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April 25, 2022 45 mins

If you’re in the slightest bit concerned about who controls and monetises your data – you need to listen to the next 45 minutes!

In Episode 3 of season 2, The Digital Village team, Jason and Paul, are thrilled to be joined by Katryna Dow.

Katryna founded Meeco in 2012, which is building a personal data marketplace of equals.

Prior to this Katryna Dow had an extensive career travelling the world as a strategy consultant and after a stint exploring commercialisation models for personal data.  She then seed-funded Meeco, which launched its first public platform in July 2014.

Splitting her time between Australia and Europe where Katryna is actively involved in the IEEE Standards community, Co-Chair for the Personal Data and Privacy Committee, and Chair for the new P7006 - Standard for Personal Data Artificial Intelligence (AI) Agent.

Katryna, Jason and Paul will be diving into the depths of data, the concerns and risks surrounding its use in business and how the future technologies of blockchain are helping to improve the use, security and privatisation of your data.

Apologies for the audio in advance, as we update our equipment, we had to use a different room which as you can hear, was a bit of an echo chamber...but we promise it doesn't detract from the incredible guest speaker.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the next episode of the digital village
podcast to show that tackles thetech trends impacting business
economy and the planet.
In today's episode, we welcomeKatrina Dow, CEO, and founder of
Miko.
As we explore the issuessurrounding data monetization.
So sit back and enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Well, hello and welcome back to the digital
village show, a podcast thatstalks interesting people in the
tech sector, and then holds somehostage until they've explained
to us what they're doing to savethe planet.
Hi, Ja.
How you doing?

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Hey, Paul.
Good to see you again.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Nice to be back in the room with you mate.
Already

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Been, uh, sooner than expected actually, but I'm
excited by that.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
I'm glad to hear you.
Yeah.
Good.
Good.
Anyway, our guest today haswillingly agreed to come and
talk to us.
before she returns toEurope at the weekend, she's
here for Australia's, um,blockchain week, which has been,
uh, an event over six cities,over 200 speakers, um, covering
the topic of blockchain andeverything.

(00:59):
Uh, good and bad about it.
If you are the slightest bitinterested or concerned about
the controls, um, that that arein place and the monetization
that there is of data going on,you'll need to listen to the
next 40 minutes.
Our guest is one of the world'sleading advocates for giving
people and the organizations,the tools to S and control and

(01:23):
create mutual value frompersonal data.
The company she founded in 2012is building a personal data
marketplace of equals.
Prior to this, she had anextensive career traveling the
world as a strategy consultantand after a, a stint, uh,
exploring commercialized modelsfor personal data sets, she seed

(01:46):
funded Miko, which was launched,um, in July, 2014 or launched
its first public platform inJuly, 2014.
So she's, spliting her timebetween Australia and Europe,
where she's got a developmentteam.
She's also actively involved indata sovereign.
He now as a founding member andmy data global, which I know

(02:07):
she's gonna go on to talk aboutlater.
Welcome Katrina Dow.
Lovely to have you here.
Very excited to have you as ourguest today.

Speaker 4 (02:15):
Thank you.
What an introduction.
I feel very honored.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Well, you're an extraordinary person.
And, um, how's your week been?
How's this, um, blockchain we'vebeen for you.

Speaker 4 (02:24):
It's been fantastic.
It's been wonderful to, first ofall, be seeing people how nice
that we're all having thesethree dimensional human
experiences.
That's pretty good.
Uh, it's been wonderful to seesome of the people that are here
from different parts of theworld, um, from H bar foundation

(02:45):
and Dera.
So we'll talk a little bit aboutthat.
We will.
Um, but mostly it's beenwonderful to see our team here
in Australia.
So having been away for a while,that's been a big highlight

Speaker 2 (02:58):
The highlight of the week, or has there been anything
else that you'd like to sharewith us?

