Primalbase Triumvirate — Infrastructure, Technology, Community — and Plans for 2019
Primalbase has proven time and again that it is a physical embodiment of three equally indispensable elements. These are an accessible infrastructure, customer-centric and easy-to-use technology, and an open-minded community of tech-inspired talents with a special focus on researchers and developers.
Infrastructure
From an infrastructure point of view, Primalbase is a global network of collaborative workspaces for companies and talents whose work centres around new technologies. Located in the world’s most acclaimed tech hubs, Primalbase offers flexible solutions and creates environments for productivity, innovation and connection.
Milestones of 2018: This year, London was added to the set of Primalbase offices, following launches last year in Amsterdam and Berlin. It was an important step for the project. We worked extremely hard on this one, having to deal with a particularly challenging real estate deal. The location in the City of London was the only one we wanted to consider. The City is where we need to be. It is changing fast and is welcoming — in addition to bankers and lawyers — more and more people whose interest lies in the field of new technologies. Today, it is not only the confluence of finance and law experimenting with tech. It is now the home of companies offering specialised services for tech businesses.
This is right place for us. We will be there, we will be an active participant in the metamorphosis of the City. London is now the largest Primalbase space and is, in many ways, the most important centre. Next up are New York and Singapore. Good progress has been made there, and we will soon see results.
Plans for 2019: There will be definitely be offices in New York and Singapore, as well as other new cities. The global network of Primalbase workspaces will grow. The project is not limited to only the five originally announced locations. In addition, the existing infrastructure will continue to develop, which is important. We will see a large number of tenants and teams that will actively use it.
Technology
Technology is at the core of Primalbase — it is the basis and core tenet of the project. As I wrote in December last year, 2017 was all about cryptocurrencies as a major driver of interest in blockchain. 2018 was the year in which blockchain started to be perceived as an interesting, applicable technology with a future in many areas, such as finance, public services, software development, information infrastructure, enterprise, etc. These are very positive developments, a progressive movement, the full potential of which has not yet been realised. So, development in this direction will continue and we will have many projects and initiatives related to it. Primalbase will continue actively participating in these changes.
Milestones of 2018: This year, we developed a gateway between Waves and Ethereum. This is as important as it is convenient, because these are the two main communities and the top two most convenient blockchain systems that people actually utilise. It is important for us to be close to our customers, so we made this tool available to Primalbase users.
In addition, we completed the development and release of the booking and leasing platform. It is based on complex development work that allowed us to fully implement the concept that we laid out. The platform allows our users to lease their digital membership to those who want to use Primalbase workspaces.
We are very proud of this — no one else working on blockchain application projects has ever achieved it before at such a level. It was designed very carefully from the point of view of the product and its users. The main job of blockchain developers is to bring the product to the user and to make it convenient; extra steps complicate the mechanism and distance the product from the user. In the case of the leasing platform, it was possible to provide convenience and function. It was an extensive and very serious project.
Plans for 2019: There is now a very clear development roadmap available on the Primalbase website. By following the roadmap, you will see a number of improvements, as well as new features to be added. The roadmap has been designed in such a way that it can collect feedback and suggestions and make it easy to track all the features that will be implemented. Anyone can offer to implement their own ideas.
The Primalbase voting feature will definitely be implemented in 2019. This will be the year in which it becomes necessary, because new locations will be offered and therefore a tool is needed to select them. The voting feature will be operational by the time the proposal for the selection of new Primalbase workspaces is made.
Community
We have watched as the technological community carries out in-depth research into new technologies and works hard on their implementation. An important factor here has been the emergence of PhD students in relevant fields, as well as scientific schools that are actively engaged in their progress. This new generation of students will be the main driver of change and breakthroughs in these emerging technologies.
Milestones of 2018: This year Primalbase, which was intended for the scientific community as well the tech community, hosted a number of events on scientific topics aimed at exactly these people — PhD students and Postdocs. There was the ‘Master Workshops’ series, which has become one of the most visible events in the blockchain research space in Europe.
There were tech conferences for the wider public. There were numerous lectures and meetups with key researchers in the field. Primalbase will always remain a home for new technologies, an accommodating and convenient place for their research and development. To this end, we have progressed this year. We have seen good results, and the most pleasing thing is that people have responded well — it looks as if this is what people have needed. It is not imposed, rather it develops naturally, and it is very interesting to observe and act as a facilitator behind this development. We see it in London, Amsterdam and Berlin, and we will see it further afield going forward.
Plans for 2019: The community-building activities that were launched in 2018 will be developed further in 2019. After the infrastructure is ready and the technology is available, we will see a large growth in those who use it, stimulating the whole project. The number of users of the system will increase and this is a key point that will allow it to develop further. I’m talking about companies that will become permanent residents, Primalbase booking and leasing platform users, as well as events hosted by Primalbase with a focus on research and development.
Looking Ahead to 2019
The year 2019 will be the one that will see blockchain intersect with other new technologies in the area of data processing, storage and analysis. Blockchain will continue playing an important role but not the leading one. Complex systems cannot fully operate when only one of its constituent elements is developed without others keeping up.
The same is true for Primalbase and its triumvirate of infrastructure, technology and community. There will be a systematic movement along these three directions because this is the only way to create the final product, and perhaps this is the only thing that one can and should do.
