Tech For Social Good | Panel @ Digifest 2019

Tech For Social Good | Panel @ Digifest 2019

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Moving. Forward with our next panel, on. Tech. For, social good. Bollocks. Or were we how, tech is being used for social good and in this panel we'll take a look at initiatives, using. Blockchain, on projects, from pharmaceuticals. To, women and sports, I would, like to introduce our moderator for this panel panel, miss, Jenna pilgrim, Jenna. Is the director of partnerships in business development at block Inc a multi-purpose, blockchain, company dedicated to building software, that, supports a multi-chain, multi network and multi token, world, that's. A mouthful jenna is also the co-founder and, CEO, o of. Streambed, media an early, age technology powered, media startup formerly. She, helped to found the multi-million, dollar blockchain, research institute in Toronto as its, director, of business development. Jenna. Holds a BBA in finance from Trent University, and, is a certified Bitcoin. Professional. That's. A new thing right yes. Okay I. Don't. See that in my my, academic, credential, list so I think I'm gonna go after next Jenna co-founded. Her first company, when. She was just 18 years of age, and I'm gonna welcome Jenna to the stage round of applause and she'll introduce the rest of the panel team. Hi. Everyone and so. If I can just invite my panelists, to come up and I'll kind of introduce, them while they're while, they're making their way up here and so, we have Kate Butler who is a professor. And the program coordinator of, the blockchain program. At here at George Brown. And. Then we have Besim who is business. Operations, at Shan safe. We. Have Alisha Imran who is an, innovator at the knowledge Society, and although. I found in my first company when I was 18 she is just 15. Years old, and. Is. A new recipient, of the blockchain, young, innovators, award last night at a big, gala so congratulations, on that thank, you, and. Then we're joined by Maria, toric I was here. Who is from the Maria to Iraq I was your foundation, gotcha. Awesome. So. Thanks so much for joining us. So. This. Panel is specifically, on blockchain, for social good and I know we have a very diverse, obviously. Expertise, but also, I. Guess diverse, projects. Being. Represented, here so, you. Know no, one here wants to hear me drone on about reading, all of your BIOS so um it. Can. We just go down the line and take about two, or three minutes and just describe. Who. You are what you know how you got into the whole block chain space, what your I guess lightbulb moment, was when, you knew that this watching, thing was like gonna you know be a thing, and. Then how. You how, your solution is really getting close. To that blockchain. For social good or tech for social good angle so Kate you wanna start with you. So. I got it as a block change space in late, 2012, I I met, some very interesting people and, lived, on a boat for a year. It. Was a very cool boat with its own private fiber line full of discreet, computers, and they introduced me to computer science and Bitcoin I, didn't. Have the money to buy Bitcoin or the hardware to mine it but I saw the potential the technology, so I began, studying computer, science with. To. Gain the knowledge to be able to leverage it. So. I've kind of been quietly in the space for the past six years I've, owned, tear down, for-profit, projects. And I. Guess the project I'm working on now is, where.

We. Want to design something for Maria's, foundation, so I guess. We should hear about her story first before we launch into the tech side of that sure, sure so let's let's roll with that and go with Maria next. My. Name is Maria chirp okay and I'm. From, the tribal, regions of Pakistan. On, Afghanistan, border. I. Found. It Maria, Tripucka foundation. It. Is inspired, by my, story I, am. An athlete, I started, playing squash professionally. And the only girl who started playing scores, from that region and, four, I had to pretend for years. As a boy my name was Genghis Khan. So. Nobody. Knew that I was a girl and. It, could have been very dangerous so. True. You know and I ended up in sports accidentally. I would say because. Of how. I grew, up in that region but. I the. Way I realized. How girls are treated differently than the boys and. All. The girls definitely. Need. Opportunities. And the opportunities I, had, today. I'm here among GU all is because of sports it it, introduced, me to the rest of the world and. Educated. Me practically, and changed. Me from inside out, so. That's, the, Maria. Terrific a foundation, that I want everyone to have the same opportunities. That I have. Yeah. Definitely that's inspiring can you describe. A little bit more about about what you're, working on with Kate or what the kind of the project is there. So. I. Don't. I know nothing, I mean I'm nothing, about, blockchain. You. Know and, but. I feel. That. There. Are a lot of people. A lot of the young girls who, should be playing sports and, getting education, and. How. Can we reach out to them with, all the technology that is available and. You. Would have heard that a lot of foundation. When they raise. Funds. It. Usually most mostly, it goes into the operational side how. Can we use that into, the actual cars going towards the actual cars, so, I, you. Know George Brown school. Of design they started helping maybe this you, know I gave them all those problems, that these are the issues that goes face on, on. Every, level and, how. Can we, reach. Out to them. Support. Them make. Them feel safer. And, also. Give, them all the opportunities. So. Xavier. Was one, of the professor, whose. Team, got together this, is the students and they. Started working on creating.

