Blockchain Identity and the Importance of Ethics - Monique Morrow, The Humanized Internet

Transcript

[Music] hello and welcome to the blockchain and us we're pioneers and thought leaders talked about their journey in blockchain technology crypto assets and a token economy and I'm your host manuel staggers this episode has support from my very own the blockchain and us a newsletter get an email from me every two weeks with a very short summary of new podcast episodes so you can immediately pick those interviews you'd like to listen to to stay up-to-date just visit www.nasa.gov/twan [Music] Mauro monique is the president and co-founder of the humanized Internet a

nonprofit organization providing digital identity through blockchain technology she is the former services CTO of Cisco where she helped transition the company from hardware to software and among many other things she is an Associated researcher at the Humboldt University's Institute of Internet and Society the co-chair of the I Triple E ethics in AI and autonomous systems mixed reality committee an advisor to the cybersecurity sparklabs and to Vetri a blockchain enabled personal data management platform and now to the conversation with Monique Moreau hi Monique and many thanks for taking time today it's a pleasure to be here Manuel

Monique you have been working with technology for decades as an engineer and CTO all around the world let's maybe begin with what you find so fascinating about blockchains well first and foremost I'd like to walk the talk so I think it's all it's also understanding where the Providence of blockchains come from especially if we're talking about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency so I think it's important to to actually put them together and look at what we're thinking about when we look at the you know peer-to-peer internet value that that is so precise daffy youth if you think and in

blockchain technology itself so what I find about it is that we're talking we're at in the nascent States about what can be termed as an engine genetic value for me blockchain which is one of the technologies associated with the so-called Bitcoin and crypto environment is all about this distributed ledger capable distributed databases if you want to call that that is very much has the the Val will say attributes of being immutable the attributes of being you know that it's consensus often consensus based it is also one that where you you

can it's it's transparent and therein lies some interesting polarities because you're on one hand you're dealing with immutability you're dealing with transparency on the other hand you have to look at it's also some pseudonymous when we're talking about exchanges of values and keys and so on and there's a polarity between anonymity and privacy what I find very very interesting where I see the low-hanging fruit is the promise of credentialing and eventually when we talk about diplomas when we talk about land title's credentialing is already here of today so you can't you know you can't put that hat back into the box it's already existing in fact I'm part of a cross industry team

looking at a problem this was we were actually winners 2018 winners from MIT in MIT Seoul for help front lines of health care thank you very very much and so the issue here was the narrative was how can we use these technologies we got a caregiver shortage globally caregivers being nurses people who take care of you at the elderly level and so on I mean just caregivers you can define the mentally mental health care givers so there's a shortage globally and so we took a use case as the group of us to say why not go into let's say Jordan and work with the not only with UNHCR but

also with the Jordanian government and look at how we actually could close out the the caregivers shortage at least at a national level now bear in mind what would what it would be is working with refugees and also Jordanian citizens so if you when you to help meet refugees and then I have met refugees most of them I mean if not all of them really want to work and so credentialing at a source even though they may have lost their certificates or diplomas there is the capability of providing a predictor examination that would assert or determine whether or not you have studied some level of caregiving or nursing and then the next step would be

to actually provide you a credential certain certificates and so this the the the thing that's so sorry to interrupt here quickly just just to make sure I understand so basically first you look you basically need an exam right somebody comes to you and says I'm a caregiver and then you have to test them whether they actually know what they're talking about well assume that they don't have their papers right so I mean we're looking at two two sides of a to two problem a problem set here one is if you're looking at the refugee community they may not have their diplomas but they may have studied it I mean so for example how do you get your diploma at the University of Aleppo if it's been destroyed okay so you may have it you may not have the other part of it so

let's let's produce on the refugees as examples and so with the caregiver for nurses group which is international there is the predictor exam that's provided determinate to see if you really there's there's a lot of determination in this exam that to assess whether or not you have studied caregiving and then of course the next level yes or no the next level would be to provide sets of credentials right and credentials in the form of certificates diplomas it may be that you may have to study further in the nearby university may not be but these credentials will be actually at a time I'm stamped and actually posted if you will on the

