Arvind Sundaresan

2018 Blockchain Summit was a refreshing one, as compared to many meet ups and every day event you see which pop up in “lighthouse” labs without “lights” or those with only freeloaders. This is also perhaps a Nexus Media event, which I attended after a while.

They did a commendable job in how they organized and managed everything, especially given they had lot of free registrations and gate crashers as well!

I had around 6 of my colleagues from SAP at this event as well as an equal number of “extended enthusiasts (future guru’s) group” who are planning great things in this space.

From use cases perspective, every possible use case which has relevance from governance to enterprises had a showcase or participation in the audience.

My view of the event , participants and take away as well as based on feedback from some of the people I have spoken to …

1. One of the best events , where the panel anchors were fantastic, well prepared and had knowledge on the topic they had to moderate. 2 of them stood out , especially Chia and Will

2. Panel participants - who did not use jargons or buzz words, who helped audience relate to their day to day business problems and how they were exploring Blockchain – came across very genuine with valuable insights (LG, Peter, Edwin, many more..)

3. 100 %++ passion demonstrated by all start ups to the topic and the broader eco- system who were keen to participate in the evolution, in its journey to make it relevant and eventual adoption of Blockchain

4. 80 % of the presentations and content were relevant to the topic for which they were invited originally

5. 80 % of the starts up did very well to engage the foot traffic which was headed their way (exhibits/ round tables )

6. 60 % of the starts up saw an opportunity to engage beyond this event ; wish they have a great future ahead of them

7. 25% of these start ups have a clear view on their market place and vision; rest still WIP – but for the broader community hope they succeed!

8. 70% of the starts up had a great use case and have seemingly started on the right footing; 30% all set to get disappointed from why they even embarked on a blockchain journey

9. 80 % of them under estimating the power of broader participants especially the heavy weights from the internet era including GAFAM and BAT and how they potentially make their use case irrelevant; first mover advantage does not really exist in this space

10. 60% of the start -ups don’t have a clear vision beyond getting the initial seed capital/ investments/ ICOs – very short sighted, no midterm view on how they will nurture their babies

11. 30 % + attendees perhaps wanted to get rich by investing in tokens/ ICO/ Bitcoins

12. Big boys club – especially IBM, Deloitte, EY did very well – at the booth as well as in the session which they participated. I need to borrow Paul’s T-shirt from the kick off !

13. All the so called fintech/ insurtech/ regtech/ proptech/healthtech etc have to learn how to engage and work with the broader eco- system and the big boys, rather than living in a bubble

14. Corporates and start ups who were collaborating together were making progress, not in silos – blockchain doesn’t lend itself to building ivory towers

15. Few start ups – have created a mumbo-jumbo vision throwing in all industry jargons and buzz words, totally lost on what they set out to achieve. May God bless their investors!

16. 50 % of freelancers – "light weights" who are wasting start up capital as well as that of corporates;

17. Experienced and seasoned professionals in their respective domains especially those who are not trying to make a quick buck & who have kept pace with technology evolution/ change are invaluable to start ups and the whole ecosystem build out. Their insights and how they see through this hype or how they believe one could ride this wave – would help everyone – start ups, ecosystem, community, big boys

18. Brash kids ( some of the founders were 50 + year old , so no reference to young talent!) with easy access to capital without this intellectual know how will disappear – once they are out of the bath tub

19. 15 % of the participants should have been qualified out and not let in …

20. Perhaps 80 % of the people had a perception that they were experts on blockchain – already living in a shell

21. Only 2 people (ok…may be a few more?) – who tried to question why not DLT, why just blockchain for many of the use cases

22. 40 % of people get to cryptocurrencies in a blockchain conversation

23. I continue to remain vary of ICO and token hunters, found more reasons still at this event

24. Format was such, one could not attend all interesting sessions which were running in parallel across theatres

Not much of reference to any hype around fintech/ Insurtech/ regtech etc broader start up space – as everyone was engrossed with hype behind – art of the possible with blockchain.

On the content itself, will follow with a synopsis sometime in the coming weeks/ days – the conference was rich.

But Soumik would be doing a detailed piece I would assume!

These were just the preliminary thoughts from the event venue..

Arvind Sundaresan

Singapore, Singapore

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