An Online community. So. We can provide, all the online courses, and, then. Kid came into that you, know introduced. The blockchain how can we use, the, point. System and digital. Currency, so, we can provide them the support, that they need I. Think. It's the, correlation, between education. And technologies, or is a really really interesting one, so we'll come back to that later so. Besim. You want to give us a little bit of an overview of trade safe and and sort of how you ended. Up here today yeah. It's actually a very interesting story, that I usually, love to tell I, used to actually live in Vancouver in 2016, and I. Worked, at a nonprofit that helped integrate refugees within. The local communities. But. One day I actually came to visit in Toronto I visited some. Friends and, I saw the first mining, rig for a cerium. And. Don't worry if you don't know what that is but this is the first, interaction, with with blockchain, and. So. I started asking questions what is blockchain, what, is happening here how are you just making money out of your computer. So. I went back to Vancouver with, a lot of unanswered questions. And. I started doing a lot of research into what you. Know what is this what why, is it a something, that not not so many people know about and what is it why is Bitcoin so expensive at this point. And. At. Some point it kind of hit me this light bulb I told. Myself this is really the technology for the future and as somebody who is very passionate about using. Technology for social good I. Just, it, was it became. Apparent to me without doubt that the blockchain, technology, has a lot of potential to change the world to empower individuals, not. Only. Here. But all over the world and especially in marginalized. Communities and people that don't have access to a, lot of basic services that that they need and so I, packed my stuff and I moved to Toronto. Where. I started. Working with my friends on their, projects, and that turned out to be chain safe in the end. So. That's really how I got into that and still asked passionate, about about it if not more than.

Before And. Then can you describe a little bit about what specifically. Chain safe is is working on or how it really fits into that social good angle yeah, so it's, what chain safe is what chance if is working on a bunch of projects, we, are a for-profit company. We are a firm but. At the same time we do a lot of. Open. Source work the. Core of our work is essentially, working, to. Improve the infrastructure, the, blockchain infrastructure. That we have probably. A lot of you know how many of you have used. Blockchain. Of I've interacted blockchain, here. So, I see like a few hands and that's, exactly the problem we are trying to solve we are working. On the infrastructure, of, public. Block chains that we believe will empower individuals so. We work with foundations. Like the etherion Foundation which was founded here in Toronto, as. Well as other foundations. That are helping making. Blockchain. More accessible, to the average person, without needing. Any technology. Experience for you for. Sure that's that's amazing I think access is a really obviously, a really big part about what this this. New, era of, the. Internet really what this new era of infrastructure, really means for for normal, people because, at the end of the day not everyone needs to be a bank not everyone needs to be a create. Their own you know custody solutions or wallets or whatever so it's it's really good to see that kind of infrastructure being built, Alicia. But you want to give a little overview of your your project, and and. How it fits into the social good angle yeah, so I actually got, into the blockchain, I'd say around a year ago when I joined a program called the knowledge Society which is basically like a human accelerator, program but, for youth so they're teaching us about some of the most emerging, technologies, like artificial, intelligence, and blockchain and how we can leverage them to solve really important problems so, at first I had no idea what blockchain, was I, just, knew that I had something to do with crypto, and all of a sudden I just wasn't that interested, in that so I'm. Kind of through this program I learned a little bit more about what the technology was and how I can actually use it and. So that's just we had a session at one of our cohorts. And then I just got to learn a little bit more about it and that's kind of where, the interest started to build up and it, just kind of happened that things one, after the other I just read a bunch of articles about. It and then I also read Alex's, and Don Tapscott, book, on blockchain and that kind of brought a different perspective for, me and. I think that was much needed because I didn't, really find much interest in this industry but. After reading that I realized, that this can actually be a technology, that can be used to solve really important problems, and and.

