every now and then a truly stellar new
technology emerges and it always takes
us to places we've never imagined we saw
this with the combustion engine the
telephone computers and of course the
internet and now another of these
breakthroughs is about to boldly
transform us and that is blockchain
technology just imagine a software
engineer in Tanzania working for a
company in Canada the company's payments
are first placed in escrow by a
blockchain resident smart contract quite
simply a contract that can be read and
executed by machines
once our software engineer submits their
final product this smart contract gets
to work given agreed inputs does it
produce the required outputs is it
bite-sized enough for consumer-friendly
download was it delivered on time only
upon the passing of these machine run
tests does the smart contract itself
release payment to the engineers digital
wallet and our software engineer doesn't
even have a bank account neither party
can gain this system because the smart
contracts pre-agreed terms are now
incorruptible by humans the software
engineer is empowered to participate in
the global economy in a fair and
frictionless way while a company has
unearthed entirely new ways of doing
business sourcing new suppliers and
automating Quality Assurance an either
party is subjected to the layers of fees
that we typically associate with
cross-border payments so they both
improve their margins imagine your son
or daughter rocking up to a nightclub
and proving their elegy
to enter simply by using their
thumbprint and a mobile device without
disclosing their date of birth or any
personally identifying information
reclaiming complete control over their
identity imagine a world where assets
are tracked from their origin all the
way through a supply chain certifying
provenance in irrefutable ways so a
manufacturer can demonstrate that the
minerals comprising the panel's it fits
to a commercial airliner was certified
as high-grade and that they were
procured from a supplier with an
impeccable safety record that also
respects human rights perhaps we could
out slavery enough and so publicly
expose those who prosper from it that we
can truly affect consumer purchasing
behavior and how good is that but
understanding how we get there really is
best understood by first understanding
how we arrived here for thousands of
years we simply wrote things down or
etched them in stone many of us here can
likely still remember bank tellers
penning entries in their past books not
that long ago but the 20th century's
explosion in computing power has created
an explosion in the digitization of data
and processing with much of this now
residing within the digital world
gardens of large organizations for a
while this works pretty well computers
started printing entries in pass books
and by removing people from the process
we tuned into the benefits of automation
and self-service but things became far
more complex very quickly with the
introduction of new channels like
contact centers ATMs voice recognition
services the problem was that these
systems didn't come ready integrated and
so we witnessed another explosion in
data silos within organization
leading to data inconsistencies a whole
lot of service issues and ultimately
fraud
so point-to-point periodic data
transfers between these silos were soon
superseded by database replication where
a centralized brain ensured that all
changes to all data was synchronized
globally within milliseconds but this
was now world where large collections of
data and processing could deliver
disproportionate returns in the blink of
an eye
so if a government defaulted on its
bonds these could be dumped almost
instantaneously globally across every
portfolio holding and before just about
every individual investor ever learned
that a default had occurred but it's not
just the bank's telcos internet search
providers and now social networks
virtually every large organization on
the planet now has assets just like
these another side effect of these
concentrations of power is that you and
I are increasingly reliant upon these
walled gardeners to interact with one
another in virtually every digital way
to exchange money emails photographs
posts leaving us with little practical
option but to trust these intermediaries
but skepticism in organisations
competencies and motivations is at an
all-time high
subprime Panama data breaches data
surveillance it's little wonder that
trickle down trust just isn't cutting it
walled gardens are closed but block
chains are open so what if we tore down
some walls decentralized things
and evolved a new way to exist
you see block chains are ultimately
about bringing the world closer together
breaking down barriers to entry
commoditizing trust just as the internet
commoditized communications
interoperability is built in from the
ground up creating an entirely new layer
of interaction for the whole world
so people with no particular knowledge
of one another can interact with
confidence and without relying upon a
trusted third party to do so so how does
a blockchain do this while in real life
elements of human frailty infect our
ability to honor agreements a blockchain
uses vast networks of independent
computers that verify one another's
actions by consensus and if public
enough with enough participants a
blockchain is extraordinarily secure and
virtually impenetrable indestructible
also and with the data and logic inside
a blockchain universally shared we also
gain complete transparency and this is a
very big deal we can store money tokens
assets of all kinds inside a blockchain
and use them it allows for an economy
between machines a settlement layer for
asset transfers and all kinds of things
we haven't even begun to imagine
blockchain may soon underpin the next
real revolution of the information age
but while the potential benefits of
blockchain are undoubtedly immense in
the short term medium term there will be
some maturing and possibly some pain
current implementations of blockchain
Bitcoin and aetherium do not quite meet
the performance and scale requirement
of some of the applications we've been
talking about the thing is that the
computer science of consensus platforms
is not yet fully understood and it will
take further research and some trial
narrow to get there but that trial
narrow is a little scary because there
is already substantial value at risk
blockchain technology has a steep
learning curve and the applications that
run on it will take some time to develop
let alone the fact that we're talking
about rewiring organizations that
support tens of thousands of jobs in
departments and divisions some of which
won't be required that's a huge task
this technology forces entirely new ways
of interacting and doing business in
order to shape this future you need to
participate those organizations that
learn how to play in more open and
collaborative ecosystems will survive
and thrive
those that don't probably won't this is
a period in technological history during
which you cannot stick your head in the
sand blockchain is real it's happening
and as the world Tunes in to it the
prospect for so many to gain access to
so much will just be too big and too
meaningful for them not to use it the
world is shifting from closed to open
systems there has never been a more
promising and direct linkage between
technology economic growth and societal
well-being everybody can win it might
just be our values that determine who we
all really are and what kind of world we
leave to future generations and how good
is it
that blockchain can encode these values
and arbitrate on their behalf this is
something that you and we can make
happen and prosper from all together
are you a maker or a taker are you with
the open or the closed I say we all
boldly transform together thank you