Tag: internet

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Business & Society

Who Are You in the Future?

A virtual you and a real you. Hang on! Who are we really? Our sense of selves is rapidly turning individualistic and complex. Who are we in the future?

KEY TAKEAWAYS
The fourth industrial revolution is quickly changing our sense of self. Hyper-personalization and technology provide new ways of identifying ourselves. Our identity is no longer just based on reality as our digital selves are kidnapping our attention. What is real and what is not may cause an identity confusion.

If we travel back in time to prehistoric humans, the group was particularly important for our survival. Man originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago and it took about 100,000 years before we left Africa. During these first 100,000 years humans lived as hunters and gatherers. Man lived largely as nomads and formed bans or groups of 20–40 people and their focus for survival was to get along within the group. Everyone had his or her own sense of identity within the group. Some were strong hunters, and some were observants scouts looking for threats. Anthropologists claim that societies were largely egalitarian and with no dominant rulers. They can be claimed to have been people without politics. The key point is that a considerable part of humans back then were not highly influenced by social/cultural development.

In short one may claim that the development of human social organization started as band societies and then turned into tribe societies where they started to settle down and grow their own food instead of hunting. Some 7,500 years ago cheifdoms started to emerge and people started to organize themselves into thousands. It was not until about 5,000–6,000 years ago that a version of the first states appeared. Since then we are accustomed to partly identify ourselves with our national citizenship and its language and culture.

Our sense of identity is shaped by social interactions, ethnicity, language, and cultural preferences as well as by technological developments.

It is scary how short of time the so-called modern human has lived. It was not until about 1750 that the first industrial revolution started. It’s even more scary to consider how greatly the fourth industrial revolution have shaped our sense of identity. Consider this question.

Are we shaping our digital identity or are we shaped by our digital identity?

Since the inception of the fourth industrial revolution in 2014 human sense of identity has gone through rapid developments. The trend towards hyper-individualization started in web2 as we started self-tracking through social media. Suddenly it was normal behavior to take selfies… As our digital identity started to emerge, we quickly chose which community we identified ourselves with. We showed our identity by joining communities online or used hashtags. Fitness enthusiast posted photos of their bodies and those sharing the identity as a foodie presented their cooking skills in social media. At some point our strife to find and show off ourselves took a bad turn. Our digital selves kidnapped our real selves by using notifications and likes to make us addicted to our online existence. Suddenly our real self is not enough and we develop a need to check our avatar to get more approval for our sense of identity.

In web3 our sense of identity will be even more individualized. We will need to own digital clothes that are presentable for our professional and personal selves. It will be important to consider how we present ourselves in the metaverse and our sense of self will expand to a digital self. Some will live through their online sense of selves.

The question is when it all gets unhealthy!?

Having a sense of self is a key component of mental health. How much will it matter if we have the wrong kind of shirt at a professional digital meeting? It is also important to consider how fragile our sense of self is as we measure ourselves through a digital existence through likes and virtual approval. As hyper-individualization is taking over we will have unlimited ways of finding and showing off our sense of selves. Gone are the days when it was more than enough to be a hunter gatherer.

We do not have to be dystopian to be worried about our future selves that also need to consider who we are in a pretend world. Or is web3 reality? I have one message to my future self. I am neither what I identify with in reality or in the virtual world. I am not something of life. I am life.

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Business & Society

What is the fourth industrial revolution? — why does it matter for business and society?

In less than 300 years our society has evolved from the steam engine to smart household gadgets and robots doing our work. Each industrial era is better than the previous and develops from the need to advance businesses and society. What’s the fourth industrial revolution good for?

We have gone through three industrial revolutions; each lasting about 100 years. The first industrial revolution started in 1784 with the development of steam, water, mechanical production equipment. About 100 years later society was greatly enhanced with the use of electricity and in late 1960s electronics, IT and automated systems reshaped society.

