Five Takeaways from the Panama Glass Event held between 22nd and 25th February 2018.

This was an event that brought together thought leaders, innovators and investors to chat a way forward to a better world using the cutting edge initiatives, information and technologies to solve some of the most recurrent problems we are faced with today. Some of the problems highlighted in the event span from the need to curb on corruption, use of smart contracts for public contracts modelled on those that Estonia is currently using, digital identity and privacy among others all governed by the use of block chain technology and promote wider citizen participation in the day today affairs of governance, health and education.

The five takeaways from this conference are the power of information, control of consent on the use of this information, trust in the platforms that secure or possess our information, digital identity management and role encryption plays in securing our control of this information and lastly but not least the networking opportunities.

Exploring the power of information, it is a well-known adage that information is power and therefore the platforms that we feed our information to have amassed incredible power over our day today lives. And in most cases they have these terms and conditions/consent agreements with us that we never take time to read in detail due to their length when downloading or signing up for applications. This makes us cede a lot of information and thus power to these applications and companies. They easily make us a target for segmented marketing among other things, given the amount of information they have collected from us. If this information falls in the hands of bad intentioned people, we become targets to hacks and extortions. How do we get to control this and solve this problem brings me to the next idea explored during the conference.

Control of consent on the use of the information provided to the different companies. How do we ensure that the information we have given away does not end up being used and abused by third parties? This is a very interesting question that was navigated from the standpoint of using encryption and smart contracts that have to be verified by the parties involved using private keys based on the – Pretty Good Privacy – (PGP) protocol, which includes the use of both private and public keys. This way we are able to control what information people can have access to and what information they cannot.

This sort of control will enable us gain trust in the different interactions that we pursue on the different platforms because we definitely have a certain amount of control on what kind of information is shared. Trust is a very important component that controls the way we perceive things and to this end drives markets in a certain direction depending on the level of trust that we have invested in them. This is applicable to almost everything we try to acquire in the market place and the means we use to do so. Therefore, for any project to take off there needs to be a certain amount of trust invested in it and should be able to translate that to the end users.

As already mentioned encryption takes centre stage in this case in order to secure our digital identity. Of course there have been measures taken before to secure the digital identity through the use of biometric technology but this has its shortfalls. For most of this data, we as citizens do not have control over, but only our governments do. The block chain technology through its power of decentralization empowers us to take back some form of control since it is based on decentralization of processes through – peer to peer – (P2P) transactions. It also helps reverse the roles of accountability in society to take a bottom top approach instead of maintaining the current status quo of top bottom approach. It is thus an opportunity for big organizations doing development work to take interest and latch onto the block chain technology for it is bent on improving accountability and empowering the masses, ideas that resonate with the core values of international development.

Lastly and most importantly, is the amount of networking opportunities and business merger of ideas that takes place during and after such events. It is amazingly refreshing to witness different synergies coming alive during the various sessions in the event and dreams being connected to finally make sense and have a clear idea on which steps to take next to contribute toward solving problems within our communities, nationally and internationally. Hope to see you to the next event!!!

NCN (New Crypto Nomad).