blockchain from a caregiver from a person who receives that credential or that certification and it's posted on the blockchain that person doesn't care about the technology what that person cares about is is it going to be recognized by the if a person is going to exit out the country and be received let's say by Switzerland or by another country what they recognize it and the reason why this is an important issue is because what happens when they when refugees resettle they come to another country they want to work they want to go and and you know resume their professional career but they end up paying fifty sixty thousand euros at a

minimum to recertify which puts them on the social welfare system most often about about how many people do you think need this kind of service what depends I mean I just gave a an example that is a narrow use case right on certification but if you're looking at identity for those who don't have it you're looking at at least of their this the numbers can go 1.1 billion they can go to 65 million you can go to 10 million if you are a a stateless individual so you don't have any identity per se in credentialing as an aspect that can be used in this particular case when we're talking about blockchain

so the numbers are very high depending on which that's what we always start with 1.1 billion it's coughing cold coated but look people here's the thing we talk about refugees that's one thing we talk about natural disasters that's another thing you could wake up one morning manual and everything is destroyed by fire I mean look at what's happening in California for example or flooding or whatever so so blockchain what the interesting thing here is that you can actually reference when it's time-stamped because there's also a timestamp correlation I I know it because I you know one of the things

that I'm doing is I'm finishing up a master's degree in digital currency versity of Nicosia one of the was the first University to offer that since 2014 and and Princeton University are along those lines other universities that a global are doing the same thing right so clearly credentialing and when a institution can provide you that certification which is great than that because you know that actually proves that you didn't falsify your certificate not even better but you know then what happens if you the institution no longer exists for whatever reason you have to

go through some level of a predictor examination to assess whether or not you have those skill sets mm-hmm yeah cool interesting I'd like to ask a little bit more about identity specifically because you also have a non-profit the humanized Internet yeah where you advocate for a blockchain based identity you know what does your work consist of there so there are three areas that the humanize internet cares about so let me let me level up the conversation here one is what is around the liberty of identity because so let me just say one is the liberty of identity for those who don't have it the second one is about the question of whether or not you're in control of your identity that's you and

I both and do you care and the third is about ethics what this ethics look like in technology and ethics carry value so if we go back to the identity issue we should all have control of our identity and country should recognize the the that identity at this moment I'll give you the I'll give you a number for example ten million people are not recognized ten million row hangers are in that category because they don't have control of their identity as an example so if we look at the follow the narrative if you live in a country where there is war and you have to leave immediately you have to leave immediately or imagine all your stuff gets lost in an earthquake or a

fire most people leave with nothing at best or at worst and I would think I you know what are the it didn't it doesn't matter for example my important documents are kept in a Google Drive one of the people who sits on my board refugee and that's what to him it didn't matter in his particular case that he had copies of his have his papers on a Google Drive so immigration offers officers for example don't recognize these documents and its digital form so you have to so so I think you have to change the system you have to look at identity that corresponds maybe to some kind of member state that should be portable because without it you're nothing it has to be

something portable to you in fact I just reviewed a paper where somebody is actually going to the EU and looking at a permission base identity system where there would be keys given and identity cards given and where the individual could share what he or she wants to share as they're passing through through you know countries so so what I'd like to solve for is your blockchain could be an answer here but it there there are various other technologies what I'm looking at is a harder problem and what I mean especially is something I've talked about quite often is to think about a portable digital safe trays or right Eady

and it's persistent to you so for example I keep documents maybe at a vault in a bank or whatever and I have keys I have keys and maybe a the bank has a key V think about in its digital form that you have digital keys members of your family yep digital keys and they're shared amongst devices and you can assume that that device may be a phone or on an iPad or something of that nature and it's portable to you it's not held into a cloud storage is a hard problem here it's not by any third party because what we know is that third party anything that centralized will be hacked and so there are some groups some universities with whom that we're working to look at and solve for that

level of a problem in fact you know it goes to the second form of whether a second party whether or not your control of your identity and do you care sir Tim berners-lee is looking at you know a similar project with regard to the world you know redesigning the web and this is a project out of MIT that he's actually advocating for which is called solid what she was really looking at you have portability portability of your identity sets and so so this is this is the and to the third point if anything ethics is like the big brand the big major I would say major standard that people are