Each industrial era comes from the necessity to advance society and the fourth industrial revolution (industry 4.0) is the most advanced and quickest of all previous industrial revolutions. In the last twenty years new disruptive digital technologies such as, artificial intelligence, big data, blockchain technology, cloud computing and fintech have transformed our existence. The speed of the fourth industrial revolution makes it difficult to see clearly what the future will look like. However, there are key themes that are important to be aware of.

Industry 4.0 is generally about optimization of production and creating a closer connection between manufacturers and customers. Researchers predict that blockchain technology will change almost all aspects of our lives, including financial markets, business operations and governance, health care, government operations and public administration. Blockchains can be effectively used for registration of births and title deeds, security trading, insurance services, health care, accounting, auditing, and supply chain networks. One major component of blockchains is that they eliminate the ‘trusted third party’ such as banks or other central authorities involved in transactions. This will affect businesses that involve the middleman.

Moreover, things need to go quicker now days and industry 4.0 is all for optimization and customization. Technological innovations in the fourth industrial revolution enhances the products and services that were developed in the third industrial revolution. The internet of things is a term to describe the link between a physical product and its connection to the internet. Information alone is not enough, and the information age is enhanced by technologies in the fourth industrial revolution. Customers demand customization, and the fourth industrial revolution is about mixing and matching technologies that increase productivity and meet customer needs.

The sky is the limit with technology. Today payments are quickly and easily made through fintech payment apps that use blockchain technology, our lawns are cut by self-driving lawn movers and automated cars can drive us to work. Robots with AI technology are used in production. Google assistants order products for us and our smart phones and watches are almost limitless in how they impact our lives. Cyber physical system that uses a combination of technologies such as sensors and data are used to enhance products. One example is the fire alarm that start to ring when a change takes place in the environment.

There are a few fears within the fourth industrial revolution that companies and societies need to tackle. Security challenges are apparent as we use big data that is commonly stored and transferred on the cloud. Companies and organizations need to consider privacy issues regarding how they use and store customer data. Decentralized blockchain technology has proven to be a more secure database than traditional databases and data can now be stored on the cloud in a decentralized fashion. This increases security as big data is not stored on one server but on a cloud that is connected to hundreds or thousands of nodes.

As society evolve in digitization, we also need to evolve. The adoption of new technologies is likely to affect the labor market as robots and technological innovations are used instead of humans to perform services and production tasks. The need to solve simpler tasks is likely to go down and demand for specialized knowledge and high-level jobs will increase.

Grandma needs to learn to use the smart phone.

It’s the same for business. It is the nimblest company that will survive in the fourth industrial revolution. Companies that are brave enough to question current ways of doing business and embrace new technologies will survive. They may even have to change their business model to meet customer needs. Here’s a business idea for you. Take accountants for example. Their way of doing business can be dramatically improved if they used blockchain technology instead of traditional accounting methods. Blockchain technology would make their business more secure, trustworthy, and efficient.

Being in tune with societal developments is crucial for delivering business practices in the absolute forefront. There are huge economic rewards for companies that are successful in adapting to the current industrial phase. But it takes guts to evolve. Daring to use and merge different technologies with services or for production is necessary to stay ahead in industry 4.0.

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Business & Society

Banks hinder innovation by blocking the FinTech industry

Banks may be considered secure, but they are failing to provide satisfactory and effective services for billions of people and hinder the development of the financial sector. Is FinTech the solution?

Crises do not only foster personal growth but also societal developments. The 2008 global financial crisis led to the growth of an innovative financial industry called fintech. FinTech is short for Financial Technology and is used to describe an industry that combine new technology and financial services. Commonly FinTech companies offer digital payments instruments, lending, crowd funding and open banking as well as cryptocurrency. The Swedish FinTech sector has grown more than fifteenfold since 2008 and is proud to offer a healthy innovative environment for about 450 FinTech companies. Stockholm is a hub for many FinTech companies such as Klarna, Avanza, Qliro and Nordnet.

