Day 1: Anoop Nannra (Cisco)

Transcript

[Music] next up these lights should come back on in the next minute so don't despair next up we have a new Pinot Noir who's the head of blockchain at Cisco although if you're Korean Anoop why are you he's not Korean but if you were Korean you might know him better as the face of Cisco coin which ripped off his identity and raised 50 million dollars which I know did you get that money I got zero zero I thought what I'm what what I finally recognized now is when it comes time for salary negotiation I now know what I'm worth

alright so for my boss I can be very clear and upfront say hey you know someone's willing to pay me 50 million I think I think it's great as well that this face can raise 50 million just if anyone takes pictures today I'm so sure anyway a new nano chain is excellent [Applause] well thanks a lot folks I think one it's it's definitely an honor to be speaking here at the crypto Valley Association conference when when Oliver you know asked me to speak I said you know come to Zoo in the summer mountains Bali fantastic of course of course I'm going to come and so one of the things that

we've been looking at in in the blockchain space at Cisco is is what are the opportunities what are the challenges what are the friction points as you can imagine Cisco being a fairly large company that you know whose customers operate over 70% of the world's Internet some would say that and you know the comment has been made that Cisco actually already operates all of the world's blockchain networks we're just not making any money on it right but that's something that you know over the next couple of quarters we'll try and try and fix and try and resolve some of that but definitely this is a space that is that is very exciting very

strategic for the company anyone anytime anyone ever talks about blockchain they always talk about in the context of a network and so who better to do that then one of the most trusted brands in actually delivering Internet and networking technologies so what I'll talk about today is is again use cases some friction points some of the opportunities that we're seeing in this space as well as how we're helping the community actually evolve in advance so we've seen explosive growth in this space over the last 18 the 24 months we've seen amazing innovation the amount of innovation that is happening at every

layer within the sac is is astounding the pace of innovation is astounding the level excessive of accessibility to the technology is is greatly improved from even even you know just 18 months ago so we're seeing innovation happening at the communications layer at the consensus layer as smart contracts the distributed applications that are being conceived of we're seeing rapid progress rapid innovation across the entire sector now what's really interesting is that while we're seeing a lot of very positive innovation we're also seeing you know the criminal element being just as

innovative just as creative and I would say in some cases not being not being you know more technically savvy but actually actually being smarter right they're not working harder they're working smarter so here is an example of malware that is actually being delivered this is a two year investigation that we were a part of working with a number of governments around the world of actually identifying phishing right within the within the crypto community we identified that there were actually a number of add platforms that are actually delivering phishing and malware right and it's not because of these

platforms we've been compromised or you know there was some kind of tort notorious or nefarious hack but rather there's a lack of application of good standards-based security best this is that are being applied they're not being applied and so for folks who have basically taken fifty million dollars or maybe sixty million dollars out of the crypto community over the last 18 months this is this is this is a trend that we're gonna see increasingly more often so part of part of our challenge is how do we actually apply complete end-to-end security positioning and posturing around blockchain

technology and the solutions that we're putting in place so we've also seen some really interesting scratch your head kind of moments right you know Product X is now watching right and and you go from you know a penny stock you know you increase your your stock price significantly by simply adding blockchain to your portfolio tear your investment page is this a trend I hope not because I think there is some real value that can be built into into this space and into this industry but this is definitely you know a moment in time where there's a lot of excitement and

there's a lot of a lot of anticipation right I run what the technology can actually deliver and what it can actually make happen so cryptic kitties who quick show of hands who's actually got a crypto kitty come on be honest I mean I know there are probably more closeted crypto Kitty owners in this audience okay so I would say maybe a dozen right but let's not knock crypto Kitty's right cryptic kitties is is you know I applaud I applaud the project I applaud the application because what it did is it made available watching technology in a very consumer friendly way right and that's one of the challenges that still

exists in blockchain watch-chain is still hard it's still complex there's still a steep learning curve but an application like crypto kitties in a mobile centric environment allowed us to for the first time I believe to actually introduce blockchain technology to a much broader eCos a much broader community so you know while you know you like or dislike cryptic kitties what it actually did I think is actually help our community significantly and so this is something that you know maybe we'll see Maura all right maybe we'll see drift Oh doggies but you know this is something

that I think we're gonna we're gonna have to keep an eye on and and how do we take lessons learned from from events like this and actually pull them into our own product and portfolio strategies and of course enterprises are now starting to get really excited about blockchain technology right there has been a mountain of excitement in the public and cryptocurrency side but as we're moving and as we're gonna growing in you know going into the enterprise side enterprises are starting to look at this as hey you know there's something here right and it's more than just efficiency and risk reduction and cost reduction there are genuinely new

