We are banking on technology — WEF Davos 2019
This year there was no Eureka moment in Davos but there was a loud and clear narrative
We are banking on technology to solve our large-scale problems!
And guess what? This is a self-fluffing prophecy.
So let’s all get to work on experimenting, applying, pivoting technologies, to make the dream come true. It was clear from the themes of talks and panels that we are already spending time and resources on discussing how `Tech` will become reality and what will be the consequences and side effects. Artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, Robots, the future of Work, Blockchain, are the trending tags.
Event hoping during the WEF19
The Global Business Blockchain Council — GBBC, led by Sandro Ro who was appointed in March 2018 covered diverse topics. I arrived to go directly to the Procivis, Vetri event because the issue of self-sovereign identity is a building block towards a more decentralized globalization 4.0. The support from the regulator of the canton of Zurich and the presence of the prime minister of Bermuda were one of the highlights.
Watch this space. Later during the week, Joseph Lubin and Tom Lyons had a fireside chat at the infamous piano bar of Hotel Europe, organized by CryptomountainRocks special event during the WEF, and J. Lubin spoke extensively about uport.
Self-Sovereign Identity is the concept that people, businesses, and entities, can store their own identity data on their own devices, and provide it efficiently to those who need to validate it, without relying on a central repository of identity data and without leaving hackable copies all over the web.
This is really the core of the next generation Web. In a nutshell it means that Blockchain IDs are the way for individuals and any legal entity. These are universally discoverable through zero-trust data stores.
Self-sovereign identity is the chip for Democracy and Web 4.0
Having said this, I must point out that the anti-blockchain tribe (N. Roubini and more) continue to highlight that we have actually not seen any real use case of the hundreds of Dapps being developed. I also heard that in the crowd that attentively gathered to hear J. Lubin speak. Consensys has not managed yet to make one of its Dapps a solid business case. The Ethereum protocol on the other hand, in an exemplary decentralized fashion, got used for the next generation of crowdfunding. From a 35,000 feet point of view, this does qualify for the next iteration of a decentralized autonomous intiative, launching a business process that created value but also `polluted` capital markets. I can imagine, reviewing this decentralized autonomous collaboration, to see what worked and what didn’t.
I also attended the Women in Blockchain Switzerland panel, which won my heart as the most diverse panel. I walked away hugely inspired by Viola Llewellyn, the African co-Founder & President of the smallbiz Fintech Ovamba and Diana Grigoras. I am only highlighting these two amazing women, only because I know closely the work that Monique Morrow is involved in, Bill Tai (VC, athlete, educator), and Robin Errico Chief Risk Officer and Diversity & Inclusion Leader at Ernst & Young Ltd, Switzerland (EY), who also participated in the panel.
Viola is another woman that is successfully making an impact in the lives of the small businesses in Africa that don’t have a credit history and won’t be served by banks. She has combined Fintech with her local cultural knowledge to offer short-term capital to micro, small and medium sized businesses. The capital is provided by international investors from the US, U.K. and Japan. Ovamba covers Africa, emerging markets and the Middle east for trade, inventory purchases and growth. Already a 5yrs old Fintech, mobile only and first launched in Cameroon, it now links capital from overseas to businesses in the aforementioned markets. GLI Finance, the UK based alternative lending provider, and Crowdcredit, a Japanese cross border marketplace lending platform are amongst the international partners.
Communities are still being built with the vision and persistence of a strong leader. Women excel in building communities which is what we need for Globalization 4.0.
I visited the Ethereal Lounge and bumped into Don Tapscott who was excited to share more details about the large scale upcoming event in Toronto, Blockchain Revolution Global. A collaboration of the Blockchain Research Institute (BRI) and the MCI world; with a focus on enterprise level applications with a cross-industry selection. I also met for the first time Joe Lubin and chatted about a dear topic to me `liquidity` for digital assets (so many still confuse digitization with liquidity). He mentioned coven.vc, a new Consensys baby, in beta mode which the next generation for designing an open platform for vc investing.
Consensys did layoff people but the venture production continues.
Kaleido, a ConsenSys business was launched in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) this past summer. I heard about it from J. Lubin. It is a marketplace for enterprises to plug-and-play.
I spoke at Cryptomountain Rocks, after Daniel Diemers and Barbara Lang, on `A Wall Street take on Crypto`. I shared my strong point of view on how Wall Street will take advantage of the change in the narrative in the blockchain space from a pure `Disruption` rock band style to a `Co creating sustainable innovation` one.
What parts of the pie from the new digital assets, will Wall Street aim at and what will be left untouched for the cyberpunks.
Exclusion is where value is hidden and can be unlocked
Digitization is equivalent to transparency but not necessarily to liquidity.
1.) Procivis and Valid, the early pioneers in Self-Sovereign Digital ID for governments, by Efi Pylarinou
2.) Monique Morrow has been recently appointed President of Vetri. She is the founder oft he Humanized Internet and a unique personality that guarantes execution in full alignment with the mission.
3.) Listen to the podcast with Monique Morrow, co hosted with Arun Krishnakumar, on Humanized tech with built-in values.
Original article appeared on….. https://dailyfintech.com/2019/01/29/the-self-fulfilling-prophecy-reporting-from-the-wef-in-davos2019/
Contact Efi:
Website: www.efipylarinou.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/efipm
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/efipylarinou/