Speaker 4 (03:03):
Uh, I think the, I mean, there are many highlights
over, but we've got, uh, acouple of announcements that we
will make this week.
So is now the time to do that.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
It was a loaded question.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
I say, I feel like that was early and often.
Yes.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
I think to, to keep, to keep our audience
online, honestly, very much likeit's old back on

Speaker 4 (03:26):
Announcement.
That's, that's exactly what Iwas

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Thinking until we get , uh, somewhere

Speaker 4 (03:29):
Towards, but one highlight was, uh, a dinner
earlier this week.
That was a big highlight.
Yeah.
The, the dinner, uh, hosted by,um, H bar found and the ability
to sit with like-minded people.
I mean, it was at cafe Sydney.
It was a beautiful evening.
Was the opera house, the Harborbridge, beautiful food,

(03:50):
beautiful company.
Um, great community.
Yes.
Everyone talking about thepossibilities for the future.
So I would have to say that wasabsolutely a highlight

Speaker 2 (04:00):
This week.
It was, and we were veryprivileged, Jason and I to be
there as well.
And, and I took away the samething, the energy in the room,
the excitement about what'shappening in the blockchain
community right now, it reallygenuinely felt like we're
getting some momentum going.

Speaker 4 (04:14):
And I think a big shout out to Rob Allen from
pulling us all together andmaking that happen so quickly.
Yeah.
Was a really wonderful evening.
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
And it was some significant change that people
are bringing in this.
The people at that dinner wasvery interesting to, um, to hear
what everyone was doing and howthey're applying this
technology.
And there's some, some reallyserious change going on quite
quickly.
So it's really interesting tosee, to speak to everyone like
that.

Speaker 4 (04:36):
And I think maybe that's the highlight overall of
this week is to see theacceleration, but also the
diversity of different drivers.
Yeah.
Um, and everything from startupsustainability world right
through to enterprise.
Yeah.
And everything in between and

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Everything between

Speaker 4 (04:56):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
So, so I wanna take you back to 27 to team when you
wrote an article that was, hadthe extraordinary title of
Shakespeare's blockchain thatgot my attention straight away.
And at the front of the article,you actually put a quote from
Hamlet and I'll just read thisout, this above all to the

(05:20):
ownself be true.
And it must follow as the night,the day thou can be thou, sorry,
I got it wrong there.
Thou can not then be forced toany man.
So why Shakespeare and why thatquote,

Speaker 4 (05:36):
Well, why Shakespeare?
Um, how many episodes in this,uh, series, um, I mean,
it's all there and if, and ifyou read that post and first of
all, thank you for reminding meabout that because, uh, I I'd
completely well not forgottenabout it, but I reread it today
thinking about, um, ourdiscussion.

(05:58):
And I realized at the time, um,you know, it was the end of
2016, early 2017, which inblockchain years, which I guess
are more like dog years, youknow, that's a long time ago.
Yes.
And there was so much happening.
And the point of Shakespeare, Ithink for me is everything is in
Shakespeare, you know, love wartax, accounting, murder, you

(06:24):
know, everything is there, thehuman condition.
Yes.
And

Speaker 2 (06:28):
I hope you're not gonna tell us that there's
murder in block okay.
All right.

Speaker 4 (06:33):
And I think at the time, uh, it, the combination of
being really, really excitedabout what was happening, um,
but also some concerns that ifwe think that we will fix the
human condition with technology,then, then it's really naive.
And so were we thinking enougharound the things that block

(06:57):
chain distributed led to were,were uniquely designed for
bringing transparency, breakingdown barriers?
Um, I think it is really a, a, atectonic kind of social shift.
And I, and I personally thinkit's the precursor to an
evolution of our monetary systemand, and our demo and the way

(07:20):
that our society is evolving,but it was still relatively
early days.
And, and there were things thatweren't going according to plan.
And so the whole idea of writingthat blog post was to say, this
is great, but if we aren'tlearning either from history or
Shakespeare or, or if we're notlooking at some of the pitfalls,

(07:43):
um, if we don't design thosecorrections in, then we're gonna
inherit some problems down theroad.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
And what do you think has happened in the last five
years of, of any of the thingsthat you were concerned about
then happened?

