The Cavern With Video Surveillance
This is Episode 19 of The French Tech Comedy Season 2.
Episode 18: Made-In-Blockchain Press
Previously in The French Tech Comedy: In Season 2 of The French Tech Comedy, we follow characters like Japanese oncologist and bioinformatics engineer Takafumi Nagato, who is leading the lab of Bioinformatics for personalised CAR-T-therapies in a Tokyo clinic, and his patient, Chinese giant TenBa’s founder Ken Ba, a zillionaire from Shanghai. Yuki, Taka’s sister, is a French-speaking geisha, meaning “artist” in Japanese, in touch with the French Tech. She just got married to a French engineer who was working in Taka’s lab, Nono, and has secretly donated her healthy T-cells to Taka’s patient who, after his second cancer relapse, decided to try an innovative treatment called “liquid biopsy”. Indeed, Ba is becoming an expert in genomic precision medicine. In his case it is a matter of life or death. Among Yuki’s friends in the French Tech branch is Frederic Mougin, a biologist, founder of the startup Gene-i-us:
“We are developing a patient-centric tool for patients to collect, share & monetize their medical, genomics, lifestyle, IoT data with academics & pharma industry.”
Yuki had promised she would introduce Mougin to people working with Facebook Singapore; among them: Nono. What biz plan can Gene-i-usimplement, in order to work with Facebook? Mougin is using a lot of buzz words, but when it turns out Ba’s cancer mutation has entered the stock exchange market, thanks to the efforts of a pharmaceutical company, his oncologist, Taka, fears a Ba Gate. More than ever, the privacy of genetic data is instrumental in the process of developing precision medicine. Singapore is the Chinese Mecca of I.P. and patents. A cryptocurrency, that is seen by financial specialists as a security, is used as a way to reward (healthy and sick) patients in exchange of their DNA data. Yuki is wondering if this kind of money will revolutionise the whole financial and pharmaceutical market as we know it, or will all digital currencies end up behaving like any other tradable financial asset? After all, a security is a tradable financial asset. Ba, Taka’s cancer patient, is trying to gain insight into the situation… While spending a few days in Malaysia both for business and vacation, TenBa’s founder gets to meet with a total stranger who in fact he only knows too well: Simone, Malaysian Chinese actress Michelle Yeoh’s niece. Between Ba and Simone, things are complicated. But it is only the beginning… Simone is trying to make an algorithmic cryptocurrency that could mimmic biological processes within the human body. Meanwhile, Manga artist Koba writes about the blurring frontier between curing and enhancing in the genomic precision medicine era, and the consequences in society. At school, Simone needs to present her Science Fair project alone. Overanxious auntie Michellehad bribed a student from Simone’s class. She wanted her niece’s science fair presentation to be filmed, live. A few days later, she sent a link to a video to a friend of hers, Chinese giant TenBa’s founder Ken Ba, a zillionaire from Shanghai. She’d compiled a 10 minutes extract for him to see, and a question:
“ — What do you think?” Ba said the video was very interesting and offered to have lunch in Ipoh, Michelle’s home town, next weekend, and discuss things. Simone, meanwhile, is stuck in Bangkok, where Ba has sent her a T-shirt as a thank-you gift, she’s not sure why. Also, as a hacker having served time in a Beijing prison, she is suffering from post-traumatic stress. In Singapore, rockstar US physician Tamir Subramanian is a keynote speaker at Facebook’s “The Patient Will See You Now” Breakfast. In the conference room nearby, a Facebook Open Day Q&A session for students from local high schools has just started. Simone is attending, she gets to meet with Nono, who ends up inviting her for lunch at the famous Facebook cafeteria. How to program a digital currency with its own blockchain, taking advantage (or mimicking) the underpinnings of the biological mechanisms of epigenetics? Simone, Nono and Yuki are trying to reflect on this. Yuki and Simone end up talking about reincarnation and video games, while shopping at Daiso, in Suntec City mall, Singapore. Close nearby is South Beach Tower, with the Facebook company at level 22. Rockstar US physician Tamir Subramanian, editor in chief of the Transversal J Med, is interviewing Geronimo Faber PhD, who is spearheading the global crusade to defeat ageing. Nono is watching the one-on-one interview, a video that was just posted on the Transversal Journal of Medicine’s website. The whole thing is boring, and Faber still needs money. Nono revamps the boring video, writing a new episode for the Japanese Manga Saint Oniisan (Saint Young Men), in French: Les Vacances de Jésus et Bouddha (Jesus and Buddha On Vacation). He is almost done, when he gets a call from the Big Boss… Zuck wants his platform to revolutionise healthcare. Koba the manga artist is writing the story of Pierre, an “augmented” patient. The manga book, for US rockstar physician Sub, is called: The Augmented Patient Will See You Now. French actor Jean Reno gets to read François Mueller’s book: The Tsunami of Digital in Medicine. Bad timing, though, as French actor Reno is not happy with medicine and the health care system at the moment… “ — Digital tsunami in medicine, really? I’m waiting???”, he thought. Meanwhile, Simone and Yuki are talking about education and school, and music, discovering the Yin-Yang of friendship. Anti-ageing activist and scientist Geronimo Faber PhD finally gets substantial funding for his labs, but in return he must offer something… Time goes by… We hear about Simone again, but this time, we discover a new woman; not the teenage hacker with a borderline personality, brilliant, but making people worry about her. Simone is back with a bang, or to be more accurate, a made-in-blockchain press project, and she gets to meet with Ba again, at last. And as the geek saying goes, you never play the same dungeon twice… Simone gets to prove that her business plan is scalable, and she gets TenBa’s attention. Meanwhile, Yuki gets some unwanted attention. US rockstar physician Sub is all ears when she interviews French biologist Mougin, about his startup Gene-i-us. Her YouTube channel A Geisha lost between two worlds attracts job and sponsor offers that she is not sure she wants to get. Sub wants her to do some made-in-the-US genomic entertainment. But Yuki loves la chanson française and she is up to something in Singapore, with Nono’s complicity…
