Can Blockchain Technology Keep Humanity Human? – Anne Connelly, Singularity University

Transcript

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.cannainsider.com/careers [Music] and she is faculty at singularity

University at NASA Ames in Silicon Valley and singularity u Canada where she teaches global leaders how exponential technologies can solve problems that impact over a billion people she has been an active part of the global blockchain community since 2012 working with and advising notable companies including Jax ledger labs and bonds and she is currently the vice chair of the board of blockchain Canada she previously worked with Doctors Without Borders Canada in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo and currently serves on their board of directors and has a Bachelor of Life Sciences from Queen's University and MBA from McMaster

University and a FinTech certificate from MIT she was honored as one of CBC's 12 young leaders change in Canada and one of the 50 most inspirational women in technology in Canada and now to the conversation with an Connelly hi Anne and many thanks for taking time today thanks for having me on and you're extremely active in the blockchain space in many different domains and I'd like to start with your teaching activity at singularity University let's perhaps start with what you're doing there yeah absolutely so singularity University is kind of a combination of an education center and a think tank out of Silicon Valley in

California and their whole goal is essentially to teach people how to use exponential technology to solve problems that impact billion people or more and the way they do that is really when you think about how people solve problems in today's world most people make the problem ten percent better now their solution makes it ten percent better they want people to start thinking with the 10x mindset so if you were gonna make this issue ten times better how would you do that and the kinds of ideas that you come up with are much greater much grander and much more exciting and so that's really what the way they work so I teach about blockchain and what the future of decentralized society is going

to look like to help people to understand what the true potential of blockchain technology is much beyond the cryptocurrency which is what most people tend to think about when they hear the word watching okay and who do you teach the classes to so there's a variety of different programs but most of the participants are very global they come from you know all countries around the world they're typically higher level executives or very successful entrepreneurs people who have worked in a particular industry for a long time but are now realizing that their industries are not keeping up on an innovation standpoint and they want to understand you know what does the future look like and how does my industry fit in with it one of your big

topics is also blockchain technology for social impact it's that part of the singularity program as well or is that more a separate initiative of yours it's definitely you know something that I talked about at singularity it's certainly my my true passion in the blockchain space I used to work in the humanitarian industry and so for me when I first started learning about cryptocurrency and blockchain that was the where I saw them is going to be the most potential and so I do talk a lot about the intersection of watching impact but also the intersection of watching human rights both at singularity and in other areas how I mean I'm curious about that because I did quite some research on impact investing but that was before you

know there was a blockchain or the concept of distributed Ledger's and all that so I'm wondering how did or was there a specific event where all of a sudden you noticed there's a new thing you know a new kid on the block that can make that whole social impact space better yeah the real admite I call it my aha moment when I used to work in humanitarian secretary work for Doctors Without Borders and some other organizations and you know I at one point in time was living in Central African Republic running a pediatric competition and malaria program we had you know more than 200 staff members we have in an area that was you know insecure but most importantly unbanked and so I used to carry nap sacks full of

money of cash through these these you know guerilla war zones and and through military checkpoints and these types of things highly highly dangerous thing to do and so when I learned about Bitcoin I this was the first use case I really thought about was just the ability to send money from anywhere in the world and with great efficiency but more importantly at the protection of human lives you know so we were no longer going to put people at risk of being kidnapped or robbed or killed because we could send money through so that was the real moment that I began to understand its potential and then of course from there I started to learn more about women TSA's and then well into decentralization and really

saw that this technology was going to be most transformative for the populations that I had previously worked with in a lot of African countries and other underdeveloped nations around the world cool when was that event with your realization about Bitcoin that was 2012 a little while back now which was an exciting time to get involved in the technology because early days in the sense and although I do I do remember telling people about my passion for a Bitcoin back then and getting laughed at quite a bit so it's nice to be taking a little more seriously these days cool but did you actually then convert these bags of cash into bitcoins and pay people you know