holding companies to and and you you don't have to look for a way to to set to determine whether or not that's true if you look at some of the the sloppiness of how data has been handled or mishandled in / - yeah absolutely that's an interesting topic and we could do a whole podcast just about ethics I think but first I have a I have some more questions about identity because um we spoke before about it I had a interesting conversation a few months back with Steve Wilson from constellation research and he thinks that electronic identity and blockchain technology won't go together because basically said humans are real assets

quote unquote and you cannot put real assets on a blockchain just makes no sense so what would you say to somebody who has that opinion well I mean so we're mixing apples and oranges a little bit right you don't put everything on a blockchain and by the way it's it's what what I'm looking at is something kind of something even further than that so it's this whole notion of you could use blockchain I mean I just reviewed a document where you could use blockchain - I actually have a permission set of identity for example what is it that I choose to share okay and that could be

recognized by by by governments and that may be it may be something like a name it may be something something that I you know that that that I'm going to share at the best I you know I wouldn't put DNA on my blog chain for example or any of a lot of change so the baud rate for me is about potentially more than anything else I looking at more of digital I'm looking at the promise and that may not be with blog drain the promise of a digital real almost a real-time Apple steel that could be righted an apostille is basically a certification by a government body that something is that right so let me give you an example my

are the humanized Internet is a Swiss based nonprofit I have a founder based in Toronto and I have a member of the board who is a refugee based in Berlin now my lawyers lawyers who a swiss-based said look we we want to start this this this this this entity up so we had to DHL papers to my co-founder in Toronto we're here to get an apple steal seal there's no Swiss consulate in Toronto it's DHL to to Montreal back to him bed signed and back and it's back to to Switzerland I'm thinking all of this DHL we're in the 21st century we could use some other well DHL it's great though I'm sorry to interrupt there because I

have to get an episode in Japan recently and there you have to show up in person you know that's worse yeah but what I'm saying is well yes and so that's you know you can do things like hey YC with your with your with your phone you could do some levels of biometrics and so on blockchain for me the thing of it is is there are certain sets of what you're going to carry we we know that the device that's often used the device as a tool for the citizen or for you and I is it is a phone it's a motor mobile even it doesn't matter it's it's usually a phone and so you could have sets of biometrics that you know you that are used for you to unlock locks that that

cone and yours carrying digital instantiations of what it is that is important for you whether it's health records or whatever it's you and of course with digital keys the key part is cryptographic right that that part is associated with with often associated with blockchain but digital sets of keys that are that you may you certainly will have you could also share I have a public key that maybe something that a government or an organization will have and so that gets into towards this level of where does blockchain fit in to in terms of e sovereignty or I'll call it there's digital identity and then there's no

notion of e sovereignty and so you know and how how what country what MCS are going to recognize X at provenance of it so what we're talking about in the case of you know your colleague the colleague of my constellation is it's always trying to prove provenance of something and blockchain has the promise to do that it certainly does it's absolutely you can go back to the genesis lock you can go back years I mean it's we just celebrated you know what is it ten years of just Bitcoin I mean big its l4p the peer-to-peer system just a system of value which by the way has years before that you know when

you're looking at Satoshi Nakamoto years before that in terms of development so what we're talking about is not pie in the sky it absolutely is rare is as possible and pertinent today the question to ask is what is are there problems in the system that we have today and I will I will say that there is and if you're not in the system here's the problem if you're not in the system you are going to be subjected to human trafficking right that's the second most most lucrative business next to drug trafficking trafficking and so we have to think out of the box on how do we use these technologies to create something that is relatively immutable

has properties of privacy that you can share and how you share it and have some notion of a digital APIs deal that can be given to you near rear tongue real-time mm-hmm I mean one one question I always have it may be one thing I don't quite understand yet about all of this is let's say somebody loses everything right they have a fire everything burns the purrs the phone everything mm-hmm so they still need their private key dough so yeah they would have to have their private key that's true I mean at-at today's use of the sets of technologies your wallet is is closed and or your

