Organisations adopting blockchain technologies can be viewed as Human-Machine Networks (HMNs), where combinations of humans and machines interact with each other. The more an organisation moves towards a ‘Decentralised Autonomous Organisation’ (DAO) design, the more efficient and autonomous it will become. Ultimately, organisations can operate completely independently using a distributed ledger technology, a combination of smart contracts, connected devices, analytics and of course data. Within such futuristic organisation, interactions between stakeholders will be guided purely by [...]
The organisation of tomorrow will be built around data. This will require smart algorithms to make sense of all that data. AI will enable organisations to leverage data and embed smartness in every process and customer touchpoint. When you put smartness to work, it will empower your employees and customers and make your organisation more humane. When building the organisation of tomorrow, the first step is to datafy your organisation by collecting data at every process and customer touch point. The second step in the organisation of tomorrow is to distribute that data, either using [...]
This week, the University of California announced that they cancelled the Elsevier subscription for academic journals. Elsevier refused to lower their fees and make UC articles open access available. This is a significant move as the University of California is one of the biggest producers of academic articles – with 50.000 articles per year. However, for many, this move might not have been very relevant. Therefore, some background information is required. As I discussed earlier, the publication process of scientific papers is flawed. Commercial publishers such as Elsevier, [...]
Science's primary activity is discovery. It aims to explain how the world works and we can use that knowledge to change our world. To do so, over the centuries, the scientific method was developed, and it has proven its value. It helps us answer practical, but often important, questions. Answering these questions often lead to innovations that improve our world. Discovery is done through observation and what researchers discover is written down, which we call data. This data can reveal structure (describing an object numerically) or behaviour (written descriptions about an organism or [...]
Imagine, it is Friday afternoon, and after a long week at work, you and your colleagues decide to go to the bar to unwind and refresh with a nice cool glass of beer. You go to your favourite pub and upon reaching the bar order a few pints. However, instead of the bartender giving you your beloved beer, he hands you a plastic card and tells you that from now on, you can pour your own beer as much as you want and as often as you want. Of course, if you wish, the bartender can still serve you, but with the new system you can try any beer that you wish and have as little or as much as you want.[...]
Artificial Intelligence is rapidly becoming more advanced. One of the organisations working on AI is OpenAI; the not-for-profit artificial intelligence research organisation co-founded by Elon Musk. Last week, they produced a paper demonstrating the progress they have made on predictive text software. The AI that they developed, called GPT2, is so efficient in writing a text based on just a few lines of input, that OpenAI decided not to release the comprehensive research to the public. Out of fear of misuse of the tool. Already, GPT2 has been described as the text version of deep fakes. [...]
Traditionally, assets such as real estate, collectables and art have been relatively illiquid. This means that the asset cannot be easily bought or sold in the market. If an investor wants to sell a $100 million building, it usually will take some time before the investor has the money, if there is a market for in the first place. On the other hand, a company’s stock is relatively liquid as it can be quite easily converted into cash. Cash is considered the standard for liquidity as it can be converted into another asset at any moment. Liquidity ratios are a measurement for how fast assets[...]
Smart contracts have been dubbed the killer application of distributed ledger technology. Within every industry, smart contracts will provide significant efficiency benefits. They will reduce transaction times between stakeholders from weeks to minutes or seconds. Especially within global supply chains, smart contracts will kickstart data-enabled collaboration. They can offer trust, provenance and security while enabling instant transactions. Smart contracts may seem revolutionary, but they are nothing new. In fact, they have been around for a long time. Smart contracts are already in place[...]
Artificial Intelligence is here to stay. The development of AI is speeding up on a daily basis. Only recently, Google’s DeepMind created the AI AlphaStar that secured a decisive victory against two grandmaster players of the game of StarCraft II. In a series of test matches they played, the algorithm won 5-0. This victory is a decisive moment for artificial intelligence, as the game of StarCraft II is fundamentally more difficult than the other games where Deepmind’s algorithm already claimed victory. Video games such as Atari, Mario, Quake III or Dota II are a lot less complex than [...]
In 2017, there were 875 Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), raisingUS$6,23 billion, which equals on average US$7,12 million per ICO. In 2018, there were 1257 ICOs that raised US$7,85 billion, which comes down to an average of US$6,25 million. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of these ICOs were done in the first months of 2018. In the past four months of 2018, the total amount raised was $873 million. There are no details yet on the deals done so far in 2019, but it can be safe to say that the amount will not be high. In the past years, we have seen the rise and fall of the Initial Coin Offering.[...]
Organisations adopting blockchain technologies can be viewed as Human-Machine Networks (HMNs), where combinations of humans and machines interact with each other. The more an [...]
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