into their wallets directly oh no no no of course not of course I mean it was just really what made me realize about what you know the potential of the technology would mean back then there's absolutely no way that that was easy today it's it's not even practical when you look at it in a lot of in a lot of places right I mean you have to have a population that has you know whole smartphone access or internet access full electricity access you have to have staff that are you know capable of understanding and operating blockchain applications which is not always the easiest thing to do and then the people most importantly have to have that last mile I have to be able to break the money back time which doesn't exist

these places so you know I think it's it's more about being excited about the potential and looking at where the gaps in that supply chain I guess you could sort of call it that still needs to be filled by technological solutions or even infrastructure solutions if not digital money you know that can be easily transported and transferred what is the main value proposition for you for blockchain technology in the social impact space Oh for me it's a hundred percent about freedom you know and and when you look at particularly freedom from a human rights perspective it really brings ownership back to the individual so you can look at applications around freedom a property

rights and that kind of thing with land titles but for me it really gets into where things are most important around freedom of speech not you know having your government turn off social media or internet and really just giving people the ability to live out their lives in a way that enables them choice and ensures that they aren't restricted in the human rights that as a society have decided that every individual is entitled to and so it's you know when you look at the financial measures that's that's a big part particularly now if you look at even Venezuela there what's happening there where you have a country with an inflation rate of eight hundred thousand

percent it actually become what started as a health crisis where people are starving or people are going back to work in gold mines and they're getting malaria caves and so that's where where you start to see the importance of these restrictions on freedom that are having huge impacts on the actual survival survivability of societies how do you how are you involved in projects that you know plan to roll out this technology in this space and so I do a lot of education in the nonprofit space and working with humanitarian organizations to help them understand

first of all you know what the technology is what are the the varieties of applications when you look at particularly the humanitarian space as a whole you know you can look at things like global money transfer which they do a lot of fundraising then by chain medical records there are significant numbers of applications in that space the trick is really helping them to overcome the the fund you know the fear uncertainty doubt because it's a huge unlike other technology say like 3d printing where it's sort of inherently obvious what it could be good for and the comfort level is there with watching you don't get the same so I spend a lot of time working with it's like that to

try to understand how they can apply this and then I'm also advising a really neat company out of Toronto called funds bu and Z that is has created a trade and barter platform that uses cryptocurrency there or really is to help keep objects out of the trash and have an impact which is great cool but I'm curious about how you actually convince you know some of these agencies to use a certain certain of these of these products you know many of which are sound great or look great on paper but hang when when they have to deliver that's another story so if you're involved in a project yourself then of course you know more about it but what if you just have to look at what's on

offer and what might fill a certain gap yeah often I'm not successful I will admit that I think part of the key pieces is first and foremost finding the right person to talk to because the technology is is very advanced it's a very novel and it's confusing to a lot of people you have to find someone that is already excited to learn and excited to you know go through this process with you even if they don't understand you don't have that it's dead in the water right away I think the next piece is really to be able to quell your own enthusiasm for the technology I get so excited about blockchain and its potential and what it

can do and sometimes that's a bit much for people they don't want to be evangelized too you know they want to have a conversation that looks at the pros and the cons even if you yourself don't they we believe that the cons are or that valid so that's another piece and then being able to I think particularly for audiences or individuals that I speak to in the North American context is helping them understand the perspective of someone who is not as fortunate as they are you know so a lot of a lot of North Americans can't possibly Pat on why you would want a currency that isn't government backed and then I'll talk to them about you know Zimbabwe and how they have an 86 billion percent

inflation rate that had what it looks like to watch your life savings disappear overnight and and that can really help them appreciate that you know maybe some of this technology isn't going to be as transformative for them but it will be incredibly transformative for other people in the world so that's that's a huge help but then I think one of my my biggest success points has really just been about how do you find the lowest entry point for that group or that person what is the easiest way they can start to understand and appreciate the technology and the best way to do that is to send them some Bitcoin and just show them how easy it is you have to set up a wallet you say ok we're here

together at this coffee shop is a Bitcoin I want you to imagine that you're in kundo and you need money how would you do it today and how would that have different would that be if I could send it to Bitcoin and then they start to really say ok I'm starting to get this and and then you can you've got built a bit of trust up and you can move on to some of the more impressive applications from there ok cool awesome I think that always works right if you put something in people's hands and they can play with it but of course there's also a certain certain downside to it because I mean you spoke of inflation and you know with with fiat money but that always implies that cryptocurrencies don't have inflation and are always worth more hopefully but