Speaker 4 (07:58):
Uh, I think, I mean, look, when I wrote that post, it
was off the back of the, thefirst big public, um, Dow the,
the, the, um, uh, the offeringthat I think was, I don't know,
maybe at the end of 20, was atthe end of 2016.
And again, what prompted writingthat was, there was a code of

(08:20):
ethics for all the developersthat were working on that.
Right.
And, and that, that raised 150million U S D you know, and it
happened kind of almostovernight.
And there was a really clearcode of ethics.
Um, there was a clear set ofprinciples for developers
working togethercollaboratively.
There was some rules aroundsecurity.

(08:40):
Um, but as in any structure thatrequires governance, those
ethics and those codes of waysof working were not coded into
the code.
Right.
Yeah.
So the human condition says youcome along, you spot a
vulnerability and what happened,50 million U S D drained out of
the fund overnight.
Wow.
And, and so I guess that was thefirst, really big reckoning, um,

(09:05):
where you had Ethereum, youknow, stepping back and
originally there was arecommendation for a soft fork.
Let's, let's work out what wewill do to resolve this, which
ended up being the, the hardfork.
Um, but it was, it was areminder that we had training
reels on with real money andreal lives.

(09:27):
Yeah.
So

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Learning is, they went

Speaker 4 (09:31):
Absolutely

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Anything, nobody had a rule book.

Speaker 4 (09:33):
Exactly.
And, and the other thing too,is, you know, a lot of very
young people without, um, youknow, the, a lot of life
experience.
Exactly.
And I, I mean, with, with nodisrespect, but again, back to
the Shakespeare idea, you know,you're around for, for, for time
and, and you experience a lot ofthings in life that you learn

(09:55):
from, but if you are in yourearly twenties and everything
just looks like it's code, um,yeah.
It's a, it's a completelydifferent way of understanding
the consequences.
Yeah.
And I think the thing we learnedout of that was governance.
And if you want something to becoded, if you want rules and you
want things to operate in acertain way, then you have to,

(10:17):
you have to lay them down ascode, but you have to understand
what those things are in orderto lay them down.
Sure.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
So before that, um, you got, uh, Miko off the ground
in 2012.
Yeah.
Um, and launched the platform in2014.
So, so what were your goals?
You started that, and I'm askingthis question in the context of
the, the title of our podcasthere, which is my data, my

(10:43):
rules.
Yeah.
So did you, at that time have adesire to see some kind of
change in the, in the sort ofpower struggle between personal
and corporate data?

Speaker 4 (10:56):
Absolutely.
But I think more than that, it,it was, it was that it was
becoming more and more obviousthat we were becoming fi and,
and that, that's a word that Iborrow from Martin Letz.
Who's the founder of a, of, um,uh, trend wolves in Belgium who
focuses on sort of youth trendsand what is happening sort of on
the edge for young people.

(11:18):
And how does that sort of makeits way into mainstream?
And, and, and what was reallyobvious was that we weren't
physical.
We weren't just physical, youknow, and we were not completely
digital.
And as we were moving into thisworld where we have a digital
twin and we were developing thiskind of, um, new asset base, all

(11:40):
this data, we didn't actuallyhave a way to equitably sort of,
um, participate.
And so it wasn't like, Ooh, bigenterprise, bad, you know, evil.
Um, you know, we, the people aregoing to overthrow everything.
It was more like, well, actuallyas an evolution, what we need

(12:02):
now and new structures to accesscontrol and exchange data in a
more equitable way.
Why, because if data flows,you're able to make better
decisions, what happens if youmake better?
Well, you have better outcomesin life.
You have better financialoutcomes, you have better health
outcomes, you have betterrelationship outcomes.
And it just seemed crazy thatthat decisioning would just be

(12:25):
with enterprise and institutionand government and you, and I
wouldn't have the power to makethose better decisions.

Speaker 3 (12:33):
So, so how do you see that evolutionary process take
place, especially with those bigorganizations who are their
whole business model is drivenaround our data.
And so how do you kind of seethem stepping away from that?
What does that mean for theminto the future?