your phone is closed but on the other hand you know it's looking at what you have and this is this is the promise what you could actually create any in its digital instantiation that is in another you know what I'll call safe boxes that are better digital and so that will solve that could solve very well some of the problems that we're seeing how do you reconcile the fact you know that you still have to trust someone and of course you before you mentioned some of the attributes of blockchains decentralized censorship resistance but also trustless and here always I think

with this identity discussion somebody has to be a trusted counterparty who actually makes that entry onto a blockchain so I'm just wondering sometimes if we don't need to do is the weak link there no well okay I mean so the thing of it is is what is trust right so you you here's the thing if we if we break it down a little bit if we break it down to what Y value why do you have so this notion of I want to talk about sort of Bitcoin as an example it was if you think about when Satoshi nakamoto's paper came out as 2008 I think we were talking about a banking

crisis then and you can do your data and homework and look at how many people trust banks right so so so so trust less so you have to think about sort of you know you let this entity you work on the internet but you you see the people behind it no you don't you don't have to because it just works I mean you were in this environment before I mean you are in this environment it just works you don't have to and that takes a lot of I would say to some extent when we're talking about ID when we're talking about blockchain and having these nonsense of truth there's certain things that you have to look at or what what what how to deal with gaming preventing a or tackling

something something where the system can be gamed how do you deal with consensus that which is consensus can be consensus based I think we're probably 20% there from a governance perspective I mean that's why it's all nascent you have to look at you know the whole notion of distributed entities I think where it's it's it's experimental experimental at this point in time what is trust less and so I think what we have to think about is somewhere in the middle right is somewhere it's not you've got an extreme libertarian view that says let the system just decide for itself I'm not advocating that and not advocating world citizenship I'm advocating

something in-between but most important I believe we are in a core Pentagon revolution where the person the citizen has to be in the center not the other way around where you have these these entities that are non transparent that are opaque and you don't know what's happening with your data and you don't know what's happening with your identity and you're not in control the thing of it is is that we are dealing with a trust deficit right it's not as it's not trust less versus trust we just we're dealing with a lack of trust exactly I wanted to ask where do you see blockchain technology or distributed Ledger's where do you see them sit you

know on on a spectrum maybe with other disruptive technologies like data storage data analytics AI robotics drones where do you think blockchains fit in there look they are this is this for me is going back to what is associated with an Internet avalue or all so I would say that very much very much key technology component they will sit in you know when you will look at blockchain and also this whole notion of artificial intelligence by the way with artificial intelligence that will take a

different view I think that I I would think one of the things that I've been arguing about which is tangentially related to our conversation which is about where does it all fit by the future of work I do think that drones when you democratize drones I think we have a small to very very interesting polarity between democratization of all of these wonderful technologies now mass empowerment I can I can I can use this technologies to do wonderful things for myself but I can now I can also do bad things right I can do evil things and so mass destruction so it's that little spider in your shower a spider or is it a drone with anthrax you know so so in

that exists I mean this is the thing about it is that we need to be very responsible that goes to technology has no agency but it's not gonna prevent people from being malevolent we have just bad characters and bad actors in this world but we have to be extremely responsible and when we create this technology you know you have to look at you know declaring it do to actually identify what it's done neat needs are or what it is what's its uses are and you know at least be cognizant of cognitive bias and recognize it because who is creating the technology what kinds of groups and for what purpose

so that's very very important and when I get into so so so blockchain is gonna be Bakhtin's already there internet of values there I think all of that is just this this this is very very key artificial drones yeah they it exists i I think flying cars are gonna be interesting I think people are we talking about portable MRIs where which which is interesting in itself because then you get into telepathy and I can read your thoughts right so we can get way far ahead about what can what where are these technologies is are going what are things I wanted to say is about artificial intelligence much is said about this gets into their work