I mean what's happening now right for example where the markets are crashing in Bitcoin then somebody could argue well that also has you know 100 percent inflation and what do you do then you know when when you send them something and they look at it very critically and say like I prefer US dollars yeah and I do I do get people who say that you know they'll fight back on some of this and I think the key thing to appreciate is there's so many different crypto currencies out there that many of them that are you know very volatile are not meant to be used as currency you know their utility tokens are security tokens or what-have-you but their purpose is not to be stable while you know if

that's really what you want there are solutions for that there a number of different stable coins out there that you used just for the sending purposes or whatever but again I think it comes back to what's the mechanism behind the volatility and for me it's concerning that people are very comfortable having you know a government just decide to print money whenever they want that to me is is again comes back to the cement ality and sort of perspective of someone who lives in a good country or a more stable or more predictable country where something like that is is a reasonable thing to think but if you're living somewhere where your governments

not trustworthy lot of corruption like that's a very scary thing to have to rely on a group of people who are generally not not a trustworthy group to be destroying your financial system or managing a mismanaged and I think that's a big part of it again it's this shifting of the perspectives of the people you're talking to yeah exactly good point in your estimate right out of maybe ten social impact projects how many use some sort of blockchain technology today yeah I mean a zero or you know zero to 1 would be the vast majority are not using it for a variety of reasons first and foremost it's it's still very new

technology but - 10 years old ethers for years or like it this is not mainstream stuff and I think when you look at particularly the social compact space one of the things I've come to realize as to why they're less adopting of this you know particular this technology and other innovations is because the you know in the startup world were very accustomed to failure know if you fail you fail fast you move on in the human experience failure is the loss of human lives right it's the the opportunity cost of using something that's tried and true over you know this new innovation it's really about people and and so the the dangers of trying new

things or work for a start-up significant higher than it would be in any other industry and so you know fundamentally these these projects these innovations need to be you know good turnkey ready to ensure that they're going to be very successful and you're not going to lose anything that truly matters over small failures and so I think that's that's part of it I think education is another part of it the more people start to learn about it and see how great it is and the adoption will go straight up and then again it comes back to last mile you know if it's a project around crypto how are they getting how are they converting the hotel and do the structure needed to maintain a

system so we're gonna see I think it's again still very early days the social impact world is generally a little bit laggard in terms of technology but once they realize how transformative it is yeah it hopefully it's exponential then so yes I've also heard you speak about the data issue in social impact yeah and there's concerns of course around okay so you donate your money and it goes into this big black hole and you hope

it's done some good you're not really sure and so charities and nonprofits are increasingly looking at okay how can we report back with meaningful data while also appreciating that what the donor might want to see is maybe not the best way to actually achieve aid so a good example that would be the child sponsorship programs that love you know you get this picture of it can you put it on your fridge it's not a good way to do aid or these you know voluntourism trips nothing and so there's there's a bit of a push-pull between ensuring that you're the donations are going towards are you know going towards quality

programming while also keeping the donors happy at the same time and so what you can get with watching that is that is very neat is you know there's more direct link between what the donor gave and what they've got that money and that's exciting for donors and then that can expand out of course since the impact investments base or paper performance type models where you know a smart contract will trigger the next level of payment once once you know a verification of impact has been seen now again that's it's not a perfect system you have to look at you know how is the data being verified and who's doing the verification and all these things but again I think it I think it will add

value to the system compared to what we have today yeah absolutely I think so too and I mean it's such a no-brainer if you think about the value proposition of the technology and all the pain points in in development and social impact so I think it makes perfect sense but still I mean you mentioned it before the adoption is just very low because you know it's difficult to use the technology is still very early days what in your view is the main maybe the main leap that the technology or the user experience should make for the technology to be more useful yeah it's it's completely ux/ui that's that's true is there are small