Then That winter, I actually visited my, house back in Pakistan and I found out that my cousin was fatally, ill because, he had consumed, a counterfeit medicine, and so, I don't know that was such a huge issue, and. In, this case he, was. Able to afford proper medicine, but he didn't even know that the medicine he was consuming, was not authentic. And wasn't the real one and that, was just crazy to me like we don't even know where our drugs are coming from and who's producing, them and that was just an issue that I got really passionate about and so I was blocked, she was in the back of my mind and this issue was - so I actually just went super deeper into that and I found a few projects that are working in this space and then, I was also interested, in the idea of letting, people in these, areas. In developing countries like India and areas in Africa, where, people just have really poor infrastructure, so the healthcare system is just not. Very versatile. In terms of the, infrastructure, and the way that they're actually making their transactions, happen so, a lot of the people don't have their data with them and that's just that's, again like that's just crazy that people don't know. What their information is and they don't have control over who, they want to share that with especially. In these areas where there's poor infrastructure, as. Last time I got really interested, in these two ideas and that's when I started to create a project, called honest blocks which, I'm still working on and what it hopes to do is basically, help. People in these developing, countries be, able to, manage. Their healthcare data and put it on to this ledger and at the same time also be able to track where their products are coming from like medicine, and different drugs, so. That's just a little bit of an overview of how that works yeah awesome, awesome, so that and and that kind of addresses the that, last mile piece as well because you're interacting directly with the consumer, so it's it's this is a really interesting mix of people, on this panel for all the way from infrastructure, to. Education. To consumer. Apps so I'm, happy, to be here with all of you today and so. Obviously. We know that technology is not going to solve all of the world's problems like, it's not technology doesn't create prosperity people, do so, I think the, the biggest or. One of the biggest barriers in, implementing. Technology. From. A social good angle is that last that, last mile, I guess, so so from a consumer perspective, Besim. How are you seeing the kind of implement, the. Uptake, in the market of people. Wanting. To be involved or even wanting to understand, more, about the, blockchain. I. Think. It. Is slowly going there I think it, was unfortunate that most people that heard, of blockchain, heard of it through. Cryptocurrency. Which. Is not something that we like to focus on or we like to people to focus on because, blockchain.

Is Not really just a tool for people to make money fast then, and and that has been proven, that it. Was just a hype people. Some people made money some people didn't. But. Really for us I personally, believe and, a lot of people in the industry believe that. It. Is we, want it to happen slowly, and organically, we. Don't think block chains are ready yet, especially public block chains which we focus on. We. Are working with with. A lot of projects. I mean even gate, at George Brown to. Educate people to teach people more we run a lot of workshops we. Partnered, with also. The. Ryerson University. And University. Of Toronto blockchain group we try to reach, students, as much as possible to get to. Support. Those who are interested to. Actually give them all the tools we need for, example we. Sponsored. A hackathon at York, which. Was designed to, address. Environmental, issues, using blockchain, so we told people you will get a prize if you actually solve an environmental, problem on the blockchain and the. The amount of the the the the level of creativity that you see is. Amazing. But, yet we do think, that it's going to take probably four, to five years for public blockchains to be ready for. People to adopt them and we are happy. With the, slow. But organic. Growth. That the industry, is getting. For. Sure for sure so in that same in that I guess same, vein, Maria. Do you want to talk a little bit more about I, guess. The not. Necessarily that the implementation angle. But the the, I, guess. The ability, for developing. Nations to really take a leadership role in in. The implementation of new technologies. Because. Obviously, in. Developing. Nations is easy or not I don't as easier is not the right word it's it's. There's. A there's a grand opportunity for. Developing. Nations to to, really take a step here so that one actually probably could be a Maria, or Alicia but actually.