environment because what I said about oh you know all of the stuck stuff is going to do away with skilled jobs I think the thing of it is is that if we look at the where we're at you know our work the way work is defined is that you are a your cost you know it's a task based economy you've got that you've got a wave where you get a gig economy and the third one that we are talking about is a group of people's the people centered economy and we just actually wrote a people centered economy and ecosystem instead of having a zero-sum game you you could use artificial intelligence to say look manual and we're going to give you your the job that is fitted for you

you're going to earn much more money and oh by the way you're gonna work with people you like and we're gonna take a commission for it the South becomes an earning level of technology and for those jobs that are undesirable that's what you use robots for so just to be a zero-sum game let's take a quick break for a message from our sponsors this episode has support from my very own the blockchain and us a newsletter get an email from me every two weeks with a very short summary of new podcast episodes so you can immediately pick those interviews you'd like to listen to to stay up-to-date just visit www.hsn.com and sign up today I'm just wondering you

know because I often see it in conversations that I have with people who started you know with blockchain technology with the blockchain start up in you know let's say 2016-17 and now they're already on to integrating that technology into some kind of distributed data storage you know cloud mixed with blockchain a I somehow thrown in there as well so I see you know the whole notion of blockchain technology morph into into bigger contexts that's why I was asking yes it's part of already a new levels of architecture right and so it's you know you can take a bit to the internet of things to look at sources of your ecosystem of suppliers you can look at

it from a healthcare perspective I mean when looking at it from an insurance perspective insurer tech and blockchain so the the sky's limit here when you look at the promises of blockchain in the industry today and and moving from to the future because now you're looking at closing out all of these silos and and think people are looking at distributed Ledger's where where you can see that you can see absolutely the interesting transactions that are occurring and and specifically when we talk about healthcare I can look at where my data is going and determine which doctor I want to share my data with right I can see those transactions

and I think that that's the promise of what we have in blockchain by by industries per se mm-hmm interesting well there's definitely many many promises I think that all of these technologies can have and and I have a question about that as well because I read on your website that you had a big role in pivoting Cisco we're youwere CTO to the Internet of Things and cloud computing so I'm wondering how back then how did you see that IOT and cloud would be beneficial to get involved with I mean this is so when you're part of a group when you're looking at you have to look at what can disintermediate your your business model

right so it was always taken for granted that the network was was table stakes could see I mean cloud computing has had different forms I mean we're calling it grid computing at one point in time right and so certainly when we looked at the promise of of cloud of storage and the Internet of Things particularly in terms of censored and certain sensors in terms of being able to provide for objects that are intelligible intelligible an addressable objects for Cisco what was very key was that it had all kinds of implications to the network you know so the network became table

stakes and so this was just a way to grow grow the the value into other areas like cloud computing like like the inter Internet of Things always bringing value to the network per se and moving up the stack so moving something that became programmable at the application layer mmm-hmm but wasn't there kind of an innovators dilemma that the leaders in a space failed to implement or you know deploy new technologies because they eat into their current revenue streams wasn't that wasn't that an issue with with Cisco there as well but there's definitely an intern at some point in time you you have to think about which is an art of you know eating your eating

your old cannibalizing your old to grow your young right and so you know it's sort of if you believe that you were always willing to make the 65% margins and what it is that you've always made 65% margins anything that would have the optics of disintermediating your business was always always not always but there was pushback and so fortunately there were people within the company that could see it could see other possibilities but when you when you're operating with with these types of margins you got to be able to be able to pivot and pivot fast and so you and that that's that is the that is that's the thing

at which point do you say okay we're going to now fit to a new model and Cisco to its credit is doing that now I mean they've been doing they've been sort of redefining themselves they're focusing more on security anything that we talk about blockchain and artificial intelligence as a security and privacy table stakes area around it so that that's absolutely very very key and I think that that becomes so important is that well know when you're pivoting know when you should and innovators dilemma is you know it's it doesn't have to be let me just say this about when I was at in the company we made a lot of money a lot of money manual off of complexity

the art here and with complexity comes increasing and prices but the arc here is to be able to hide complexity and and make it very very attract tracting if you will from a from a mass adoption potential perspective you don't want to go down the price war but you really want to make it you know you cannot be complex it cannot be so complex that your grandmother doesn't wouldn't understand but we had for many years made a lot of revenues off of complexity and customers were now shifting to say look we need simplicity we need you know something that is going to be pertinent for us to understand from our model