handful of apps out there now that are much better than what you saw years ago but the vast majority of the technology is still very difficult for an ordinary person to use and they think some of the the highest caliber tech people out there have trouble appreciating you know I remember walking my mother through buying ether in the early days she was a true early adopter but it you know I mean we're trying to use mist and we're trying to get on these changes and it was not an easy process and so to assume that an ordinary person who has alternatives in most cases it's going to go through all this this you know

shenanigans trying to get the their money sent or using a decentralized application when they've got some house I think is delusional they're they're not passionate about blockchain they just want something that solves their problems yeah so I think that's really where we need to spend a lot of focus and time in the in the coming five years or so is really ensuring that these apps are designed for the ordinary Joe because otherwise they just won't take off yeah yeah good point I think you're spot on there I mean just a few if we circle back quickly to your course at singularity University but you you mentioned the target audience there is global leaders so maybe those would be two people who could supply services to those you know who need them in maybe

the developing world where in your experience do they see the main points that have to be ironed out in technology for it to be useful yeah I think my biggest biggest issue around those groups and what they see I think sometimes they they themselves struggle to to see what a world that is decentralized and it doesn't have some sliced players in it looks like or just struggle why somebody would want that and so the key thing around really those relationships and that education is ensuring that they themselves truly believe it it's not so much about presenting the information to

them but helping them really understand that this is happening and this is what society is going to look like now I think for them to take it back they have an incredible opportunity because we do need you know large companies and their players and major industries but I think the real question is are they going to be able to take that information as you know early adopters and people are excited about technology and convince the old players in an old game that is coming you know I spent at least an hour talking to this banker from well I won't say what country but you know a banker who understood the tech and understood

what what you know I was talking about how society was going to change but this could not really appreciate why somebody wouldn't want a thing and and that's really my concern is that maybe we're going to hit so many brick walls with the old guard that it won't be worth trying to convince it will just really be worth let's work with the new generation let's work with people do really get this versus trying to convince build systems and I think that fundamentally is part of the ethos and watching this we're not trying to change the existing structures we're not trying to change banks and governments and insurance companies for trying to

replace them with completely with something and that's why if you get these sort of older players or people for less a adopted of these new technologies they're not going to exist anymore because they won't adapt they won't change where where their industry is going and I think that'll be the danger for them but our younger decision-makers are they also attending singularity or is it more the old guard yeah so they have a few different programs they actually have one called the global startup program that will accept impact as startups that come in for it's about a 10-week program they'll do portions of

it around the world they're looking at programming believe it's Denmark it'll go with 80 other people from around the world to learn all about the latest technology and how to implement that 10x mindset and then you'll come form the second half of the program to NASA Ames Research Park in mountain here in Silicon Valley to essentially take your your startup idea and really ten exit you know and ensure that you're well set up to succeed as a company but one that has an impact focus of it's hard and so that's one of the I did a version of that program a couple of years ago it really transforms the way you look at problems and the way you think about how

we solve some of these major global global challenges really looking at not creating that 10% improvement but really creating that 10 axis yeah yeah interesting point I mean I want to ask one one more question about that because you said there are certain people who just don't see the need for decentralized systems and who cannot imagine a world that is built on six systems like a blockchain but what is the main deciding factor there is it age is it you know upbringing or what is it I think more I mean age certainly often doesn't help but it's not to say there aren't some very very forward-thinking you know older generation I think honestly the key thing is is has has

this individual experienced a problem that blockchain can solve and and most people in say North America or Western Europe have not experienced them so basically do they feel pain are they hungry do they have a pain point can they appreciate you know why having this freedom it's truly important no I had a situation but a month or two ago where I tried to send money from my bank to a proposed change and this exchange is perfectly legal it operates in Canada there's it's everything is above board and the bank just said no and it was the first time in my life where I had really had someone say you know you've earned this money legally you're storing it

