Futurist keynote, London: The Future of Blockchain, Marketforce Blockchain Summit
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Blockchain is turning into a force of nature that’s changing the world and as the hype around the technology reaches fever pitch everyone wants in. It’s always a great privilege to be invited to take part in Marketforce’s wonderful events and the Blockchain Summit...
Dubai announces plans to put the entire Emirate onto the blockchain
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Dubai wants to become less dependent on oil and the emirate is rapidly becoming one of the most progressive nations in the world. Earlier this week, at an event hosted by the Dubai Future Foundation and the Smart Dubai Office, the Crown Prince of Dubai announced...
Accenture debuts editable blockchain prototype
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF One of Blockchains key attributes is that it serves as an Immutable Record, now Accenture wants to change that. Accenture is courting controversy among the blockchain community by patenting a technique that will allow it to edit information held on the blockchain in an attempt...
The future of jobs in a Machine World
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF We are all aware that technology is capable of replacing particular categories of jobs, but often those jobs “belong to someone else” and the impact on our own jobs is minimal. Today though new classes of emerging technologies, from artificial intelligence to machine vision are...
Alibaba trials virtual reality payments for VR malls
The virtual world just got a new payments technology and it’s as easy as nodding your head Chinese web behemoth and Amazon stalking horse Alibaba is working on bringing its payments clout to the world of Virtual Reality and is developing technology that will let people buy goods in a...
Bitcoin slumps twenty percent after $65m Bitfinex hack
The Bitfinex heist is the latest is a growing line of high profile heists that are undermining confidence in the crypto currency The price of the virtual currency Bitcoin fell sharply Tuesday after Hong Kong-based digital-currency exchange Bitfinex said it was hacked, resulting in the possible theft of $65 million...
Ethereum community votes to reverse DAO hack
In a landmark decision, the distributed, decentralized community that makes up Ethereum came to a near-unanimous consensus to implement a radical software change, known as a “hard fork.” This has been done in order to prevent a hacker who attacked The DAO and drained nearly $40 million worth of ether,...
The Hard Fork, D-Day for Ethereum and the DAO
Last month, an unknown attacker drained tens of millions of dollars worth of the digital currency Ether from The DAO, an Ethereum based smart contract aimed at functioning as a funding vehicle for projects in the ecosystem. The incident sparked an effort to effectively roll back the clock and undo...
The future of jobs and education
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As AI and other Robo automation tools and technologies become increasingly proficient it is increasingly clear that more and more jobs will suffer the same fate – automation. Life is a learning experience, or so they say. Broadly speaking educational activities can be split...
Smart appliances will disrupt banking
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF It’s rich, it’s smart and it’s cool – meet your new fridge. The Internet of Everything, an emerging multi trillion dollar trend that embues a world where everything is connected to everything else and where inert ‘Dumb’ materials and products are embedded with technologies and sensors that make...
Remaking the Financial Services industry
The news that the UK Government is considering introducing legislation that force the Financial Services industry to develop common, publicly available Application Programming Interfaces (API’s) shouldn’t come as a surprise. Initiatives like Level 39, Finance Innovate and Fintech50 have helped position the UK as a Fintech powerhouse and the new...
Have banks already been disrupted?
Banks used to be the corner stone of the community but today despite spending over £200 billion on transformation they are still being undermined by a series of unstoppable cultural and technological revolutions Over the past two weeks I’ve talked to a number of senior C level executives from some of the...
Disrupting banking is a team effort
Disrupting the banking experience can only be achieved through team work In 2008 banks were considered to big to fail and sovereign Governments pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into the system to save them but now, years after the events of 2008 conversations about how banking and...
The banks guide to scouting Fintech
Four of Europe’s largest banks reveal their Fintech scouting strategies To an Entrepreneur attention is oxygen so imagine the electricity that flows through a room when you put thirty budding European Fintech Entrepreneurs in the same room as senior executives from some of the Europe’s largest banks. This was the...
The death of consumer car insurance
Driverless cars signal the end of consumer car insurance You and I probably agree that spending thousands of pounds every year to buy insurance is one of life’s great pleasures, there’s no noise as exciting as a bill hitting the mat – then again maybe it’s just me. At this...
Apples new trojan horse
Love it or loathe it the Apple Watch is superbly positioned to help Apple capture three new mass markets Even Apple can’t escape the gravity of centuries of tradition and the Apple Watch is a great case in point. Sure enough it sits on the wrist like a regular watch, looks like a...
