but at the same time I also want to show
what the konnex is with the human factor
and when we talk about technology when
we talk about the human factor there’s
always a little bit of a disconnect
today when I talk about business
transparency I want to also show you
what technology can do to increase
business transparency to bring trust
back into a system that might have gone
arrey let me step back real quick and
and also experiment
what is blockchain or what is what we
call outside of cryptocurrencies a
distributed ledger technology if you
think about the way our banking system
is or financial systems are then we have
a centralized system you give money to
somebody for service but in the back end
you actually have a lot of
intermediaries another person Bank and
then ending of course in the central
bank that again is connected to all
kinds of other banks in a decentralized
system you have this premier primarily
like the internet you have a lot of
people a lot of entities a lot of
systems talking to one another
connecting to or one another but you
know in a more decentralized step and
when we talk about distributed ledger
technology or blockchain is fully
distributed distributed means
peer-to-peer person-to-person
machine-to-machine no central hub where
the information is passed through but
many many many nodes that the SIS the
information can pass through through
distributed technology and distributed
Ledger’s is one very very key thing that
we can actually add to the Internet so
the past 25 years the Internet has of
course grown mobile techno
as your mobile internet has grown but
there is still one factor that is
missing and that is the identity right
who is actually on the other side what
can we actually trust this information
how do we transfer value value between
people value between different
businesses and at the same time find out
you know who is it
and through distributed ledger
technology we have the possibility to
not only create a transparent system but
also a mutable system one that cannot be
changed a list that cannot be changed
but everybody has access to that same
list and the system that is autonomous
so there there is not one central system
that controls it everybody that is part
of the system is playing an important
role in controlling the system today we
hear a lot about cryptocurrency a lot
about blockchain and there’s a hype
there’s a lot of money going into the
sector right now it’s over a billion
euros going in and there’s going to be
another billion euros going into the
funding of by corporations or startups
when it comes to blockchain and digital
ledger technologists really ledger
technology and one of the interesting
things that we’ve also seen over the
past twelve months is that there’s more
than 20 governments the government’s
themselves investing in distributed
ledger technology and the question is
why would governments actually play a
role well if you go back to the internet
government played in a essential role in
creating the the distributed system
right and the technology behind it and
when we look at today distribute ledger
technology or DLT there’s one key thing
that governments can actually gain and
that is efficiency in the administration
and also transparency of that
administration what we’ll see there’s a
lot of opportunities right but it will –
distributed ledger technology and adding
this on to our digital world and also
the systems that are connected the way
we’re connected will fundamentally
change how we can actually deploy
technology and most likely you are not
going to even see it you’re not going to
see the technology it’s going to be
Universal as universal as the mobile
phone that you have in your pocket or in
your in your bag right now when we look
at the transaction improvements right
today a lot of things are manual
checking on who you’re working with
who’s your counterparty I myself worked
in more than 40 countries and sometimes
I didn’t even know who the person is
sitting across the table
I couldn’t verify that person I couldn’t
verify the company right there was no
transparency it was very very difficult
there was no automated system and this
is changing its changing to where we can
make sure that everybody be it
governments be as large corporations but
also individuals get the same level of
access to information about companies
and most importantly also the people
behind these companies there are a lot
of threats of course new technology
there’s a as I said there’s a hype cycle
right now right there’s a lot of money
going in it’s uncertain some of the
technologies that we see that are
deployed and where there’s a lot of
investment going in might actually fail
right and they sometimes also fail
because of the human factor as I
mentioned before the human factor that
is forgotten about distributed ledger
technology itself is not really new
there are registers there Digital
registers just think of the land
registers right where you actually know
who owns what when have there been
changes but this is not something that
is universal throughout the world is
something that highly developed
economies and countries have actually
already implemented because they needed
a system that allows trust and also the
reliability of information to be
available there’s one example that I
would like to share with you a few years
ago like about two years ago there was a
project in Honduras where they had a
massive
problem it wasn’t clear who owns which
property you couldn’t go and just find
out okay this person owns their house
their little Hut their little their
little plot so there was a government
initiative a governor government
initiative to bring transparency and to
also take a leap forward by using
distributed ledger technology to make
sure that there is a land register and
in this land register in this new
project there was the possibility for
transparency not only who owned the
property but also which government
official made changes when were their
transactions what are the transactions
there was a full transparency now I have
a question so now it’s you know going
into the fourth quarter of 2016 so we’re
coming to the end of the year about two
years later where do you think that that
project stands today anybody it’s dead
well it actually started but all of a
sudden there was transparency and it was
clear that there was corruption within
the government be locally etc and they
pulled the plug on the project it was
the human factor that actually stopped
the project not the technology right but
the interaction and the human factor and
of course a system that clearly did not
want to take this leap now because all
of a sudden everybody was on the same
level of information and there was also
another case about a year ago where the
idea was that we don’t need government
we don’t need banks we don’t even need
lawyers maybe of a group of people that
put more than a hundred and sixty
million dollars a hundred and sixty
million dollars into a distributed
autonomous organization dau hub I’m sure
you’ve heard about it it was created by
two German guys who wanted to change the
way we invest in companies there were
10,000 people ten thousand people that
buy my
geordie vote could decide that yes we
want to invest in that startup in that
project and so forth the technology
worked fine the funding was there the
money was there but again the human
factor was the biggest problem because
somebody found a way to game the system
and draw 60 million out of the system
they didn’t disappear but it was a
system that was was written by humans
obviously and it made totally sense
technically everything worked but the
human factor was was not counted into
the system but the good thing was that
through the transparency and also
through the technological advance we
could actually then also backtrack what
had happened but here we had a question
as well on the technology borderless
list government but who do we actually
call when the human factor fails the
system who’d recall is it a government
is an authority right now the regulation
is one of the limiting factors in
deploying this technology it’s pretty
much like building a massive out the
bond a massive high speeds you know the
road system but we don’t tell drivers if
they can drive on the left or on the
right and this is where we are we do
have to look at how do we create an
environment how do we create a standard
how do we move this new technology
beyond this application stage to be part
of the infrastructure and if it becomes
part of the infrastructure then
obviously we will not even see it
because it will be Universal because
today I don’t think anybody asks do I
drive on the left or on the right there
is regulation there is a system right
moving forward and looking at what does
this mean for business transparency well
we’ve created a system that allows you
to address and access company
information cross-border is giving
everybody the same tools the same power
to identify not only the companies and
do they exist
but of course also the people behind
those companies in order to raise a
level of transparency that allows us to
build trust back into business and if we
look at the possibility of technology
this is going to be very very rapid and
we’re also going to be able to restart
the way we conduct business and go back
to the roots to what it means to create
a business at the same time offer no
transparency and I think the technology
will help us to achieve this very very quickly thank you very much