legally you're moving it legally to a legal place and we're just not going to let me do it and and that was a real rude awakening for me yeah I don't really have control of my money you don't have access to my money whenever I wanted and that was a little bit scary for me you know but there are people that experience that absolutely every single day you know what currency controls of Argentina and Venezuela and places like that where you can't just use your money the way you want to use it and so it's really I think about have you experienced it or can you take your mind out of the world you grew up in and put yourself in the shoes of another individual around are there certain stories or narratives that work well to convey that point um I

like to I like to talk a lot about Zimbabwe and just how the inflation crisis that they had ten years ago what that looks like from a more practical perspective so yeah you can think of hey 86 billion percent inflation that's crazy but when you're on the ground that's people carrying wheelbarrows full of money to buy food you know and it's people looking at their paychecks and realizing that the money is worth absolutely nothing so they stopped work and that's teachers that stopped working and nurses that stopped working and so it it very quickly becomes a bit more of a visceral reaction to Wow like that that causes the complete collapse of the society and if you can't get health care

anymore and get education anymore what happens to a population when that's the result of a bad financial policy and and so I think it's you know some of the same issues that we see with trying to convince people about climate changes nobody really cares about this two degree peace what they care about is what if I get asthma because I can't breathe the air or what if I have a heart attack because of the pollutants that are you know in the environment those are the things that people can relate to so I think it's really about not so much talking about the abstract academic examples of watching and decentralization but saying if you're a human being and this is your life and this is you know the restrictions that

you are living with this is how this technology can change your world and that makes it a little more tangible for people and you're also an advisor to blockchain startups and I mean how do you work together with with these companies normally so it depends on working with one company particularly in Toronto that was originally not a blockchain company it was just a community a very grassroots group of neighbors and friends that came together and wanted to swap items that they had in their house had in their houses and it grew and grew to over a million people worldwide and what they've

realized is that cryptocurrency could actually reduce a lot of the friction in some of these trades so they created their own token but where they've taken it is really exciting so they're actually flipping the advertising model on a 10 so instead of a community and traditionally advertising them to them in the way you normally would they're actually ensuring that you know the community interacts with these advertisers these keep you know community partners on the platform that they themselves as community members as users received between you know 60 and 70 percent of the benefit of financial returns on that ad and so it totally changes the way that these communities

can interact with people who want to connect with them that's I essentially work with them to help them understand the cryptocurrency from a technological perspective and then also from a market perspective and how that works so looking at just how they can leverage the tech to think what they've got and make it much better for the individuals that are part of their community I mean do you have for for the companies working with you or with with advisors in general do you have any advice to them how they could make most use you know of what the advisor offers how they could make the most impact with the ideas that that you bring to them yeah I have a lot of companies that will write me and ask me to be an advisor and

it's a space that you know just because the word blockchain is in my profile they think that I'll be a good fit and I'm looking at it and it's some kind of like you know car insurance product and I if the advisor isn't passionate about what you're building they're not gonna get behind you they're not going to get behind what they're doing you know and so that's the key thing is be really smart about selecting someone that cares a lot about the industry that you're working in because then you're not going to be fighting to get their attention they're going to be fighting to get yours you know because they found something exciting that they want to share with you and so I think that's really the key thing is you need to be looking for people that care a lot about

what your mission is and what your end goal is going to be but once you want to start advising them and sorry that I keep harping on this point but I'm also advisor to some companies and sometimes I feel some people are more open to ideas and others are you know maybe less open to some ideas and I'm always wondering you know what are some kind of think shifts that you can inspire in people that you advise or companies that you advise that they really give it a try that they are willing to you know to also risk failure that's a good question I mean I like to look at past success and say okay we tried this crazy thing here and it worked or quite frankly come up and say like I think there's a 70%

probability and this crazy idea will fail but we should try anyway and here's why and you know here's where you can get resources and that kind of thing I think honestly if you can build a good trust between yourselves and the founder then even if you do fail knowing that you're upfront about that possibility or though that there won't be bad blood of the other side of it you know just say I think this is worth giving it a shot it doesn't work you know it doesn't work yeah definitely but I mean it's also I mean I spoken to some people at at a big for consulting firm and they said we're advising clients on blockchain technology but actually if