monetization opportunities that are being created I think we're still at the early Dage our early days of this space and so you know it's gonna be another 12 18 maybe 24 months before we start seeing some significant monetization models emerge out of this space but you know if you look at just just counterfeit right I mean two hundred and seventy billion dollars in just Pharma counterfeit globally right that's just one sector all right in the u.s. it's seventy seventy billion dollars just for counterfeit Pharma and so if you have the ability using technology like blockchain to actually start reclaiming some of that capital some of that money

you know you're actually in a position to drive alley and you're actually able to in position to potentially create new monetization models for yourselves so over the last couple years right and Cisco's been looking at the blockchain space for about three and a half four years now we've seen a remarkable evolution in use cases right we started off in fashion financial services capital markets and just like everyone else that's what we started our investigations and that we started realizing that there's actually an opportunity to create entirely net new markets using this technology and in recent times we're starting to see how blockchain technology can actually

integrate and interact with the real world right and so you know this is where we're starting to see the connection between blockchain and IOT right how do you get real-time telemetry off of systems off of networks off of ecosystems and environments take noteworthy events capture them in a secure and immutable way and actually create a net new market for yourselves so what we're seeing is fundamentally you know the classics who remembers internet of everything quick show of hands okay so far more people remember internet of everything than have crypto

kitty so that's that's interesting so internet of everything fundamentally what the Internet of everything was all about did you take people you take data you take the things that people and data interact with and you bind them with process right there's a recipe there's a script that says these are the individuals these are the networks these are the ecosystems that interact with one another these are the devices that are attached to those networks people and ecosystems and this is the workflow right this is the data that is being pulled and pushed in that environment it never really took off right and I think we can all debate the the variety of reasons why it never

really took off but I would I would suggest that one of the reasons it never really took off is it didn't have the secret sauce that helped bind everything together right and I would propose at that secret sauce that's been missing has been blockchain technology right now we're probably a long way away from this happening in in in the near future right but if you think about data is now assets right things of value and people is now ecosystems right ecosystems of networks ecosystems of participants piers relationships and you talk about things now you know truly IOT

things that are connected to blockchain environments and you have smart contracts in place that actually govern and regulate the interaction between these environments these individuals and devices you've now got a model we're leveraging blockchain technology in the security and the mutability that it offers you you've now got a chance of actually creating this this future so one of the things that we've seen over the last couple of years through our journey and looking at how do we actually take blockchain technology and actually connect it with the real world is you have to have good devices you have to have good endpoints endpoints

that are designed securely not only from a hardware perspective so Hardware rid of trusts but also from a software perspective best practices in designing secure software best practices in managing the delivery of that software the application of that software to the devices the entire management of those of those assets we're seeing a lot of interest in space right location right location of the asset location of people location of ecosystems geospatially indexing blockchain transactions is now becoming something that's very exciting right and we're starting to see some really good work out in the community to

make that happen time every transaction is time-stamped right so there's no surprise there and identity identity is critical not only for devices and people but even for applications right applications will probably have more an important role in identity and in identity than even devices in the future we think that identity is such a critical component within this ecosystem that I'm also pleased to announce that we're actually now a sovereign identity Stewart right so we've joined the sovereign foundation as a as AI founding steward of trust for

decentralize identity and the application of identity in devices people places things business applications process ecosystems networks these I can't really express how important it is that we actually get identity correct because it is the foundation of which everything that we're talking about will be based on moving forward so comment riveted right so as we looked at devices applications resources networks what we found is that in the blockchain and IOT community within that space there's a variety of

startups a lot of really good work is happening but fundamentally what we find is that everyone is reproducing everyone else's work right you need a you need a method to register an asset right prove that it exists you need a method to verify that that asset exists you need a method to transfer that asset from one individual one network one owner to another you need a method of getting updates from these assets right so now you're thinking about this is a sensor that is connected to a fog or edge compute device that is aggregating aggregating you know data from a from a from a an IOT deployment timestamping is

securing it and posting it to a blockchain network there needs to be a method a method and a mechanism for actually making that happen and of course we're all taught we're all excited about the opportunities around wallets so wallets in the blockchain knife tea space is very interesting right and so what we're seeing is these same five primitives being applied across a variety of industries a variety of segments but within the startup community what we're finding is everyone is reproducing everyone else's work so that led us to create an alliance I'll talk a little bit later on to see if we can actually come up with some common common

implementations and common standards actually move the space forward so in terms of use cases right these five primitives can be applied to almost any of the use cases that are listed on this slide here now this is this is one of those classic slides where the moment you show it it's obsolete right it's just that's just the reality there's there is so much innovation happening across all of these different areas and across the depths of these of these use cases that it's almost impossible to keep up now in terms of what what are the good use you said it that's going to emerge and of course you know going from left to right you know we're seeing

