Our Vision for Soqqle — Decentralized Tokenized Learning.
Where will we be in 5 years (Probably 10)?
I have been asked many times what Soqqle is. And it has been quite difficult to answer.
There’s been a few different versions — and dependent on who i am speaking to, i often tailor my responses to them.
Sometimes certain points don’t come across well as the topic is complex. Let me try here.
The Grand Problems
Displacement of Jobs
Several experts have written about the upcoming industrial revolution. Klaus Schwab the founder of the World Economic Forum, highlighted in his book that different developing technologies upcoming will potentially disrupt traditional businesses and uproot people unless they are quick enough to react.
This new tech revolution will create more upheaval than previous industrial revolutions because of the speed transformation is done across vertical, and horizontal streams of processes. It will not be about whether it will substitute labour but how long it will take and to what extent. Existing labour is substituted in favour for automation, forcing workers to become unemployed or reallocated skills elsewhere.
Recent forecasts for when various jobs will get taken over:
- Does it require interacting with people and using social intelligence?
- Does it involve creativity and coming up with clever solutions?
- Does it require working in an unpredictable environment
Jobs that involve highly repetitive or structured actions in a predictable setting are likely to go first. However, aiming to only stick to jobs that are difficult to automate will face brutal competition from other humans around the globe. We have amazing ability to adapt but key is the timing and extent to which the capitalization effect supersedes the destruction and how quickly substitution will take.
However, existing digital channels cause an individual’s news sources to become narrowed and polarized. In many cases, the huge variety of news within our networks in many cases are seen as ‘noise’ and there is insufficient depth. This obstructs the ability to make reliable decisions or meaningful action
What if people are able to accelerate the ability to adapt to this problem by providing awareness about jobs that are going to be shifted away?
Technology Connects us, And Pulls Us Further Away.
New forms of digital media are increasing driving our individual and collective framing of the society and community around us. There are constant claims and articles where platforms like Facebook and Instagram encourage an individual framing built to make oneself feel better but in the end feel worse when it looks that others are doing better than us. This process of individuation and emergence of new forms of belonging and community creates a destructive behaviour.
As individual and collective relationships are deepened with technology, it may negatively affect our social skills and ability to empathize. 44% of teenagers never unplug, even playing sports or having a meal. Fears of young people consumed by social media struggling to listen, make eye contact or read body language
Networks much more meaningful, with a lot more depth. Connections should be done with things that people truly desire, not vanity items. Social Network should be an enabler.
The On and In Demand Economy
Tech enabled platforms make possible the on demand/ sharing economy. These platforms convene people, assets and data, creating new ways of consuming goods and services. By matching supply and demand in a very accessible low cost way, providing consumers with diverse goods, and allowing both parties to interact and give feedback, and ultimately seed trust, this enables effective use of underutilized assets — belonging to people who had previously never thought of themselves as suppliers.
The network effects of digitalization is compounded by the appearance of global platforms intimately connected to the physical world. These platform strategies combined with the need to be customer centric and to enhance products with data, are shifting industries from selling products to delivering services.
In a rapidly evolving working environment, the ability to anticipate future employment trends and needs in terms of knowledge and skills to adapt becomes even more critical for all stakeholders. Talent, more than capital will represent the critical production factor. Scarcity of a skilled workforce rather than availability of capital is more likely to be the crippling limit to innovation, competitiveness and growth.
Agile, innovative companies who access global digital platforms for research, development, marketing, sales and distribution can overtake well-established incumbents faster than ever by improving quality, speed or price at which they deliver value.
What if underutilized knowledge and experience, in a community gold mine of knowledge (Crowd contributed) could be shared? How do we help people discover hidden gems (unlocking potential) they do have but they are not aware?
Productivity
Productivity — measured as labor productivity or total-factor productivity has remained sluggish, despite exponential growth in technological progress and investments in innovation. The productivity paradox — perceived failure of technological innovation to result in higher levels of productivity, has puzzled many.
One primary argument focuses on measuring inputs and outputs, hence discerning productivity. Innovative goods and services created could be of significantly higher functionality and quality — yet delivered in markets that are fundamentally different that are traditional.
The fundamental problem sits in where original costs were reduced with new product offerings. Eg a person may buy one CD or two a year, which is replaced by a subscription model in Spotify. The cost incurred may be not too far off but the key benefit is in time save and a frictionless experience. However time saved could in many cases be spent on social networks reading articles that may not yield any true benefit.
Many products invented in the last decade are improvements in our daily lifestyles. But the world has yet to experience the productivity explosion created by wave of new technologies being produced at the heart of the next industrial revolution. When that happens, there will be an opportunity to integrate unmet needs of two billion people into the global economy — driving additional demands for existing products and services by empowering and connecting individuals and communities. For example, rapid tech advances in renewable energy, fuel efficiency and energy storage make investments in these fields increasingly profitable, boosting GDP growth, and mitigate climate change.
However at that time, if businesses, governments and civil society leaders struggle to transform their organizations to realize fully efficiencies that these capabilities can deliver, then many opportunities will be lost.
The economy needs to adapt to propels humans into the future of humankind. A network of encouragement, productivity and effective for the upcoming revolution.
I will try another explanation.
The PayPal Mafia was a group of super-talented experts who created the pioneer internet company — and continued to spin off superb companies.
Mark Zuckerberg credited Steve Jobs for advising him during times of crisis. “Go East” was one of them.
Here are the two things we try to do:
- We find the members of your “Paypal Mafia”. And match you without you having to search.
- We find the “Steve Jobs” for you. Without you having to search.