we're really honest it changes our own business much more than the business of the client yes so we also had to learn how to deal with this uncertainty and and and I think you know this openness is just super important yes absolutely absolutely because it is such an you know you there's a huge number of crypto quote-unquote experts or advisers out there and the knowledge base is not that deep in a lot of those so I think it's really critical to also appreciate that because everything is so new you and your clients or you and your you know company you're working with are both going through this together to a certain extent and just trying to figure things out just like most of the rest of the

industry yeah and let's speak a little bit about blockchain Canada where your device chair yeah so watching Canada's essentially just an industry association whose goal is to bring together both individuals startups and government to the same table within the Canadian context to help ensure that we're all promoting the adoption of watching technology so that can be everything from meetups and supporting just natural networking between individuals to looking at how we can have a voice at regulatory meetings and with regulatory bodies to ensure that anything the

government is looking at doing will be Pro watching Pro the watching industry in the Canadian sector because we've got really an incredible pool of talent particularly on the technical side coming from alien population and so we're a very lucky country from that sense but we will end up losing people very quickly and losing companies we're not smart about the laws that were setting up and how we're supporting these types of companies to enable them to grow and it's organization is essentially trying to create a voice for watching within the the Canadian how open is the government in Canada for this technology it's not bad in the very

early days when you look at kind of several years ago the Senate really decided to take a light touch on regulation and let inflation grow and prevail now that being said it's you know the government hasn't been specifically designing legislation to promote the growth of watching companies in the sense like you know other countries like mult are Singapore or others have have been specifically designing to attract companies so quickly words could be better but I think what we really need to be smart about is because we do have this talent pool is we need to really be thinking about it from a more proactive sand

whatever it means to think about a proactive standpoint to ensure that we can keep these people here and and and grow and build the industry right within our own hockey I mean if somebody had the option let's say somebody was in Canada and had a startup with maybe a blockchain identity product and they raised seed funding from friends and family and now they want to scale I mean should they in your view should they stay in Canada or are they better off going to someplace like Silicon Valley I mean the reality at the end of the day is watching as so where you're physically located or or registered is a significantly less consequence than it would be if you are running a

traditional business and so you could be one place and be raising all over the world is particularly around you know the children ization of equity and that thing it's a lot easier to to get funds than it was in the past you know the Canadian culture on the whole is more conservative than the American culture both in terms of investment and pace of activity but the blockchain industry within Canada is is not like that it's you know very proactive very keen on seeing the technology scale and so you know I would encourage people to stay in Canada and develop the technology here while tapping into whatever

resources you know are available in Silicon Valley and elsewhere it's it helps them boost but it's not quite like if you're starting a more traditional business where you actually need to be more co-located with investors and thing what's the ecosystem like in Canada I mean does everybody know each other and you know do they all collaborate and and see this as kind of things they're building together or is it more like a competitive spirit no I mean we we've got an incredible community here we had meetups in Toronto since 2012 we had the world's first Bitcoin ATM in Vancouver in the world second in Toronto so this is a community that has you know we all started as people who are passionate about the tech and the impact of the

tech and so we became friends first and business colleagues as the industry grew and so there's a real sense of how can I support your project who can I put you in touch with you know because technology is it's very much a rising tide situation where as the water goes up everyone benefits and so it the community has been extraordinarily helpful extraordinarily supportive and I hope it will continue to be that way I recently also started speaking with people about women in technology and more particularly women in blockchain technology and and some women I speak with they say they cannot hear this anymore and others are very active mentoring in

this regard I mean how do you gauge the blockchain space in terms of opportunities for women yeah I think the the sector is certainly getting to be a better place for women to work when I first got into the space I'd go to meetups and it was me and you know I think the key thing is really looking at how can you get the best impact frankly there's been tons of research on this sector then this applies both to gender diversity diversity of racial diversity all these this whole area is that diversity is better there's no question about it sometimes it is harder but it