Speaker 4 (12:49):
So I think the, the good news now, and sort of 20,
22 is that we, we are startingto see organizations want to be
on sort of the right side ofdigital history.
Yeah.
And, and without getting into,you know, who's good, who's bad.
Um, you know, if you wanted to,to draw sort of a line in the
middle of, of some big tech, youknow, you have kind of Facebook

(13:11):
and Google on one side that,that stumbled across the
possibilities of exploiting thecode.
Yeah.
Which is no different to kind ofwhat happened early days,
blockchain.
It's like, wow, here is a waywhere you can show cat pictures
and then make billions ofdollars because people just love
to share cat pictures.

(13:32):
So, Hey, let's do that.
Um, and that model has kind ofperpetuated, and I think one of
the big challenges right now fora company like Facebook is that
let's flip that and look atwhat's happened recently and
let's put apple and Microsoft inanother camp, and that's not to
say, um, you know, everythingthey do is good, but I think

(13:52):
they have a different moralcompass.
When you look at, at, um, theirleadership.
I I'm sure that they they'resitting in rooms saying, well,
what side of digital history dowe wanna be on?
And do we want to make greatproducts for people, or do we
wanna make people into products?
And so you have that privacymove by Tim cook recently that

(14:16):
impacts Facebook with having thelargest, um, drop in terms of
shareholder value in a singleday, you know, and, and massive
impact, I think, is it 10billion to revenue?
And so I think where fastforward to where we are today
compared to when I started, uh,Miko, the difference is we can
start to, to measure now likereal shareholder value in terms

(14:39):
of, if you say to a customer,you, you can choose between
privacy and convenience or userexperience and being surveilled,
or you can have a greatexperience and you can choose
whether or not someone tracks,you guess, what people choose
not to be tracked like hello.
Um, and the fact that that hasbeen, uh, I guess, commercially

(15:04):
advantageous for apple and hadthis impact on Facebook says
that things are changing of

Speaker 3 (15:10):
Telling of the times, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (15:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
So going back to, when you actually formed Miko,
how much of, of that thinkingwas already established and how
much of it have you learnedsince then?

Speaker 4 (15:20):
So combination.
So, so the, the inspiration forthe company, I'm a mad sci-fi
fan was the film minorityreport, which I'd seen 10 year
as before.
And it just seemed like there,it was such a dystopian view
that if we, if, if everythingwas driven by data and, and, and

(15:43):
we were sort of, um, at the, atthe whim of the data Lords, it
seemed like it wasn't a reallygreat human an experience.
So, so there was that there wasthat I guess, philosophical,
emotional driver to, Hey,someone should do something
about that never ever occurredto me that it would be me.
It was just in the back of mymind.
Like that's not a great future.

(16:05):
When I thought that I wanted todo something different, the end
of 2011, I started looking atwhat the world economic forum
was saying around digitalidentity, the value of data
early 2012, I wrote ourManifesta, which was really
around this idea of makingbetter decisions.
What if we, what if we had theability to do that, but to
validate sort of the next step,Facebook was about to do their

(16:28):
IPO.
And so I'd come from a strategybackground.
And it was like, okay, what arethe threats?
What are the opportunities?
So I read their IPO document andthere were three or four things
that jumped out in their risks.
Not that they were saying, Hey,market beware.
But to me, it was clear thatthey were concerned that people
could become aware of the valueof their data.

(16:51):
There could be privacy concerns,there could be regulation.
And at that time, their businessmodel was moving from desktop to
mobile.
So becoming quite opaque.
And that was kind of thebeginning of a whole host of
issues, particularly with, withyoung people that are, that have
now played out sort of 2012 forforward 2013 forward to be

(17:16):
creating, um, a whole range ofchallenges around the health and
wellbeing of, of young people.
Um, because of some of thosedecisions, those design
decisions that were made by, by,by Facebook, back in 2012.
So at the time it was like whatRF, there was a privacy security

(17:37):
by design platform that didn'taccess and monetize your data
that worked within a regulatoryframework and provided the
infrastructure and the tools forthat, a more equitable way.
Um, I was really too early atthat point, because it seemed
like this whole thing, like theCambridge Analytica moment or
the, or the whatever was gonnahappen sooner.