business model perspective so yeah there was certainly an innovator and their innovators dilemma I would say attribute to some of these discussions around pivots and when to pivot and you know what happens is that when you're not a a July what have you know you started seeing startups coming up and startups are very generally very agile and a whole bunch of startups coming soon enough you know your your margins were being it eating into a very very quickly mm-hmm yeah and that's exactly I think what's happening currently in the blockchain and crypto space right I mean why aren't the banks developing and deploying this technology at scale well because well first of all well that's a

longer discussion but first of all when you're talking about crypto space and blog first of all they have a ripple so they do talk with one another using a proprietary sort of a hex art you know with XRP protocol you have to understand that when you're talking about bitcoin and whatever the basket of 3,000 crypto currencies are these days you're talking about creating value that kind of that was that's that scares the bank's they're afraid of you know a fifteen year old person in in some country named your country of choice is mining value right and there certainly is no bank uh-huh involved and so so you have to

take these institutions along a journey you cannot say for example you're going to be you you're not gonna exist anymore you're not you're gonna be pertinent you've got to take him along the journey maybe the equivalent is when you know when I was working years ago at Swisscom and I remember uh Cisco coming in basically telling the CEO that that voice would be free and that was his cash cow mm-hmm and fundamentally he said you don't understand my business for every service you go to the bank they're charging you X percentage of whatever fee because they're charging you for the existence of their administration now the thing of it is is that banks have to look a lot of what

how it is they're going to be relevant to their customers and continued relevance right and and you know we're not I think the the interesting is an interesting time for for banks and for institutions and whether or not they are using they are certainly using blockchain this is this was a FinTech and the way they want to to and certainly the insurance industry the way they want to without Ledger's with one another but the question now is what is the benefit does do you and I get as a consumer or as a customer so they have been sort of testing things the waters a bit but what is the benefit that it gives to you and I so you know for example if if I am

paid a certain currency that comes out of but let me give you an example I'm I paid something that came out of a currency from Oman right and my bank is in Switzerland why would it take a week to two weeks it's to clear and that's and that's that's where as a customer you know you should have you should improve the experience so certainly you know blockchain is that cats out of the box I mean that's not gonna go away Internet of value is not going to go away we you know there are some thing for every technical problem there will be a technical solution there's wonderful things that are happening to address

some of the issues around out on the million private cetera great thought people coming together on that and I think that it's just going to get bigger and better mhm but still do you think blockchain technologies somehow more difficult than perhaps other technologies like cloud computing for these big incumbents to wrap their heads around I think it depends the answer is it depends I think they need to they need to understand how it will out relates to their business where it's going to fit in their business architecture a worse is gonna

fit to further customers and what value it will bring it just because it's a technology called blockchain doesn't mean anything unless they can absolutely apply one or two or three use cases where they see see its value having said that you could get into what you alluded to earlier which is the innovators and dilemma you know just don't disturb this chip it's been great but we've heard that before right we've heard it before with with Kodak I mean they're a wonderful examples in history history is always hindsight where people just said it just forget it and I think the thing of it is is that we have to they're going to have to enterprise cutter prize they're going

to have to look at its value and they are to be fair a lot of them are looking at it not only that there's all kinds of industries that are absolutely not just looking at it they're actually providing sandboxes and and MVPs minimal viable products and pilots we are in or I would say we are in early days when we're talking about the mass adoption if you want to call it for blockchain it's this you know it said now applying it to your business architecture and and making sure that I think this is most important that value is brought with security and with privacy to its customers mm-hmm cool money how do you keep current on

technology well there's there's a formal side of it you know I mean a bit well I believe learning is lifelong and so finishing up this master's degree which is which is great I like to understand what I don't know I don't know which it which is very very important applying it it is very important I also believe that you have sort of the when I travel I'll also look at and I travel globally I also look at where where the potential of just so I'm going to observe or to you know like to ask questions lots of questions you know where there is a potential for interesting to centre mediation in the market and I learned