Well. I think. Young. Generation, they really want to get into this technology. And in. The developing world, there. Are so many issues so. Many issues. You. Know if. You look at the SD G's we haven't achieved them. We. Are not even close to that there. Are health issues there are educational problems. The. System is not working that much and. Even. The government also. Technology, here. You see it's everywhere, everything, is somehow, somewhere. It's involved, technology, they're back home even if you look at the immigration, you look at the you know the the. Simple, banking, systems, everything it has its way behind. From, here and then, you. Look at the phones when you hand, over a phone to someone who is not very well very well educated. It's. Danger, it can be dangerous they use you. Know you have, to educate the young people, how, to use. Technology. And, how. They can benefit, from it it's. Important, so. But, there are opportunities, definitely. With. The young people and I. We. Have, 70, percent of youth in in those developing, world and. We. See that around. 50. 50. Like. 52, percent of women there, out. Of all the population, and then you. See that women are mostly. Illiterate. I would say they can't even read and write and. The. Mother. Mother's are usually the first teacher. So. What. Happens, our youth is when, they are growing up they. Don't. They don't get, the, proper. Training proper, education, they, are not brought up properly. And now. You see, with all the social media and all the tech you know the other devices. And the technology, it's, just too much overwhelming. For them and it's. It's. They. Don't know what to do and how to do where, to go with it so I. We. Are also facing a lot of terrorism, and extremism and. Anyone, can be and anyone, can be brainwashed easily. It's. Because, of the ignorance, ignorance and, growing population both, of them are like, like, a bomb itself. So. I. Feel. That. You. Know sports. Is a huge. Solution. For. Those countries, to. Tackle. The, terrorism. And extremism because. We need to engage those young the youth into, positive, activity, to keep them engaged into such activities. That can keep them, away. From negativity, so. They can, rather. Than getting into drugs and rather than getting into. You. Know falling. Prey for, any terrorist terrorism. They. Can see. Better. Opportunities. Something. Brighter. Future, through, sports not. Only through sports but also the, technology that we want to involve in there, it's also very important, it will open, their mind that the world, exists. Beyond, that rather than only this. Yeah. Definitely, yes. Yeah. So I think I would say there's actually two things I think the first thing um is, like, the environment, that people grow up and I think if you break down a lot of ICH the, big issues that we have in our world right now a lot, of them come. From the, environment that people grow up in and I think if we look at all of these countries that don't, have these resources it's because of the environment that these children are growing up in so, I think if anything we actually, need people who are working on building. That infrastructure. And solving those issues, we, have so many kids that are living in slums I don't even have houses, so, how are we even expecting, them to go to school and be educated, so I think part of it is we need people who are actually solving, these issues that. Are helping create more accessibility. And also help create, solutions that are more scalable because. We have a lot of solutions coming out right now but, a lot of the people are either economically. Incentivize. Or socially, incentivize, but I think in order to solve this problem we need a company, that is able to do both, so you're economically, and you're socially incentivize, and that's where a lot of the goldens solutions will come and then, the second thing just, speaking from my personal experience, I think is education. Even, when I think about my education I, think that it's so. Totally lacking when it comes to technology, I think in order for us to create. The future generation, and expect kids to do more we just need to have first of all just expect, more, from that we need to have higher standards for, people that are going to school because, you can't expect them to do. Something that they're not really expected, of or they they're not able to go above that because the line for, them to meet is just so low so I think it's a lot, of it comes from changing. The standards, that we have in school, and then also just changing, the narrative of school, why are people going to school it shouldn't be just to get grades, and just, to climb up the ladder to get into the best university, it should actually be to gain, some kind of experience, and learn about these emerging technologies so. Another, aspect of it is we need to actually implement, the, learning of these merging technologies, into, the lives of students so, I think when it comes to technology a lot of people don't realize the potential, that it can hold we, just think about it as our cell phone or our, laptop, and the Internet but it there's actually so much more there's, things like artificial, intelligence, where you, can literally do so much you can actually use.

These Tool use these us tools to solve really important problems and I don't think we have enough people who are trained to actually do that right, now and because of the culture that we have students. Aren't able to see that far ahead all they're seeing school as is just Marx and I think really to change. The narrative of technology, and making, it more adaptable, for students, we have to start to integrate this into, our curriculum and, get more people to, actually talk about it integrate, it into our curriculum and also, just change the way that our culture, is working in schools right now because it's not creating. Growth it's actually just degrading, the students abilities for, them to reach their full potential, for, sure. For sure I think that's, a really good segue. Into into. The really important role that obviously George. Brown is playing in this split in this space ok John and talk a little bit more about the program at George Brown and about how, how, you are I guess educating. The next generation of. Students but also there's, there's, a significant. Focus especially I'm in the the latest. Budget just came out and. It. Had, a significant, investment into retraining, so obviously, there's an aging workforce there's. There's, more and more people coming, into the into the market but especially in the Canadian market jobs are disappearing so. How. Is an institution, like George Brown really, focusing. On. Training. Retraining and, I guess framing framing the narrative as, as elisha was saying yeah. So. Advancing. Technological. Literacy is, is, so important just worldwide, I mean we're, in the middle of the next Industrial Revolution and. It's digital. The. The economic, growth of a nation is no longer tied to the, natural resources that you can pull out of the ground or your, ability, to conquer other nations and take their natural resources, it's. It's, all about data now, it's if you have a device. That can access the Internet's and the. Knowledge to use it you. You.

