CEO Don Thao Nguyen: Our Blockchain is created to scale up and connect 45 billion cameras all over the world
Before the ‘How will Vietnam change with Blockchain’ conference, where Mr. Don Thao Nguyen will attend as speaker and panelist, theleader.vn had an interview with CEO of Umbala Network to discuss on his vision of the Blockchain industry and what Umbala team is striving for.
The content below is derived from an article written by author Viet Hung from theleader.vn. You can view the original content in Vietnamese here: https://theleader.vn/ceo-umbala-muon-lam-blockchain-nguoi-viet-can-bo-tu-duy-dau-co-manh-mun-1538878463783.htm
Mr. Don Thao Nguyen — CEO of Umbala Network states that there are two groups of people in the Blockchain market. The first group is the crypto riggers and the second is the true tech enthusiasts. In fact, the former, with the short-term profit-seeking mindset, outnumbers the latter.
Recently, the keyword “Blockchain” has been constantly mentioned on media channels (especially social media) as a revolution for Vietnamese enterprises.
According to experts, Blockchain is a new technology, built based on cryptography, allows for the transmitting and updating data safely without any trusted intermediaries.
With features like data storing and smart contracts, Blockchain can be applied in many fields such as accounting, export and import, supply chain, retail, banking, and voting system.
However, in Vietnam, this potential technology is just in its infancy. So what are our opportunities and challenges? What is the right direction for us to become the leading country in the area in terms of Blockchain?
- How do you identify the growing Blockchain trend in Vietnam? What are the figures and signs that indicate this trend?
Talking about the trend, I think there are two groups of people in the market. The first group is the crypto riggers and the second is the tech enthusiasts who are truly developing Blockchain.
However, not many people in this field are in the second group. Meanwhile, the majority is the first group with the short-term profit-seeking mindset, which made the market booming for 2 years then frozen.
- Besides cryptocurrencies, what are the other applications of Blockchain? How do these applications have impacts on enterprises?
Blockchain can be viewed as a kind of database. This database has particular characteristics, and it can solve problems about trust, transparency and breaking the geographic foundation. Basically, Blockchain can tackle the trusting problem when doing business.
The applications depend on specific business models, the Blockchain developers decide how Blockchain use cases fit in their business. For example, at Umbala Network, what we aim at is a generation of camera-based applications, where cameras become a real-time communication tool between people.
I can list out many examples for Blockchain use cases. For instance, e-commerce is rapidly developing, especially via live streaming. In China, there are companies worth billions USD in this field, like Pinduoduo with its successful IPO.
In general, when Blockchain and its protocols create trust, every industry in the world can apply Blockchain to accelerate. I call it the Protocol Economy. However, it will take us a long time to reach that point as our technology is not capable at the moment.
- Specifically, how is Blockchain applied in Umbala Network?
Umbala Network supports camera-based apps, help them have the real-time interactive feature, share users’ database with other applications and share revenue transparently.
For example, we have an app named Umbala.Tv. This is the product we brought to Shark Tank and got invested. This app will be put into Blockchain and developed to be the new generation of live shopping/idol business.
So why does this app need Blockchain? When running this app, we need to be transparent in our partnership with idols. We also work with merchants, online shops to run advertising campaigns. We need to transparentize the process of the campaign, the figures, and the effectiveness. And Blockchain is the answer to all these problems, which would make developers believe in the system.
I have Vietnamese companies are often overwhelmed by foreign companies as they have enormous financial power. When these companies enter our inland market, they offer small benefits to separate Vietnamese enterprises.
Meanwhile in Korea or Japan, they always have unions of enterprises in which they share benefits. Blockchain can help create that kind of league, gather local SMEs to compete with foreign corporations.
- In your opinion, what do we need to put Blockchain into?
Everybody talks about legal factors. However, I think the government always supports the development of new technology, as long as that development complies to tax policies and national security.
The point is to raise people’s awareness of Blockchain, make them understand why Blockchain brings values to industries and end users, as well as how Blockchain increase their competitive value in businesses.
Besides, raising the human resources is also important. This can be seen as a weakness of Blockchain industry in Vietnam. Our company finds it very hard to recruit Blockchain engineers so we have to hire potential candidates to train later on. That is a real lack of talents.
- In fact, human resource is an essential factor in any industry. In your view, what measures could we take to implement the Blockchain human resource?
We aim at the cooperation between Blockchain companies and universities to operate Blockchain Las. Students would be instructed about Blockchain and how to apply it into real life.
With the belief that Blockchain gives all countries equal opportunities, we can even bring Blockchain into school. If the young generation acknowledges that it not only is information technology but also impacts many other aspects, we will have an enriched Blockchain human resource.
- Back to Umbala, what is your goal at the moment? As you expect, where will Umbala stand in the Blockchain world in the next 5 years?
Firstly, we need to succeed in the funding campaign. The market is frozen and we are working with both venture capitals and Blockchain investors. The fund will be used for developing products and building ecosystem.
In the Blockchain world, people actually do not answer where they will stand, instead, they would say “what industry we will build our platform in”. We solve the problem that other Blockchains are running into by the new consensus algorithm. Umbala Network chain is designed to be highly scalable and friendly to the end users.
We decided to build the foundation for the camera-based economy because it has a great potential. In the next few years, there are up to 45 billion cameras all over the world, which means we can see cameras everywhere we go. Therefore, cameras are not only recording devices, but also the communication tools between people. Moreover, through cameras. we can have completely real-time and physical interactions.
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