from others I think there's you know it's a it's both it's just constantly putting yourself out of your comfort zone whether it's formal informal and of course in writing books so like you yeah book writing is a good one if you don't understand something write a book about it Absalom buddy told me once do you have do you have mentors as well I I have a professional coach you know I actually she she and I were working together while we were at Cisco Cisco is you know formalizing coaching to its credit and we continued our we're continuing our relationship so coaching is really really important and I think it's lifelong I see value in in professional

coaching I would say that I have a really even reverse mentoring so I have people in universities working with me for example not the other way around necessarily because I like to walk in the shoes of somebody who sees the world differently and that for me is really really cool mm-hmm yeah well there was this idea that you know senior executives should have something like 15 year olds as tech mentors and I thought like a great idea you mentioned before you've also you've been working in Asia a lot and I mean I also lived in Asia for several years and

of course I mean there are huge differences in how people use technologies there in comparison to Europe and to the United States about how do you think you know a place like Switzerland for example can can keep up with what's happening in Asia well okay so that's I'm going to answer that question I think was so so you know I lived in Hong Kong I had to half the world as my responsibility so I was constantly in a plane and I can tell you things happen fast I mean really really really really fast so you've got speed and you got you got the properties of speed and

especially when we talk about China and in scale when code to put China and India together right and so I think that becomes very interesting in terms of Switzerland so it's on the absolute from my perspective I think I believe Switzerland is is it has positions itself very well I mean they have an appetite you know we you have 20 this is you know 26 Canton's there is an appetite to experiment at least at a counter level Lisa the federal government level I think we're getting into you know what is all of this technology mean from perspective of adding value to its to to its

citizens I think that's important to note when I take a particular you know some some examples parliamentarians want to understand what it means what is blockchain what do these technologies mean for its citizens they don't so as not to over rotate in regular regulatory regulatory policies so I think there is an appetite I think Switzerland one of the things that's whistling can do is to think about going a little faster especially if you're comparing what with which these other countries and so there is sort of this this caution but there's also how fast can you go to create a

sandbox of what I'll call experimentation such that if you you fail okay you fail and you you you have learnings and you go on with it right so I think it's more that than anything else and but certainly there's a you've got wonderful schools you've been a product of a aha a pee fell I mean super schools and super education I just think that there is an entrepreneurial spirit that is fantastic and I think it's just a matter of looking at you know not not necessarily measuring itself and I think that's that's the the challenge against

these huge countries or whatever but looking at how they can how a country like Switzerland can actually you fuel these technologies through to create and spawn even more and more interesting innovation such that it becomes a model as a country of Switzerland the Swiss brand carries a lot of weight and so it really does so I think that it's just for me when I look at it I think it could probably take a little more risk in some of the cases yeah yeah definitely and before we spoke about electronic identity and I mean I've been wondering for the longest time why Switzerland doesn't have an electronic identity yet you know because it's a small enough

country to deploy something like this you have already some kind of decentralized government so it would make sense to have a ledger that is somewhat distributed I mean why do you think they don't have something like a blockchain identity yet here I think there it's interesting I mean close sometimes it's often compared to you know sort of Estonia which which has been experimental I haven't known an ID card I think that a lot of it sort of getting there with a Swiss Swiss pass or ID pass or whatever the this sort of getting into I think it's just uh first and foremost what's really really important is that this citizen needs to understand what its value is right and and you are you know you just can't say

okay we're gonna give you a Swiss ID we're gonna give you this card and and be done with it I think the the Swiss citizen needs to understand well okay what does it mean to me what is the value how do I use it what kind of education do they need etc etc I mean so there's more about that I think I do think that it's interesting when you look at some of the way cards and are used and passports are given it's still you know I think there is a promise for having digital identity I do believe Switzerland has an app there I think there's an appetite to produce that but if what's important is that it's gotta be a understood by citizens and that goes to any technology in its output and

that's that's just not in Switzerland just overall mmm yeah interesting point do you sometimes have doubts you know about where technology is taking us as humans well yeah I mean I've alluded to it and I think that the there is a fine line and between what technology there is a fine line between the powerful use of technology and the negative use of it and I think that if we're not careful what will happen is we could be so over won by I mean so so you know I'm not so over run but I think it'll be much more intrusive than we

