing core functionalities such as building, signing, and sending Bitcoin transactions. The user also refactored the code, added fee-related functionalities, and made the network configurable for the Bitcoin API.
dfinitymicroservicesinternetinternet-computermicroservice
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