Sophia the Robot, Rise Conference 2018, Genaro Network’s Serendipitous Flow.
Today I woke up in HK. I’m here for Rise Conference 2018 on behalf of GNX, and the city is noisy, dynamic and humid as ever. Hong Kong is a difficult city comfort wise. I felt like I was in and out of the dragon’s mouth, constantly being blown at by icy fridges, and periodically water boarded by dysfunctional ACs from all the buildings. Then, there’s the daily inevitable thunderstorm, which traps everyone under dirty awnings of the narrow pedestrian walkways. Coffee and food are pretty decent in this city though.
My hotel room is the size of my bathroom in Shanghai, and getting into my room through the hallways can make anyone feel like a hamster crawling through a tube.
Rise has set everything things up well. Our registration opened at 12pm and we had to download their App, which connected me directly to people like Carrie Lam CEO of HK, Brad Smith President of Microsoft, Sean Rad Founder of Tender, and Sophia the Robot. Yes, Sophia the Robot.
Serendipitously, I bumped into my buddy JT Singh in a Wan Chai café who happened to be staying with a few friends of ours who were also the caretakers of Sophia the Robot.
After a quick dinner, I ended up at the Night Summit at Staunton’s Wine Bar and Cafe, packed with VCs, Blockchain geeks, AI builders, ICO traders, and some professor friends I had met from previous Consciousness Festivals. One of them built a Meditation Dome in Hong Kong Polytechnic University, which I must visit tomorrow!
The world is quite small.
I had a great conversation with Kenny Liu, who is working on a Blockchain city project, planning to anchor somewhere in China. I’m quite intrigued by tech adoption, as it had circled in my head for quite some time in regards to new Blockchain projects. Both China and America has a habit of testing new concepts in small pockets of society first before unleashing them into the general public. American businesses like Walmart, KFC, and Chinese businesses like Coco, or those small pancake stands were all tested initially on 2nd tier city population before going ubiquitous in 1st tier cities across the country.
Through conversation, I learned there were some large-scale AI projects being built in Chengdu, where this city of 4 million people will ultimately enjoy the benefits of an automated society. My hunch is, when this becomes successful, or happily adopted, it will then be quickly implemented in cities like Shanghai, Beijing, and Shenzhen.
Blockchain should work the same way. Governments across the board are trying to regulate such technological advances in fear of mismanagement. I believe testing it out in small confined places, maybe Guizhou, Yunnan, or Hangzhou to start would be key. If we successfully run a city on Blockchain, having the technology penetrate all sectors of society, then maybe overall adoption would not be so mind-boggling. It would set an example of how Blockchain should exist within a society.
I really look forward to speaking more with Kenny tomorrow on this matter. I proposed that Genaro Network’s MainNet can be the primary chain for such an ambitious project, since we have storage built into the chain already. This may be the puzzle that fits their needs.
JT Singh also mind jammed about the adoption of plant-based diets, and maybe this Blockchain city can have all plant-based diet supply chain built into the infrastructure.