Can You. Can create an income from that I, think. The George Brown College the. The, reason that I joined and. I came on last year's there's, a really really. Forward-thinking vision, for, for. Changing the education system. It's. Not about theoretical, knowledge it's about applied. Knowledge and hands-on skills, and they, want to be at the forefront of, cutting-edge. Innovative, technologies. This. Blockchain program we developed over last summer and it launched in September, we're. Working, on the creation of a new applied AI solutions, program that will be launching we're hoping January of next year and. I have T program is coming after that augmented. Reality virtual, reality, cloud computing, it's, it's. It's all about giving people employable. Skills for this this new job market this exists. For. Sure and I think the, one. Of the big misconceptions there. Is that that everyone, needs to be a developer, they. Don't. Obviously. This this panel, is a perfect example of that I'm not a developer, I can you know I know my way around a blockchain but I can't build one, but. I think that the. Pesum. Do you want to just comment on sort of the the bridge between, technology. And these. These other emerging. Job I guess job, opportunities. In. Obviously. Incentivizing, populations, to. To. Participate. In that community, would. Require. People. With many different kinds of skills so if you want to just sort of comment. On on how you and how chain safe are really, tackling, that problem. Yeah. So. What. We are I. Agree. With you know but not everyone needs to be a developer and then I think about that a lot because a lot of times I find myself thinking that ok I need to learn more recording, I need to be to. Learn more I need to be able to understand, exactly how, this blockchain, is being built and while. After. Interacting with it for so long you kind of learn, how to. How, to build it or build part of it and, how. To integrate it with with other with. Other things one. Of the things that we are doing at change safe is building. Things for people so that they don't have to. They. Don't have to build everything from scratch and, the. Reason why we are so passionate about public blockchains, and using open-source code is that whatever. We build whatever we put on there is public and freely available for, everyone to use if, we have built a bridge that connects, one blockchain, to another there is no reason why we have to keep this for ourselves there, is no reason why somebody else could not use it and.

And. This is information. Is not public yet but we are working on a, project that would allow not. Not. Only developers, but any kind, of person, to start. And deploy deploy a blockchain within a few. Clicks of a button because, I think this would be really the starting point for having, the average person, who. Has an idea who is passionate about something or who, has you. Know recognized blockchain, as a. Potential. Solution. Or, platform, for them to use to implement, a certain solution and we, are trying a day, and night to make that accessible for them within, a few clicks and not, necessarily having to have all that knowledge it. Is more relevant to be a developer today then in the future. But. Again. A, lot of these things are being built they are built one time they're being maintained but then the rest is gonna be opening, up for everyone, to actually use and deploy for. Sure and I think a big a big part of that also is is investment. So I want to transition a little bit into, you. Know obviously in. The last couple, of years there's been a lot of government. Funds are new new government, grants for technology, and new companies and young learning and retraining, and all kinds of things so. Maria. Do you want to comment a little bit around either. I want, to say access to capital for. For. Tech. For social good because I think there's like a sort of not a hiccup in the narrative but there's there's this inherent understand. Or inherent, thought that, that. If. A. Project is really good for the world that it can't be profitable. But, I don't think that's the case at all so. Do. You want to just comment on it I guess as a access, to capital or the the. Any. Experiences. You've had with NGOs or government's investing. In, technology. Solutions for social good I. Got. A little bit confused with your question. Yeah. Yeah sure so um I'm. I'm, just talking about like the the, I guess your interactions, with other organizations. Or, collaborations. That you you may have had and. And how you what, not, what your investment strategy is but but how do you get people. Interested enough, in your project, to get, them to invest or participate. So. That's. What I you're exploring, and. You. Know it's traditional. Ways you know you have on the ground you have a team who, would just you know do their you. Know contact people and organize. The educational, workshops, or, training camps, and you, know facilitate, them with supporting at good goods. But. Using technology and using an online community, kind of you know that we are doing and the blockchain, we. Want to create on like a point system, so all the all, the any go hook, who feel. That, the. She, has a potential, or she wants to do something in life she. Can just go online and she can go, through. You, know by completing, different courses, she can get points and she can access, different. She. Can know about, you. Know what's happening around her, where she can go where it's a if all those different. You. Know she. Would should. Be given all those. Information. There and. That. Way the parents are also feel. More safer, and her identity, will be safe and the. Same time she, is with, those point systems she can get a lot of you. Know she can get the, support that she needs it can be a sport, a sporting, equipment it, can be a airline, tickets it can be scholarships, things. Like that so. Or. You. Know invitation, to different workshops, and stuff like that so they're at the same time they're they, have to go through those different levels to. Achieve that but. We are in the process of exploring, that system. Right now and, that online, community and, we, I expressed. All the problems. In. Explained, all the problems to the team, and I said a lot. Of girls are, scared, for their identities. And some, goes you know they want to play sports or they want to go to schools but. The their, parents can't afford or, their parents, don't want them to go so, I will, where.