care to have it be and I think that what's important is that there's got to be a social value to what we what we create so this gets always into this embedded epics yes or no I want to be able to think yes or no you know and beyond two hundred and forty characters and so on and so forth I don't believe that just because Asian equals coding in schools I think it's more also the value of being able to think and to have and to to think beyond just swiping iPads because I have spoken to Swiss teachers here and they're very concerned about the attention span of students right and I speak to a Provost at the University

and in in the Arab Emirates and he fundamentally said I just want students to ask a question so I do so that's just to its impact to you that we're getting so much information well but I do believe in the promise that of this great technology there is I mean there is this this this promise but what we do have to be careful of of its of its terrible abuse moving horrible I know just to be careful of the both both sides of the coin because it's getting you know again with drones and with which which are which which is very

interesting and carries value especially wanted to take it talking about avalanches and and you know all kinds of things when you can find or when you can actually carry care packages like an andhe there's some there's huge amounts of value to it but again if you're Democritus are democratizing something that carries so much value that can be misused at the citizen level where you where that the response is mass surveillance how big do you think the the risk is that something like this could happen some kind of you know dystopia scenario well some of it is already happening and

I mean you've got countries that are basically well so at Adam nation state level China and the Russian Federation has basically asserted that country that is the AI leader will own the world right and so in for example China mass surveillance is a given and there is sort of they are there's a determination get points for good behavior as your surveil but also points are deducted and so on and so forth and citizens accepted but again that's that may be dystopian to you and I right and so and I think

that that's the thing that we're looking at is what is what is if you have that level of mass surveillance then you're looking at what is what is war or destruction look like and in our time and in and it could be it could be very very concerning I mean just disconcerting it would love us a bio warfare and soda and so forth but again there is no reason we're living longer so why not you know people are going to live to 100 or 200 years old or whatever the magic number is you know then that's great - you have longevity but I think that there is a there's a pretty close dystopian view of what it is we're doing

if I can read your thoughts yeah I often wonder you know how how real all of this is because I always I think people have been afraid of the future and you know the more I think about it the more I research also in this space the more optimistic actually I get I have to say it's just my personal view don't get me wrong I'm optimistic I'm cautiously optimistic great I mean I I'm sorry I really am I'm cautiously optimistic but I think it's a comment upon us to communicate responsible uses of Technology Monique what what are you learning at the moment maybe in terms of not formal

but at the human you know apart from formal knowledge I'm going back into I'm going back into history you know looking at sort of I liked I like to to read a bit of history and I always believed hindsight is sort of 20/20 so certainly in terms of certainly in terms of how how technologies in the past have been used in terms of manipulating people that's an interesting thing certainly in terms of understanding for example what I look at the social when I look at the system

like why is it I ask questions why is it that we have to retire at age 55 or 65 that is from pompous mark right what century was pawned this mark in we just haven't our systems haven't caught up right I liked I like to to pare it to sort of I'm learning around questions about why is insurance so expensive though just because of what group you're in and so I'm learning I like to be an observer so a lot of fun is reading reading history a lot of it is is understanding what is broken poke around some of the areas that seem seem obviously broken and learning new

languages so I think that's important to constantly keep yourself challenged okay cool what's what's next for the humanized internet the digital lockbox I think that's really really important area to work on I keep talking about that persistence of digital lockbox the issue of storage that's persistent to you where you have keys that are shared you know we talk around a fire among shared devices I think this is really a big problem to solve for Mo'Nique this was great it's been a great conversation man well we could go on and on and on I love it yeah there were so many many verticals we could have French doubt but maybe another time I hope

Monique I really enjoyed it thanks a lot for taking time likewise thanks so much for joining us today more info on our guests than our sponsors it's in the show notes of this episode and on a podcast website the blockchain and ask.com to help people find this podcast it's important that you download subscribe and give it a top rating and review on iTunes or on the podcast platform of your choice I'm Manuel staggers and I thank you very much for listening [Music]