A few weeks ago, I spoke at the Global Blockchain Conference in Kuala Lumpur and at Windays 2018 in Porec, Croatia and I had some very interesting discussions with the participants on the enormous potential of Blockchain for business. Blockchain has a lot of potential for organisations to improve their bottom line, but it also offers an opportunity to improve the state of our world. Currently, however, the focus is predominantly on how blockchain can be used in the financial world or how cryptocurrencies are used by criminals. This is a shame because blockchain has so much more to offer. [...]

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The decentralised economy is booming, despite heavy losses on the crypto market in the past months. In the first quarter of 2018, venture fundraising in blockchain startups has been more than 40% of the total VC funding in 2017, promising a good year for crypto startups concerning VC investments. On the other hand, nearly 50% of the companies that did an ICO in 2017, have already failed, despite having raised over $104 million. Despite the differences in industry, location, product and service on offer, they all have one thing in common: they use some sort of token as the key enabler to the[...]

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The Telecom industry is known for reinventing itself. In the early days of telecom, fixed landlines were the key product of Telco's, while with the advent of the mobile phone this moved to mobile subscriptions and the massive cash cow SMS. However, in recent years, for many Telecom organisations the main revenue is no longer call but data, which required another change in their business model. With every organisation turning into a data organisation, there are significant opportunities for the Telecom industry to reinvent itself once again, thanks to Blockchain. Since telephony is so [...]

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In a world that increasingly revolves around data, security and encryption are key. Unfortunately, too often organisations do not take security seriously. Big tech giants like Facebook allow firms such as Cambridge Analytica to syphon away 50 million user profiles, while the average Internet of Things device is so easy to hack that a kid can do it, even if it is meant to be a highly-secure crypto wallet. In the years to come, data will only increase in importance and as such in value. With that will come increased attention by hackers to steal data or hack your products, services or servers. [...]

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With the authoritarian model gaining strength in the world and President Xi Jinping of China consolidating his power and changing the rules to effectively become “emperor for life, democracy is having a tough time at the moment. Even President Trump praised Xi’s move and joked about doing the same thing in the US. The Democracy Index, developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), measures the state of democracy in 167 countries. The 2017 edition of the Democracy Index, showed that 19 countries are a full democracy, 57 countries are a flawed democracy, 39 countries are a hybrid [...]

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Knowing what blockchain is and how it can contribute to solving some of the world’s biggest challenges is one thing; knowing how to develop a blockchain strategy is another thing altogether. Meanwhile, understanding how to implement a blockchain strategy within your business is even more difficult. Blockchain, particularly when used in concert with emerging technologies such as Big Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence or the Internet of Things, offers organisations an opportunity to re-think their internal processes, remove inefficiencies and build a better organisation. However, [...]

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For those of you who have been reading my recent articles, I have been focussing my attention on the necessity of regulations in the crypto world. The number of scams among ICOs seems to be growing and on a daily basis, I receive invitations to join another ICO as an ‘advisor'. I do not have to do anything, just give my name, and reputation, to this ‘startup' and they will list me as an advisor on their website. Most of the time, they do not have any code, no community, barely a team, a badly-written white paper, hardly any information on their token and why they need a token and if I ask [...]

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It is an outrageous scandal that we should not accept. Even if your Facebook profile has not been obtained by Cambridge Analytica, we should not accept such a massive breach of privacy, and those responsible should be held accountable. Those valuing their privacy should think carefully about their usage of Facebook. For those unaware of Cambridge Analytica, it is a data mining and data analysis company that has played a pivotal role in the US Presidential Election of 2016, the Brexit vote and many other political races. Behind the company are key figures of President Trump, including Steve [...]

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Artificial Intelligence is like Lego; to build something nice, you need to combine the right pieces in the right way. Most of us have played with Lego when we were small. I did at least and I absolutely loved it. I can remember the days when my friends and I were playing with Lego for hours on end, constantly creating new structures and building complete cities. We loved it and I am sure it stimulated my creativity. Even adults still play with Lego, often in group exercises to get some creativity flowing. Lego is a wonderful product and I thank Ole Kirk Christiansen for inventing it. [...]

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We live in unprecedented times, where, unfortunately, increasingly things are not what they seem to be or what they should be. We only have been in this situation for less than 18 months, but it is rapidly affecting our lives on a daily basis. I am talking about fake news and how it has become one of the greatest threats to democracy, free debate and capitalism. Unfortunately, for many, fake news is not a problem at all. It is even Trump's favourite topic. But above all, there is disagreement about what constitutes as fake news, how big the problem is and what to do about it. And that is a [...]

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