They Can start and you, know or to, get the equipment when they get free equipment they're, you know somehow it's, a beginning so it's a it's a start. So. So. Something I feel, that. You. Know I I. Find I want people, here to help me with that you. Know you have, the expertise, with that technology, side. And the blockchain and, developing, side and. This. Is the issue that I'm facing and I. Really. Really want to see a lot more goals, to, be able to play sports. Be. Safe be. Safe and be. Supported, and. Find. All. The solutions there, and the community. That, should be very supportive, I want, them to connect, to every, to. The rest of the world rather than being isolated and, feel very. Deprived. And not, feel, feeling isolated so. You. Can help me with that developing, that kind of, system. That, can help, me achieve that thank. You yeah. Definitely and I think that the pieces you were talking about about that, community, and and bringing, people together to really learn from one another's is an. Awesome, way to, I. Guess. Incentivize. A community, to to, then grow a movement and then you can grow into a bigger right. I mean, I have been through mice like myself I've been through a lot I have seen like even, the government, even the military, they. Have very. The. You. Know they feel that woman. Is so inferior, if that, kind of mentality you find on a huge level and then, you find in organizations. You know or associations. That you know, you playing sports and girls feel her there they're harassed they're abused, but they don't know where to reach who to reach out and all, the support is taken away from them and the parents think that they shouldn't allow their girls to go to schools or go, to you. Know to. Play sports, it's a wastage of time and just try to try to create how can we how. Can we, support them so they can be empowered, and they can. Find their leadership. In their communities, and rather. Than going through the system they can come, above the system. Wow. That. Was amazing. So. That but to keep, I guess to stay on on that community, vein I know the the etherium community obviously has a has. A huge. Following there's you know all kinds of development, happening there's lots of lots, of money flowing into that space I don't. Besim you said that you did a little bit of work with the etherium foundation and building that kind of a tooling, for that so don't talk a little bit about the community there and and and about, I guess their appetite. For social. Good projects, versus, you know building. A new part, a new you, know electronic. Trading, infrastructure. Or some sort of you, know other general, applications. Yeah. Just. A little bit of context, for those who don't know if, theorem was founded, by. Vitalik. Bittern who is from Toronto he was 19 when he founded it and, it. Became. Right. Now it's the second most valuable. Blockchain. On the, market after Bitcoin, and and. I. Think this is when, talking about funding this is really how. A. Lot of us were. Able to exist, as as, companies. A lot of young people, were. Able to start. These projects, was big the etherium foundation had a lot of money and their, mission was to, create, a, public, blockchain. That is accessible, to everyone that empowers, the, individual, that gives sovereignty, to the individual. So. You can have control over your money and have control over your, data. And. Even like get paid for sharing your data as opposed, to you. Know letting. Multi-billion. Dollar companies make, more billions off of your data. For. Acid chains, if we are we, are actually working toward. On the second. Generation of for, ECM called a 2.0. And. We are building, one. Of the one of their implementations, and in JavaScript, right now and I. Don't think this would be possible without, without. Any funding a chance. If we have this. We, do a lot, of client, work and. This is what position, has to actually contribute, to the community without expecting, anything in return so, we did a lot of research, and development to contribute to the community but.