we're seeing financial use cases interestingly also in the blockchain IOT space right and always always moving only to the right in terms of physical assets track and trace supply chain autonomous vehicles electric vehicles is one of the hottest use cases that is emerging right digital wallets embedded within and within a core autonomous vehicle that's not future that's here today right you can actually do that today right the idea that a an electric or autonomous vehicle paying for

electricity right is is an obvious use case but also that same electric vehicle an autonomous vehicle being paid for services so picking up rides delivering goods that's that's a technology that is here today right this is not something that we need to invent we need to figure out is how do we onboard how do we reduce the friction with policymakers and regulators and actually work with a broader ecosystem to actually make this more widespread right and of course there's a lot of work that needs to be done in infrastructure as well at the same time industry colleagues chronicled have shown a really

interesting use case right Pharma delivery Wyatt drawl right super exciting you know if you've combined one of the most hyped terminologies blockchain with another super hyped terminology and the drone ecosystem and you've married them together and you've got this super hyping thing going on but let's unpack this use case for a sec right what we have is a workflow that extends across multiple ecosystems right you have a workflow that is triggered by a refill order right that refill loader let's assume for the moment is posted on a

blockchain network that can send triggers and events to a pharmacist that pharmacist can say well I've just got this thing is this workflow event I need to verify with the physician and potentially with the patient that this is actually a legitimate order right but if it's on blockchain maybe that's just taken care of right the validation and verification but this is a genuine event is taken care of you've now gonna have the pharmacist assign a drone to the task of delivering that drug to the patient and while it's you know it's packaged on the drone the

drone takes off it lifts off does the drone have to actually create a flight plan with the FAA or the local authorities does the drone have to follow a proven neighborhoods and across cities to deliver these drugs the drone also has to be reporting real-time location real-time telemetry in the use case that Chronicle showed in the video that they have on on YouTube when the drone actually arrives at the patient's residence the window interrogate the drone and says should you be here right I mean you have a window and a drone

talking to each other they're talking to each other over blockchain right and what the drone does it says this is this is the work order this is the identity that I have on the blockchain network you go off mr. window and verify with for yourself whether or not I should be here right so there's this exchange there's there's this dialogue between the drone the window and they're both talking to blockchain and the window says I see that there's a work order this is approved work order this is a work order for a patient that I'm assigned to and this is a work order that has been triggered initiated and validated by the physician the pharmacist and the network I'm gonna

open the window you're gonna fly through the patient's gonna grab the drugs and you're gonna fly back to the pharmacy right but let's think about this for a sec you've got potentially five maybe six completely orthogonal ecosystems that work here are they all going to be leveraging the exact same blockchain network with the exact same blockchain technology odds are probably not you're probably never gonna get a window manufacturer to use the same blockchain network as the FAA you're gonna you're probably never gonna have a drone manufacturer leveraging using the exact same network as say the pharmacist Network right so how do we make this reality this use case or reality how do we make it happen this is

an interesting slide so when we look at technology Cisco blockchain technology and we look at the use cases that were applying that technology to supply chain is extremely important to us supply chain is actually a competitive advantage compared that for us compared to other suppliers of our of our category and so this is our dirt to booking slide right the procurement of raw material is the conversion of those raw materials to components the assembly of those components into boards those boards fully packaged into complete products those products put on on

logistics partners transportation networks and delivered to customers right keep in mind Cisco is ranked number three in the world for supply chain efficiency in any category right so what does this mean it means that we run a super hyper efficient supply chain ecosystem over 80% of what we manufacture and what we sell is handled by somebody else from the from the procurement or our raw materials the conversion of those drop materials to sub assemblies and components packaging those components into finished products and then

delivering them to customers we never touch it we never touch any of that stuff right so we're super efficient and Gardner is as has ranked us in the last 10 years in the top 10 in the world in this category and as you can see this is across a variety of categories and not just communications and electronics and so we said let's take a pragmatic view to this this technology this this new fandangled thing called blockchain let's see if we can actually prove value within our own ecosystem right so remember for ranked number 3 in the world right

independently validated verified and attested by Gartner and these are the friction points that we still have right we still have challenges around counterfeit and gray market we still have challenges our on high cost of capital right there is a business case that can be attached in each and every single one of these friction points and what's interesting if there's a wide range of opportunities that we're seeing how we can apply the technology to actually create more efficiencies create a reduction in risk and at the same time create entirely new markets and new

monetization models so part of our transport digital transformation strategy is we look at supply chain how supply chain can actually leverage blockchain technology is to think not 5 and 10 the into the future but 12 and 18 months in the future and start putting some of these things into reality we're also extremely happy to be partnering with here right so here is one of the most prolific location companies on the planet they've got fantastic technology of providing not only indoor location but marrying that outdoor location as well and so what we're doing together is we're working on actually creating a solution that goes after supply chain