is always better and so the key thing here I think is how we learn from the mistakes of the past in other tech industries to make sure that we can really get a head start and so for myself I feel I'm I like a lot of the policies that I've seen from certain conferences consensus is one of them where instead of say having a women in blockchain panel they will have a you know we want to have 40% women speakers or thirty percent women speakers too and they can talk about their projects because it's really not about talking about being female in the space it's about giving the voices to women who are doing great things and you know ensuring that young girls who are growing up have

access to role models but also to education and to equal access to opportunities within you know companies that are out there and so I think the key thing is is not about making it a women in watching thing but but getting that you know we are working on great things and how can we ensure those voices are amplified yeah yeah I think so too that's dead spot on there do you have any role models who inspire you oh goodness there's a little people in the space I there's so one group that I am really proud of there

it's Elena sand on the Cova and particularly to attract young girls to the hacking space and another colleague of mine Amir roasted from Blackie's put it so perfectly he essentially said a lot of people are out there talking about women in tech and women and watching and Elena and crypto chicks are doing the work they are going out there doing hackathons there they're getting more women in the space to actually solve the problems that are just talking about it and so I think we're doing bruh getting there people are a little more aware of it now written start so that's good but there was a fabulous article that I'll send you that about the Crypt

where the coins thank crypto crews series that's that's fantastic need to bring that up because I read this article today and means I have a question about it because Olga failed Meyer was quoted in the article saying being a woman in blockchain is like riding a bicycle except the bicycle is on fire and everything is on fire it's so well written this article but what do you make of such statements I I mean the industry is look it's the intersection

of finance and tech you know it was never gonna be a great spot for women and so I think there's a balance between like women need to support each other and need to take some risks and build some stuff but then they also need to be given the opportunity some money and you know have the access to the boys clubs that get you farther and get you kind of known so this it's a trade-off and I think it's still a lot of room to grow there I spoke with Aparna from she 256 few few weeks ago and she said there's really a huge broke culture happening in the blockchain space much worse than in the tech space I mean that was just her take on it yeah there's there's like

subsets and people within crypto and you can kind of map them out based on when they got into the game but part of it is like hyper bro but I put it like I feel like that article nailed it yeah well the link to that articles in the description yeah and for you was there ever a time where you found it difficult working in tech or especially difficult or you thought this is just so hard why am I doing this I think that the real piece for me has wanting to be respected in the way that I felt that I should based on my experience and my knowledge and that and often that just wasn't the case you know and it was a lot of subtle things you know I had podcasts

interviewers talk about my hair and my looks and talk about me as a quota filler and these types of things and it became a bit of a shadow ever over everything that I did if I was treated with respect people assumed it was because I was female and I was filling a quota and it wasn't the work I had done or on the flip side if I wasn't it was you know the work was irrelevant and so that was frustrating for me now it's gotten better but I think there's there's a lot of room to grow in the space there's a lot of people who need to really look at diversity as a pro and see that as an important thing but also see that values

and recognizing that the work that has been done yeah yeah just like in any other job and any other industry exactly exactly but I think particularly with watching because we are building or what will be some of the infrastructure for a lot of the key processes in our world it's really critical to have these diverse voices as a part of the process right from the start because you don't know what you don't know these old populations you know where you build something for them and there was a great podcast interview that came out probably in 2015 I think this gentleman who went to Kenya and he was gonna save Kenya with Bitcoin and he went to the school and his full thought was he would give

them these iPads and people would send the money and then they hold on to it it was worth a whole bunch of money and then we having never been to Africa of course it goes over to Kenya with iPads realizes that they break almost instantly in the dusty you know a context that it was and there's no where to charge them and that while the teachers were very thankful for them like I think they probably would have been thankful for anything he said what they didn't what they needed wasn't Bitcoin they needed food lunch and you don't clock on the wall and they needed some business and I think had he actually really brought the Kenyan educators into the fold in the early stages he would have known that before he went and maybe could have done his project in a dip away so I think it's