I Can't deny that the etherium Foundation has been very helpful to us they are always ready to support. All. Kinds, of organizations and all can do all kinds of projects and the. Average age at change safe is probably 23. 24, it's a bunch of young people who are passionate about the future and to. Be able to get funding like. We tried let me give you an example we tried to get funding from the government once and the process, would, take an average of, probably, like six, months eight years it's a horrendous to, get on it to get an application and while, we. We. When. We reach the etherium foundation, you can expect to have an answer or get their money with a know equal to and and, it's a simple crypto transaction, and and. And. That's really the environment we were working in and and. Everything. Is public everybody, can see that we got the money everybody, can track where this money is going and we, can prove, to everyone that that. We are actually work, all of this money is going towards, developing, the second generation of aetherium because, we believe that this is going to empower, individuals. All. Over the world and in the future and. Yeah, like I think we were just lucky that some young people invented. Such. Great projects. That were able to fund. Themselves without, having to wait for venture capitalists, or governments or any other entity, to help them for. Sure for sure speaking of inspiring young people. Who. You, want to talk a little bit about I. Guess the, knowledge. Society and, and how how, new projects, are formed and and, how. How, I guess your. Project is then gonna move forward from here. So. I. Actually, really like the culture at the knowledge Society I think that a lot of the. Young kids that are there are probably gonna be like the friends that you have that you're gonna be creating here probably gonna be like your next co-founder, so a lot of the, people are working on their own startups, and a lot of us end up just working with each other creating, a project with. Other companies so, it's actually a really great environment and. You know going back to my last point I think that's the exact environment that we need to create in school, so, that people are working together not against, each other and. I think that's something that's definitely going to be vital moving, forward, in. Terms of my project, I've currently. Actually partnered with a doctor in India to help develop the pharmaceutical. Aspect of the project and I have a few other developers, that have helped me with it but most of the project I've built myself on hyper laser fabric, which is another. Environment, on blockchain, but, I think moving forward I've you. Know I've obviously applied, to a few grants because I'm really interested in moving this project forward and, seeing how, we can really take this forward but I think, again. Adding. On to your point I think a lot of the great companies will be companies that have that social, and, economic. Incentive, and I, definitely know that if I'm gonna, pursue this I think I want to be able to get that incentive. And kind. Of get that support. But. I think when we think about a lot of developing, countries a lot of them have politics. That are taking over innovation. From happening, and. When people are trying to do a lot of the companies that are out there right now are kind of just wrapping their solutions, around the politics, I think that's just not the right way to do it. We should be wrapping our solutions, around politics. That's already there because, it's kind of like if you have a port infrastructure, building a solution on top of it isn't gonna be much, beneficial, if the infrastructure, itself is not efficient. So. I definitely think like an order for us to create those really good solutions, we need to be able to break through the politics, and get government to, be more involved in technology be more involved in innovation and, be more open to funding, projects, like these I think it just needs to become a bigger, priority for, us and I think it well moving forward because. Of the way that we, can use this to solve such big problems that, even the government is.

