Digital Catapult at Dubai Future Blockchain Summit 2019
The first of a two-part discussion of the current state of blockchain in 2019. The second part can be found here.
Just over a week ago (1st April 2019) I was winging my way over to Dubai to represent Digital Catapult at Dubai’s prestigious Future Blockchain Summit 2019. It was an eye-opening event in many ways, and a useful marker in the sand for the state of the current global blockchain conversation.
This is the second year that Dubai has hosted its Future Blockchain Summit, running alongside the slightly older IOTX and GISEC conferences which focus on IoT and cybersecurity, respectively. With 10,000 attendees, 150 speakers and 50+ exhibitors, it will likely be one of the larger blockchain-specific events of 2019, but smaller than GITEX - Dubai’s much longer-running annual technology trade show which will also feature a blockchain track.
The 2-day event (April 2nd-3rd) was divided between a number of feature tracks in GovTech, healthcare, gaming, tourism, finance, energy, and real estate in the leet-speak-inspired PRI3M, K3Y, FUNC7ION, and S3CR3T stages and the educational CONTENT LAB.
Positive Moves
Dubai World Trade Centre puts on a great show with everything you’d expect from a professional global stage, particularly because the small nation has the goal of being the world’s first ‘Blockchain City’ by next year!
The most eye-opening aspect was the high level of government involvement at the event, including the Director General and CEO of Smart Dubai, the Catalonian Minister of Digital, the CTO of Estonia, the Senior Technology Advisor for the Maltese Government, the Land and Forestry Commission of Ghana, the CIOs of Palo Alto and Carlsbas, San Diego, the Foreign Affairs Officer of the US Department of State, the Director of the World Food Programme, and the Co-Chair of Blockchain for Impact at the UN.
This was to me an outward sign that blockchain is growing up. Many of the government presenters were making the right noises about use cases, public good, and progress on their proofs-of-concept.
There were equally prestigious representatives from large corporations such as du, Coca-Cola, SAP, HTC, Tencent and FedEx, each adding their voices to the mix and demonstrating that this technology is still at the forefront of many industries’ plans to improve their supply chains, trust in their products, and reduce the costs of doing trade.
Finally, the intensive educational sessions taking place in the CONTENT LAB throughout the conference in both English and Arabic were extremely well received. These sessions were constantly full, and many of the speakers were exploring topics beyond the basic mechanics of blockchain into areas such as future business models or regulations.
Selected Examples
Two sessions which stood out for me were the panel discussion on forced labour, and the achievements to-date of the ICO-funded Winding Tree.
Forced Labour
Taking place on the main conference stage and attended by at least 1,000 listeners in the room, this was a full and frank panel discussion between Coca-Cola’s Global Head of Workplace Rights and the US Department of State’s Foreign Affairs Officer, chaired by CNN Money’s Business & Technology Correspondent.
Choosing to address this important topic in the city-state of Dubai made this even more relevant. Dubai is no stranger to controversies around the rights and conditions of its millions of migrant workers, particularly those serving its booming construction sector. Problems are known to include bait-and-switch practices around contracts, withholding pay, and providing substandard working and living conditions.
The panel didn’t hesitate to address these head-on. The picture they painted of a future Dubai where pre-hire contractual terms were validated and subsequently enforced through blockchain technology to directly improve the conditions of the lowest-paid workers was refreshing.
Winding Tree
This panel session was the first real-world insight into the potential benefits of cross-industry collaboration. Whereas many others at the conference were interested in the potential or future of blockchain-based systems, Winding Tree (in whom I have no financial interest btw) are out there doing it.
Over the past year, Winding Tree have created an open platform on Ethereum mainnet which allows airline and hotel groups to advertise available inventory. Their goal is to improve the back-office functionality in the travel industry and remove intermediaries who hike up prices on bundles (among other things), disadvantaging the end consumer.
Most importantly, they’ve managed to garner the trust and involvement of multiple large industry participants to date — Air France/KLM, Lufthansa, Nordic Choice Hotels, and Airport Hotel Basel.
They are definitely on my list to watch over 2019 (and don’t be silly — this is obviously not investment advice).
Digital Catapult’s Involvement
I was not at the conference merely to watch, but also to participate. I hosted two panel sessions — one in pharmaceutical logistics and one in gaming.
Pharmaceutical Logistics
This panel session was part of the larger healthcare track running throughout the event. I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Emmanuel Fombu, the Global Commercial Strategy and Innovation Leader at Johnson & Johnson, and Jose Francisco Fernandez, the Director of IoT & Blockchain Solutions at du (the UAE’s largest integrated telecommunications company).
The session explored the role of du as a telecoms company in blockchain, and the interests of J&J for using blockchain to improve the pharmaceutical supply chain. Jose eloquently explained the intention of du to provide blockchain as a neutral enterprise-level service across all industry within Dubai, and pharmaceuticals and healthcare were going to be a large part of this future. du’s offering is currently under development but anticipated to launch later in 2019. Dr. Fombu brought home the business realities of blockchain’s potential to solve shared pains between multiple pharmaceutical companies by ensuring regional pricing and safe logistics chains.
Both parties expressed their openness to collaboration— one of the key tenets of blockchain — and invited connections from the audience, who nearly swamped them after the session ended.
Blockchain and the Gaming Industry
My second panel session took place in the very last slot of the conference, which allowed us to run over by more than 30 minutes with a very involved audience Q&A.
I was joined on stage by 3 very accomplished players from the old and new gaming industry— Nolan Bushnell, the Founder of Atari (and therefore the spiritual grandfather to rest of the video gaming industry); James Mayo, a veteran of Nintendo and Microsoft (amongst others) and now Founder and CEO of 8 Circuit Studios; and Julien Bouteloup, an early blockchain enthusiast who has built multiple businesses in the space and is the CTO of the British Blockchain Association.
Over 40 minutes we explored the potential of blockchain to secure the resale potential of games, the uniqueness of in-game items, the creation of a new class of investment assets based upon games or gaming items, and what the next steps are likely to be in the blockchain gaming industry (including regulations on tokenisation).
The audience session included questions from a representative of Ubisoft who asked what it means to ‘own’ an in-game item and how blockchain could enable inter-game interoperability. Other audience members asked questions on the future use of blockchain in gambling, leading Nolan to relate his current involvement in a project to have the Nevada Gaming Commission permit virtual horse racing based upon a cryptokitties-like system.
An exciting future indeed.
In Summary
This two-day event was a fast-paced race through multiple aspects of the current state of blockchain in government and industry. The collection of speakers and representatives was excellent, and a number of the sessions were genuinely interesting with something new to say.
However, blockchain still faces an uphill struggle during the rest of 2019 and beyond before it is likely to be widely adopted by traditional industrial sectors — the focus of my second post here.
