After we have been acquainted with the Core developers, it's time to see the brains and the idealists behind the IOTA. What goals did they set out and what have they achieved so far :)

I will be breaking the pattern here, and introducing you to one member and sourcing the best from a post around another topic, because I'm sure nobody saw they were hiring, I suppose my writing has to be more interesting to be worth your time :)

The Foundation Team

David A. Cohen

serial Software Entrepreneur  

Early in his career, David saw the connection between biologically-inspired networks and the future of our energy, transportation, and information networks. David was one of the first to apply Artificial Intelligence concepts such as machine learning and pattern recognition to energy applications.

David is currently the COO of ZipPower developing the Community System™ to enable smart energy networks for cities. He was named as one of the Top 100 Movers and Shakers in the SmartGrid by Greentech Media.

He seems to be looking forward to the techological future we can live in, solar farms, energy grids, smart everything, pushing the digital world into a overdrive, I'm quoting his quote on the IOTA project.

The Internet of Everything (IoE), covering everything from consumer devices to mission critical infrastructure (SmartGrids, Transportation, Finance, Industrial), part of what is known as the 4 th Industrial revolution can bring many societal benefits including a much needed evolution to a more sustainable society covering many areas (manufacturing, agriculture, energy, and transportation). The potential for this highly beneficial future is based on a few simple concepts. ... Full Story below

He looks like a forward thinking individual and I'm not sure where I've heard of the name, but it sounds familliar.

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I will also leave you with the start of 2017 we have a lot to catch up on with IOTA

A year in Review, Year in Preview

Indeed IOTA is the world’s first digital settlement system without any fees which now got over 3 million successful transactions in it.
.. attended numerous conferences to spread the vision of IOTA at different continents, developed several tools for developers and also on boarded and made partnerships with seminal thinkers and leading companies in the wide sectors that this new kind of distributed ledger can add value to.
2017 will be the year where IOTA is truly ‘launched’ and real world adoption via deployments start occurring. There are a lot of projects going on with companies that are now very close to being revealed, some dating back to 2015.
The successfully grassroots funded IOTA Foundation is under approval registration in Germany as an official non-profit Stiftung that will be responsible for developing and maintaining the core open source protocol of IOTA.

You can read up on the community they are trying to build, it seems to wish to include everybody: Entrepreneurs, Activists, Speculatiors, Developers. i'm leaving the entire quote on the General community to showcase how it's ammassed such interest, apart from all the talks they must have hosted.

General

While 90% of all current communication in the IOTA community takes place on the Slack, we also ought to establish more permanence and presence of discussions by engaging the forum and reddit. We have integrated the forum with the Slack so that every time someone makes a post in the forum the entire Slack can see it. I highly encourage everyone to participate in discussions on the forum so that newcommers will be able to read through it in an easy fashion and be inspired to join the project. Same goes for reddit. Reddit is still the most used website for most people?—?the frontpage of the internet?—?with undoubtedly the largest following of developers and crypto-enthusiasts on the internet, therefore having an active reddit is vital. It has served as the invaluable backbone of both Bitcoin and Ethereum, so as a community member take it upon yourself to establish www.reddit.com/r/IOTA as an active avenue for discussions around the technology and vision behind the project. Go out there and participate/host meet-ups based around IoT, distributed ledger and IOTA. This means YOU have the ability and responsibility to have a clear impact on the project itself, don’t be a bystander.

Happy 2017 :)

2017 is ripe for IOTA’s disruptive potential, but it will require engagement from everyone, so let’s achieve it together as a community.

Sources

https://blog.iota.org/welcome-david-a-cohen-to-the-iota-foundation-1d0c694e52bc
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*qj8HOKjs6ojqWQ7HYJQrAg.png
https://blog.iota.org/iota-year-in-review-year-in-preview-6de510696e02
https://blog.iota.org
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*HU2dsS4rrTa3feZ9a2qe-g.png

I suppose there is no need for questions or rewards, when nobody reads so I will reserve that for some other time, there are unclaimed rewards in the previous posts :)

^Cheers

@j3dy