Facing And that are big priorities, for them so, I think that's one way that we can kind of get the government, to weave into these solutions and help, us and that's the change that I'm also interested in creating, is how, can I get the government to support me. Especially. With something like with. Supply chain management, I think you definitely need, the support, of the. Country, itself, and. The kind of the laws and regulations play, a huge role in the way and in the kind of freedom that you can have with your project, so, in order to do that especially, in these countries where the politics, might be a little bit more constraining, to a project like mine, I think it's definitely something. That I want to work on to help create. That partnership, within governments, and help them see the potential that blockchain. And so many other technologies like, machine learning. Nanotechnology. Genomics, can, actually help in their healthcare and different sectors yeah. For, sure for sure that like public public-private. Collaboration is, one that we've seen work time and time again and Kate. You want to talk a little bit about that kind of the interaction, between obviously. George Browns public institution, your government-funded. How. How. Did. This even how did this program come about because this is it's amazing it's the it is the first it's the first one in Canada if not the first I don't think North America but that Canada. And so. I know that there are other schools that about it you, have business legal. Kind of FinTech based blockchain but this, could be the first blockchain, development, program in. North America offered by a post-secondary, institution. So, the process starts with a program, Advisory Committee so, the college brings in people for the industry and that's how I got here it was about I think. It was almost a year ago this month and, you. Start with the input from the industry on what what skills are missing what's what are the gaps that they're seeing what would they like a qualified, applicants, resume to look like so, there's a lot of industry, input that goes into creating the program so you're, you're. Actually being taught skills that's that are going to be useful when you come out the other sides. So. There's there's a big big industry, partnership, for. Sure for sure definitely, so. I want. To make sure we leave some time for questions so. I. Would. Just like to go down go. Down the line and just, give the audience I guess one, one, key takeaway that, they can a key, takeaway of something some way that they can help. Obviously. Blockchains. Our collaborative, software and, if. You build a blockchain by yourself it's not watching, and you, obviously need to incentivize the community to participate so, all, of you have self selected, to decide. That you you know want to learn more about this topic so, so. Panelists. If you can just share with the audience one way that they can it could be with your project particularly, or or in the industry in general. One. Key thing that they can take away from this to say this is a way that I can help, I've. There. Are lots of great blockchain meetups in the city right go good. We'll meet up find. A great project that someone's working on look. On github most of these projects are open source anybody, can contribute to it just. Add, your knowledge add your information. Join. The community. I, agree. With Kate and I would say on top of that go to hackathons. What. You can learn in a hackathon you probably, would. You would need, six months to learn outside of a hackathon and but, the other thing is when, something. That I that has helped me a lot. In. My life and I think I didn't. Know until, I did it is like. You'd be surprised, by the number of people who are willing, to be out there to help you so. I would really encourage you, whenever you are in doubt just reach out to someone and you would be surprised chances are they will more than willing to help you in. Whatever it is that you need help with and that's really because. Again you can never do everything. On your own you always need support. From others and there. Are millions, of people out there who are just waiting for you to ask and they will be more than happy to help you so you have an entire community, around you that is willing, to help and support so do take it take advantage of that I would say I. Definitely. Say, just, be, knowledgeable, like go out there and actually learn even, if this is something that you, don't want to you don't see yourself actually, pursuing or you don't want to go too deep into I think it's always so good to learn on your own and this was the same thing with me a year ago where I never thought that I could actually learn, about these technologies, and I'd be at a point where I could talk. About them and I could actually build and develop these technologies and I think that's what is the.

Kind Of mindset that so many people in this room and so many people around the world have I think we, need to change that we just all need to be able to have a more active mindset. We need to be able to think that whatever. You can do you actually can do it's literally, just about, it's. Literally most of the time the things you're not doing is just yourself constraining, you so, I think if what the second that you realize that it's, gonna be life-changing because, if, whether. It's blockchain, or any industry, like you can do whatever you want and you can learn and you'll, be crazy to find that there's so many resources, out there and it's just a click, away for, you to be able to learn and gain the knowledge of, people, before you that's, something that I've been doing so much is just looking at leaders, and CEOs that have come before me people. Like Elon Musk's can like navall that I really look up to these, are like entrepreneurs, that are doing such great things and like changing, the world they, spent like X amount of years trying, to learn the things that they've learned and, the best thing that you can do is just learn that in a matter of seconds, and that's like instant, knowledge right there it was just crazy it's. Just like people, don't realize, that and, just the Internet is such a big tool and then, after. You realize that you actually have so much more power to, realize what you like and what you don't like and that's when you're really gonna start to change the world and I think that's. The biggest point for me was learn. From others and don't be afraid to ask for advice and, talk to people. Out there talk to people and use the resources that you have I. Think. That in, the world we see the, balance is a little bit off when. It comes to rights when it comes to technology sharing or you know resources, knowledge. And, we, know the more we share knowledge, the. More it grows right or, technology. Meaning, we should share so. Here, we see in the Western world people, are you, know way more educated than the developing, world so. You. Know time, your, time is important, at. Time and energy, and your. Skills are very important, that you can share you can educate other people who are less educated than you or. You. Know and. Definitely. You know a lot of people help financially, to two. Different. Organizations, or, you know who are helping, in. Those developing worlds so you can you, know do, time, your, skills your, money anyways, you can support. You can create. That balance again, in the world and. Also. It's. It's important. Today. Because. When. There a lot of injustice, is happening, in the world we, need to we. Need to, help. Each other so, we can all come those in. Justices, and everyone. Should feel equal, everyone, should feel supported, respected. And, equals. Right so, that. Way, there. Will be no violence there will be no, terrorism. There will be no extremism, so. That's the you. Know whatever you can do always do good that's, the that's. The main, main, reason, you use. Your skills and. Technology. And, you. Know support your brothers and sisters everywhere in the world, for.

Sure For sure thank. You so much everyone let's give a hand for our panel. You. You.

2019-06-17 05:54

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