really critical that as we are building what will be some of the fundamental infrastructure for the future of our society is that society is included in that that's why people start what do you think is on the horizon for the blockchain space in maybe the next five years whoo five years is a long way to project out in the block so it's up in the first but that I'd settle for five my goodness five years oh I don't know my bill hope I die so up so you may be my ideal hope my worst-case scenario that scares me um my hope is that we're done convincing people that it's a good idea and that everybody is on board and it's really about how can we start to actually start

using these applications in everyday life and in the real world so that the society can start to benefit from all of these you know projections and things we can even evangelizing for so long that's what I would truly love to see my greatest fear however is that the technology will essentially be used by the governments that you know we're trying to we're trying to provide freedom from in a lot of cases so if you have a dangerous government one that's that's very impressive and all of a sudden they say okay we have our own national crypto currency and you have to pay our taxes in it and you have to get paid your salary in it if you want health care you for that in it and essentially an ordinary citizen who

doesn't have the same sort of technological options as maybe someone else would is is all of a sudden going to have every move they make completely tracked and that scares me to bits it absolutely scares me to bits because it concerns me that these centralized powers that we're trying to enable more ownership of citizens and populations than different centralized powers get more power as a result and actually becomes more oppressive than it was in the past I that makes me really worried for a lot of the currently most oppressed people in today's world yeah good point what do you think are the odds for this kind of dystopian scenario

they're not zero I'll tell you that not zero so I think the real key thing that we can do as an industry and as a as a community is to ensure that the education about what the options are is available you know so you can teach people how to use currency that they might you know be able to keep to themselves or not have the concerns around inflation or not taking thing that at least we give people the knowledge to know to go out and figure out how to do some of this stuff or they don't have the option to do so or at least educating people on what their rights are as as a human being in this

world on how they can help to fight for that or how we can look at structures of how people living far away might be able to help people who don't have access to those rights their title to we can help there's actually a really cool company out of Toronto called better place at the digital public square initiative at the Munk school that's looking at ways of how you can organize a society to create positive change in the world and that could include you know change both locally within one's own community or how can you leverage say that global diaspora people to support changes that people want to do locally even if they can't be local themselves what could we

all do you know who work with blockchain technology and in the crypto space to spread this education so I think a few things need to happen in person for us we need to start to get coding into the curriculum of traditional public schools first and foremost I mean above any second language that kids should be learning they should be learning how to code even if they don't go in to do it as a career it's it's absolutely fundamental to or the vast majority of companies and interactions and services that we have in States that's that's a number one I think as a community as a watching community the more we can share even just you know how to buy and sell and send Bitcoin that's such an easy

entry point it's something you can do with someone in five minutes and it's a real aha moment for people and I think if you can open the door for them it's a lot easier for them to them widen the gap you know and to or further and go in and so I think that's a that's a really good start and but lastly I think we need to start to improve the public perception of crypto and what it's about and what can you achieve because a lot of the news articles are about the volatility and the price jumps and then things like child porn and drugs and all of this when it's just such a tiny proportion of you know what crypto is used for and what the potential of decentralization

blockchain is and so I think we need as a community to start to change the narrative around the technology and where it's going to take us as a as a society yeah definitely we need better stories I think yes and if you had one wish you know to change something anything in the way we humans deal with technology what would that be goodness ah that's a great question I you know I think at the end of the day I wish the technology the whole sector itself was more compassionate and more empathetic and where the human condition is is factored into every piece of technology

that is created I went to a great event put on by the people centered Internet where their hope is that the future of technology in the future connectivity has the human at the center of its construction and I really believe that that's important you know so instead of building some tech product that you know as we increasingly look at robots and AI and what's going to happen with our change in society that you know if you can keep what really matters is human interaction and being good to one another at the core of the construction of all of these applications and infrastructure technologies that that will help keep humanity human and keep us connected to the people in our world

yeah great where can people find you you can find me on Twitter and at an underscore Connolly or Crimea and Connolly that's yay cool excellent and this was really great really appreciate your time and thanks for coming on this podcast take care thanks so much for joining us today more info on our guests and our sponsors is in the show notes for this episode and on the podcast web site the blockchain does calm 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 stackers and I thank you very

much for listening [Music]