logistics and logistics transformation leveraging blockchain technology actually combining and integrating all these different ecosystems from the movement and the creation and movement of goods from the point of source to the point of destination so how do we make all this happen how do we make all this ecosystem thing happen how do we actually create it create an environment where we create interoperability where you don't have to leverage a particular blockchain technology and then be stuck to it right how do you create flexibility and freedom of movement of business applications assets across a

variety of blockchain technologies so this is where I want to introduce the trusted IOT alliance this is an industry open-source consortium that was created September of last year these are our founding members and one of the things that that we really wanted to address is anytime any one of these guys and the extended membership that has grown to now almost 50 members goes into a customer environment the very first question that they're often being asked is which blockchain technology are using why are you using this one and not that one right rather instead of focusing on the business value in the business outcomes

right they're stuck in a debate of having to prove and defend the technology of choice right and so what we said is let's get together and if you recall I talked about five common primitives earlier let's get together and let's define common practices let's define reference implementations of smart contracts that allow us to validate create verify get updates and create digital wallets in an IOT setting so we're seeing interest from a variety of segments right everything from capital markets all the way through to automotive logistics energy oil and gas manufacturing the surprise was for us

was you know the banks really want to get involved in this right because what they're trying to figure out is how do they take advantage of the machine-to-machine economy that's coming some would say is already here right but it's coming and what is their role right if if machines are executing payments between one another and they're conducting business autonomously what is the role for the bank in that world and so interestingly financial institutions are very excited about machine to machine and they're trying to figure out what their role is so what we've actually done we've actually created a a reference architecture and a framework of you know how do you

actually do complete asset lifecycle management what are the integration patterns what are the protocols that need to be considered and what's the reference architecture right our job here is to not recreate something that already exists our job is to identify what are the tools that exist in the IOT space and what does it mean to blockchain enable them right so as an example here's a workflow a potential reference architecture that talks about how how a blockchain network can talk to an IOT ecosystem and then talk to assets in the field there are existing protocols right so TR 69 is in is an

example of remote management capabilities right what does it mean for blockchain enabled TR 69 what are the integration tools what are the patterns that we need to be identified right there's a variety of protocols already exists that we can simply leverage and integrate in and actually create these environments where you can actually do asset interoperability in in the bachchan iot context i talked about the integration patterns just briefly right there's a variety of modalities are on how do you actually get edge devices talking to sensors and how they actually report data back and events back into the cloud or a potentially

even into a blocking environment and of course the workflows right how do you provision assets in the field how do you provision and maintain assets that in some cases will live 10 15 25 years in the field right and they'll be posting data for that entire duration into that watching network what are those workflows that we know of today that we can adapt to this space and again just an example of you know a model of events being generated posted and logged within the blockchain network and then how do you get blockchain

networks to actually communicate with one another one of the ideas that we're but we're proposing is let's define an asset model let's define what it actually means the blockchain to enable a thing that connects to the Internet let's define reference implementations of smart contracts that will communicate and interact with those assets so that from a business application layer you don't have to worry so much about what's happening in the blockchain layer because I can guarantee you over the next three five ten years blockchain will look completely different than way the way it does today right well what will largely stay the same as what are those workflows and also this at the same time we've also

created an award program so the quantum foundation folks have graciously given the Alliance a quarter million dollars to help advance blockchain and IOT applications tools and technologies that leverages the quantum protocols and at Cisco we've actually granted $100,000 to actually advance the development of test nets and sand boxes designed specifically to test for interoperability between a variety of different blockchain technologies applications and resources so the test net is in development right we have nodes being deployed around the

world this is a this is a sample of some of the some of the members who are standing up nodes in this test net we will operate a variety of different blockchain technologies will run the hyper Ledger's of the world robot will run the chorim's the Quantum's the you know quarters of the world will actually have iota in there as well so a variety different blockchain technologies create an environment where folks can actually develop and most importantly when we get to this point we can actually certify interoperability right so we're putting in the groundwork for putting in the

foundation and we're actually creating an environment we can actually certify interoperable applications in a blockchain environment and just to close I think one of the things that's really important is the Internet today is a collection of private networks that are connected through to one another via common interfaces common protocols common standards through which the operators of those networks have chosen to let data freely freely flow through the internet it's not free everybody pays for the Internet we see the evolution of watching technology very similar to the evolution

of the internet collection of different networks different pricing schemes different monetization models but at the end of the day they all need to be interacted what was interactive with one another they need to be connected and when they're connected that's what we're going to see the real value of blockchain actually emerge and as we see this one of the challenges that I put to the community is how do we create planet-scale systems of trust all right how do we actually get planet-scale trust and how do we make that a reality not in 10-15 years but how to make that reality in the next five and with that I'm out of time thank you