Hart Lambur was born in Edmonton, Alberta. Hart holds multiple roles within the decentralized finance industry. He is one of the Co-Founders of Risk Labs, which provides support to both UMA and Across protocols and an investor at Robot Ventures. UMA is an optimistic oracle that enables the provision and verification of diverse on-chain data. Meanwhile, Across is a decentralized and cost-effective cross-chain bridge that achieves near-instant transactions, secured by UMA's optimistic oracle.

Early Life and Education.

Hart completed his education at Upper Canada College in 2001 before being accepted into Columbia University later that same year. He pursued a degree in Computer Science and successfully graduated in May 2005 with a remarkable academic achievement, Magna Cum Laude, in Computer Science (B.Sc.). During his time at Columbia University, Hart received recognition for his accomplishments by winning the prestigious Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honors award.

Career
Goldman Sachs
Hart Lambur embarked on his professional journey during the summer of 2004 when he took up a position as a Java programmer in the Market Risk Technology team at Goldman Sachs while pursuing his studies at Columbia University in New York City. Concurrently, he also worked as a teaching assistant in the Computer Science Department at Columbia University and later served as a Research Assistant at the Columbia Robotics Laboratory. Following his graduation, Hart joined Goldman Sachs in June 2005, where he held various roles across different departments for nearly 8 years. It was during his time at Goldman Sachs that he crossed paths with Allison Lu, who co-founded UMA. Allison had previously worked as a vice-president at Goldman Sachs, while Hart served as a government bond trader. At Goldman Sachs, Hart specialized in trading interest rate products and was actively involved in enhancing the firm's electronic bond trading capabilities.

Openfolio
In December 2014, Hart Lambur established Openfolio, a platform dedicated to personal finance tracking, with the goal of fostering openness and transparency in the realm of personal investing. Openfolio achieved this by leveraging the collective data insights of numerous investors, enabling them to make more informed financial decisions. Subsequently,
in June 2007, Stone Ridge Asset Management successfully acquired Openfolio, further strengthening its position in the industry.

Risk Labs
Hart Lambur took the initiative to establish the Risk Labs Foundation in March 2018, serving as the headquarters for UMA, a decentralized platform facilitating financial contracts. UMA's primary objective is to provide Universal Market Access, enabling individuals from all backgrounds to participate in the financial market. Risk Labs serves as the foundation and primary team driving the development of the Across and UMA Protocols.

UMA
UMA is a decentralized platform for financial contracts that aims to provide universal market access by utilizing the Ethereum blockchain. It was introduced in December 2018. UMA enables users to design and implement automated financial contracts that are secure due to economic incentives, running them on the Ethereum blockchain. It allows for the digitalization and automation of various real-world financial derivatives, including futures, contracts for differences (CFDs), and total return swaps. Additionally, UMA facilitates the creation of derivative contracts based on digital assets such as cryptocurrencies. The platform develops open-source infrastructure for invaluable financial contract templates used to generate synthetic tokens. It also offers a decentralized oracle service called the Optimistic Oracle, which manages and enforces contracts on UMA while assisting in dispute resolution.
Opistimsitic Oracle (OO)
Oracles play a critical role in the infrastructure of blockchain technology by facilitating secure and trustless communication between the external world and on-chain environments. They are essential components for various sectors within the blockchain industry, including decentralized finance (DeFi) and Web3 applications.
UMA's optimistic oracle operates on a "true unless disputed" principle, with a tokenholder vote acting as the means to resolve any disagreements. In this system, anyone can propose a response to a data request, and it is considered true unless disputed during a designated verification period. Unlike price-feed oracles that provide instant and on-chain price updates, the optimistic design approach allows for the involvement of human intelligence.
The concept of an optimistic oracle has been under development since 2014, with Vitalik's initial publication on the subject. Over the years, there have been several iterations and improvements to this design. The optimistic pattern introduces the opportunity for human judgment, which is crucial for Web3 projects that require handling arbitrary data that cannot always be converted into code.
Presently, the optimistic oracle offers adaptable and distinctive dispute resolution mechanisms that encompass a wide range of questions and data types, setting it apart from price feed oracles that primarily focus on regular price updates on the blockchian.^[1]