However, innovation can be disruptive. FinTech is seen as a threat to traditional banks as it eliminates the middleman in economic transactions. Traditional banks are making it harder for people to interact with FinTech companies by banning the use of debit and credit cards for cryptocurrency purchases. The Swedish bank Handelsbanken have blocked the use of debit cards on the crypto exchange Binance and the credit card company Remember have blocked all crypto purchases. Since the beginning of 2022 it is not possible to buy crypto with a Swedish debit or credit card on any of the major crypto exchanges.

The official explanation for blocking crypto payments is that it protects the customers for risky investments and from fraud. Hang on! What‘s’ going on here? I am not a gambler, but I am sure that I can use my debit/credit card when I go to a casino. I know I can use it to buy a few margaritas in the nightclub… I do not need any bank to decide for me what an risky investment is.

The only reasonable explanation for blocking crypto payments is that crypto is seen as a threat to the core business model of traditional banking. It is common knowledge that traditional finance is fearful of the transformative power of the crypto industry. At first glance it may seem natural that traditional banks protect themselves, but it is a violation of freedom when they try control how we spend our money.

On a broader scale these measures by the banks pose a threat to the FinTech industry and hinders innovation. The FinTech industry is a growing part of the financial system in Sweden and have earned 0.15 percent of the nation’s GDP. Some FinTech firms use blockchain technology and crypto currency in their business model. Sweden is increasingly seen as an international player in the FinTech industry and traditional banking will go through changes in the fourth industrial revolution. It’s a fact that major global banks use blockchain technology as a way to improve their service. But blocking banking card transactions to crypto exchanges sends another very clear message.

The traditional banking sector is seen as a secure with government guarantees but it has failed to help those in most need. There are approximately 1.7 billion unbanked people in the world and most of them are women. In developing countries 94 percent of the population has a bank account but in developing countries the figure falls to 63 percent. On a global scale 72 percent of all males have a bank account and 65 percent of women do.

FinTech has potential to provide banking services for the unbanked and help to solve the problem with financial inequality. I would like to ask the traditional banking industry how one can live without having a basic checking of savings account!? How can a person live a normal life when there is no way to get a loan or difficult to pay for groceries. How are banks helping the poor?

Well, let’s not forget. Banks are not our friends. The world would be wise to consider what the FinTech industry can do to improve the current financial system. Lets create a sound financial system for the benefit of mankind. A system that do not exclude either traditional banks or the crypto industry.

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Business & Society

Growing pains of the crypto industry

Scams, hacks and rug pulls are causing billions in losses for investors and harming crypto businesses. Exchanges and decentralized finance companies go bankrupt. Rogue states use anonymous crypto currencies to fund military spending. Governments ban certain blockchain solutions and traditional finance are in a shoot-out with the crypto industry. Is this normal for the emergence of new technologies?

The internet started its public journey in the beginning of the 1990s and today 4.4 billion people are estimated to use the internet. When internet was launched to the public a range of problems occurred for users. Spam and viruses were so common that every computer needed antivirus software. Illegal content and pornography basically took over the internet. Later major issues appeared when the old Internet Protocol called IPv4 had to be changed to IPv6 to get more internet addresses. The biggest problem is still that half of the world’s population do not have internet access. The point is that technological developments will go through problems before they are adapted to our needs. Rome was not built in a day.

It’s not easy for the crypto industry to adapt to its own rapid development. Laws and regulations in the crypto space cannot keep up. For example, recently the virtual currency mixer Tornado Cash was sanctioned and caused worries in the Ethereum ecosystem. The problem is that Tornado is an open-source software that use the Ethereum system to make it difficult to trace cryptocurrency transactions. Apparently, North Korea used Tornado Cash to launder $7 billion worth of crypto currency on the world’s second biggest blockchain Ethereum and used the money to boost their military spending. The founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin did not see that coming.