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Simone wasn’t sure how Ba would react. She had created and used so many pseudos, so many virtual identities on social networks. This was illegal. But it was for the good cause. She had used them to assess and evaluate technical and scientific press articles, and see if she could get evaluations in return, from the readers. In the course of over one year, she had been able to evaluate over 130,000 press articles in genomics and computer coding, and had learned a great deal while doing so. The NY Institute of Tech was already using the blockchain to validate digital diplomas for the students, and was looking to use the blockchain to incentivise students who were good at assessing press articles. Some profs at this tech institute, one of the bests worldwide, said the evaluation model using the blockchain would revolutionise the way students would learn and earn themselves their diplomas, and also the way instructors would teach. They were looking for the proper way to implement this, with the right technique, and of course the right model. Simone was able to demo her own model during the master class “Made-in-blockchain press” in TenBa offices in Shenzhen, and this had gotten the attention of the pedagogy dream-team of the NY Institute of Tech, looking for some disruptive ways to teach and evaluate their students. Of course, nobody liked the way Simone had to hack her way into this, using myriads of false identities… But again, this was Simone. There was the bright side, and a darker one… Ba seemed to be attracted to both, and this soon became material for gossip inside of the TenBa company. The only one who was looking with indulgent eyes on this love story was Ba’s Japanese oncologist, Taka. A big morale booster for his cancer patient. What’s not to like? Meanwhile, somebody else could use a big morale booster. It was French biologist Mougin. Your DNA & medical data on your smartphone. Browse it on iTunes, own it & monetise it. He was still looking for some money to support his project. Your body, your data. This was US rockstar physician Sub’s mantra as well. To little avail, so far. The GAFAM and BATX (tech giants in the Western and oriental world) were the true owners of people’s data, and so was conventional medicine, and the pharmaceutical industry, and academia, for people’s medical and health data. Mougin’s business model would only work if people were in charge of their data…
Yuki decides to interview her French friend about his startup Gene-i-us. After all, she still has her YouTube channel, A Geisha lost between two worlds. Nono had told her she still needed to post videos, carry on with her reflections about people taking charge of their own health.
Mougin looks downright distressed and unhappy. Yuki asks him why his project hasn’t panned out so well, at least so far. Is it too early? Is it the wrong business model?
Mougin blames it on Facebook and other tech giants, who are too greedy, and are stealing people’s data. He says that there is no way that he is going to stay in France with his direct-to-consumer genetics project, since only very few startups in France were successful and bought by French companies. The small handful of successful startups were bought by US or Chinese investors. So he had decided a long time ago that he would go and live in California.
“ — I’m not sure. Is your business plan based around staying in California, or around developing direct-to-consumer genetics?”
“ — Of course I want my startup to be successful. But I also want people to own their data. And I don’t want them to be paid by some bogus money thing in exchange of their data. Do you know how much your body parts are worth?”
“ — Don’t you want to give your customers the power to sell their DNA data on the blockchain?”
“ — I just want my customers to get real money in exchange of their data.” He sounded tired and distressed.
Yuki looked at Mougin. He was all about how great life in California was, cool music and artists, great people. The American dream. He sounded like he was the happiest and luckiest gold digger on earth. Sea, sex and sun… But he looked so stressed out, exhausted and miserable. Was he even aware of the contrast between his speech and the image he was portraying to the public? By the look of it, Mougin looked like the unhappiest gold digger on earth. The Japanese geisha was not a great fan of social networks, especially the ones that were made-in-the-US. So many scholars and scientists from academia, and health care activists, and other people, all angry, all posting apoplectic tweets, so sure they were right, they knew The Truth, the ins-and-outs of everything. Yankees and their whacky geopolitical representation of the world. There was simply the US, and the rest of the world. Yuki preferred to stay away from the eye of the tornado. Facebook, the National Rifle Association, etc. She was better off composing music in Singapore and giving and taking yoga classes. In Singapore, there were no guns in classrooms. At least, not yet.