Clearly regulation and laws are an essential part of a healthy society but sanctioning a piece of open code is clearly problematic. Privacy is an important part of the crypto space and that does not mean that privacy is equal to illegal behaviour. We do not want others to know about our digital wallet or about our health data that will be stored on a blockchain in the future. We certainly cannot blame blockchain technology in general for creating software that can increase privacy. When Facebook used our internet data in questionable ways to profit, the US government tried to make sense of what they did and to enforce regulation. But we never blamed the internet for how it was used to profit from consumer data the way Facebook did.

The S curve is a way to measure how far a technology is being adopted by society. If we look at where the crypto industry is in terms of adoption in comparison to the dawn of the internet its only 1993 in the crypto space. Do you remember the first time you used Explorer to surf the internet? The S curve tells the story that the crypto space is somewhere in between the innovator and early adopters’ phase of development. Think of the adoption rate like a scale from 1 to 5 and the crypto industry is nearly in the second phase. The fact that there are more than 20000 crypto assets it’s obvious that innovators have centre stage and you and me (early adopters) see opportunities in the field, but the public remains sceptical. Crypto is like an energetic cocky teenager and growing pains are natural.

Have a great day!

Henrik

Categories
Business & Society

Crypto helping billions to get internet access

The crypto industry is changing the world. Industry by industry.

It is surprising that mainstream media ignores what is happening in the fourth industrial revolution. Sure, we hear about crypto currencies crashing and that the industry is just a hype, but never how the blockchain technology is changing the world. It’s all a scam anyway, right!?

Previous articles have mentioned the fourth industrial revolution because we need to understand the times that we are living in. It’s worth repeating that we are living in a technological revolution. Staying well-informed about the developments in society will teach us about history and give us a glimpse of the future. Obviously, we need to be aware of what is going on to be competitive as a company or a successful investor. Multiple industries are disrupted by the blockchain technology, and the trillion-dollar telco industry is a prime example.

There are a 1000 plus mobile network operators, but half of the world is still not connected to the internet. Big time players in the telco industry have tried but failed to reach more people. Even google tried but did not find a successful business model. But the hybrid mobile network named World Mobile with its blockchain technology created an interesting business model that has potential to help 3 billion in getting internet connection. The sexy part is that World Mobile has found a way for anyone to participate in supporting the network and even make money doing it. Service providers are incentivized to participate in the long-term sustainability of the world mobile network and rewarded in the crypto currency World Mobile Token. Basically, there are two ways to be involved in World Mobile services.

An entrepreneur or private entity can invest in setting up an AirNode that provides users access to the network. For example, in Africa, local entrepreneurs can work with World Mobile to set up an aerostat or a tower to strengthen the wifi-capacity of the network. Imagine investing in a floating balloon with 3G connectivity that is sent 400 yards above ground to provide internet connection for an entire village. The technology can run on solar power and is so advanced that the balloon will self-deflate if there is a storm coming and go back up when the storm has settled. It’s a win-win business idea. This technology provides internet access to those who connect to the network and the person or company that set up the hardware is paid in World Mobile Token. Yes, the tokens can be converted into traditional fiat money.

People can also choose to support the network by becoming a EarthNode operator anywhere in the world. EarthNodes have blockchain capability and function as the brain of the system and interconnects all other nodes. EarthNodes records and process all transactions that take place on the network and investors in this structure also get paid in World Mobile Token. Those who use the network to connect to internet pay for text messages, calls and data using local currency.

The tokenomics of World Mobile Token is like many other crypto projects. Those who invest or participate in the ecosystem is contributing to its growth and safety and is therefore rewarded in a crypto currency. This decentralized grass-root business model is revolutionary as it provides unique ways for small businesses to set up shop.

World Mobile is making efforts in Africa to provide internet access to remote areas and have potential to supply 3 billion people with internet connection. Now that’s what I call a valuable use case of blockchain technology.