“ — While doing yoga, I’m trying to think about things,” said Yuki:
“ — The whole of Internet revolves around the business model of commercials. Facebook, twitter, Google, etc. All of them. The GAFAM, the BATX, as you call them. It’s like Facebook is a gigantic dormitory, with no doors, and shared shower rooms and toilets. It is free, you don’t have to pay to stay in. Now, the whole dormitory business is run by an advertising agency. Does this look like the American Dream to you?”, she asked.
“ — No, of course not. Nobody would want to live like that,” said Mougin. He paused, then added:
“ — At least, I can speak for myself. I wouldn’t like it.”
“ — Neither would I,” said Yuki. They both laughed.
The Japanese geisha went on:
“ — There is no privacy in this dormitory. No private homes. Video surveillance and video monitoring everywhere. The devices belong to ad agencies, they are able to sell our deeds and actions, all the slightest details of our daily lives.” She paused, then added:
“ — In the real world, we live in the civilised world. Especially here, in Singapore. No hurricanes, no pain, no suffering, no poverty, no cold, no snowstorms, it’s like the country is not for real. But when it comes to the Internet, we are primitive cave-dwellers. We all live in the cave age. Which makes you, Mougin san, one of the great thinkers of the caverns. Because what you are saying, basically, is that we need to make it past our cave dwelling stage. We need to construct safe and secure villages. Building and sustaining our villages: our next challenge, according to you. Did I get your message right?”
Mougin thought for a while.
“ — Well, I’ve never thought of it this way, but… I suppose, in a nutshell, you could say this.”
“ — You guys on Facebook, Twitter etc. always say it’s going to take a village to change things: gun and health care crisis etc. But we haven’t even built those villages yet. In the digital world, we are still prehistoric people. It’s like you are mistaking caves for villages.”
Only a few people had watched episode 32 of A Geisha Lost Between Two Worlds, on Yuki’s YouTube channel, with the recorded interview of Mougin by Yuki. Among the happy fews: Sub. A few days later, Yuki received a mail from Sub. She saw it only one month later, though, as she was barely using her mailbox. WhatsApp, WeChat, among other things, had replaced mails. For her, mails meant spam. She did not want to be spammed.
“ — Would you like to come to San Francisco? We have a job opening here, for genomic entertainment. It is a beautiful place, you will like it.”
Genomic entertainment. What was that? Yuki didn’t think she wanted to go to California. She hated cars, to start with. In Japan, and in Singapore, you can go everywhere by train. It’s cheap, convenient, convivial, easy. Huge roads and traffic jams, people with guns??! Plus, she loved la chanson française and was still struggling with American language and culture.
At l’Angelina tea salon in Singapore, she had met with great people. Singaporean businessmen, amateurs of French vintage culture. They wanted her to revamp classic titles from la chanson française, such as Gainsbourg’s Le poinçonneur des lilas, Dutronc’s Il est cinq heures Paris s’éveille, France Gall’s Poupée de Cire Poupée de Son. What would those artists write and sing if they were in their twenties or thirties today? She had sponsors to carry out the project here, in Singapore.
“ — So The French Tech is not a thing, but La Chanson Française is, eh?”, she thought. Strange world. Who could tell the data from the noise?…
She decided she liked the “vintage” project. Vintage is not something we, cave-dwellers, should be ashamed of.
Catherine Coste
MITx 7.00x, 7.QBWx, 7.28x1–2 certified
Teacher and Member of the Walking Gallery of Health Care, founded by US activist Regina Holliday
Table of Contents:
Episode 1 of Season 2: Your DNA Will See (and Mutate) Your Credit Card Now
Episode 2 of Season 2: The Bitcoin That Pulled the Double Helix Apart
Episode 3 of Season 2: Kabuki Theatre and Desktop Epigenetics
Episode 4 of Season 2: Tenjin and TenGene
Episode 5 of Season 2: TenGene, Gene-i-us and a thousand planets in between
Episode 6 of Season 2: The Re:Creators Fault Line and the Epigenetic of Worldwide Middle Class
Episode 7: The Methylation of Money
Episode 8: “Biology has gone digital. Time to learn about it.”
Episode 9: Year of The Earth Dog
Episode 10: (Zebra-) Crossing The Rubicon
Episode 11: The Chinese Student Will See You Now
Episode 12: The 11th Commandment(s)
Episode 13: Holy Trinity: Jesus, Buddha, Selfie
Episode 14: Salambô’s Python (coding)
Episode 15: “ — Digital tsunami in medicine? I’m waiting???”
Episode 16: Baroque Algorithm For Four Hands
Episode 17: Ikigami, Ikigai and everything in between
For Season 1 of The French Tech Comedy (all episodes), see here.