(17:59):
So I think, I think we always,you know, is it, we, we
overestimate underestimate, youknow, how fast things happen.
Um, and it was the rightdirection, but a lot of learning
along the way.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yes.
And I'm, and I'm sure at thattime, there wasn't the awareness
that there is now about theimpact of some of this.
Yeah.
And I'm, I'm going to refer toage of surveillance capitalism,
which I know you've read aswell.
Um, where the author, uh, uh,Han oo, is it, um, opened our

(18:34):
minds to this narrative, um,with a, with a fantastic allege,
um, which I'll just read here isI think this is actually just
opposed from the, uh, from theinternet, not actually in the
book, but it, it really doeskind of highlight the issue
beautifully.
Imagine you have a hammer that'smachine learning.
It helps you climb a gruelingmountain to reach the summit

(18:55):
that's machine learning'sdominance of online data on the
mountain top, you find a vastpile of nails cheaper than any,
anything previously imaginable.
That's the new smart sensortech, an unbroken vis that a
Virgin board stretches beforeyou, as far as you can see,
that's the whole dumb world.

(19:17):
Then you learn that at any timeyou plant a nail in the board
with your machine learninghammer, you can extract value
from that formally dumb plank,that's data monetization.
What do you do?
You start hammering like crazy,and you never stop unless
somebody makes you stop, butthere's nobody up here to make

(19:39):
you stop.
And that was really the Ze guysto what was happening when those
big tech companies, and I don'twanna single anybody out, but we
all know who they are started torealize the power they had by
monetizing data.
So that would've happened duringthe time you were setting up
Miko and obviously beyond.

(20:00):
So, so what, tell us what, howyour view of, of your potential
began to change as you saw theimpact these big tech companies
were having.
So, so

Speaker 4 (20:11):
I think first of all, a lot of those decisions were
made with volition just as wetalked about, you know, Tim
cook, sitting down and saying,okay, we're going to gonna let
iPhone users decide whether theywanna be tracked or not.
We're gonna give them the powerto make that decision, the
opposite conversations we'rehaving as in, Hey, we can do

(20:33):
this and no one's gonna stop us.
Yeah.
And look, the money is justpouring in.
So I hope I'm alive long enoughto be able to understand how
that period of history isreported through the eyes of,
you know, generations, you know,two or three generations ahead.
Yeah.
Because I think it, it remindsme of, um, of another piece that

(20:57):
I wrote some years ago called,um, I think seatbelt cigarettes
and data.
And, and that was, you know, I'mdating myself here, but, you
know, child of the sixties grewup in the seventies in Australia
, um, cigarette advertising ontelevision, cigarette
advertising everywhere in everysporting game.

(21:18):
Yeah.
Um, uh, I went into after schoolcare, the, the woman that was
looking after me sent me down tothe local shop to buy a packet
of Fs, you know, and I'm like, Iwas too small to even see over
the counter, you know, could youimagine that now?
And yeah.
And the other thing is the firstcar we had as, as a child had,
you know, we had a car accident,which I thought at six was the

(21:40):
most amazing thing, you know,the car spinning around and we
stop in front of a pub andsomeone comes out and gives us
lemonade.
And it's like, Hey, when can wedo that again?
It was great, but we didn't haveseat belts.
And, and just because you coulddo that with cigarettes and you
didn't have seat belts, I thinkwhat people think is the way

(22:02):
things are at a certain time, isthe way they will be mm-hmm
.
And it gave me, I guess, maybesome premature confidence that
everything that you've justdescribed was a moment of time.
Like everyone was going, Hey, wecan do this and get away with
it.
But what we've seen in theautomotive industry is that all
of a sudden, uh, the welfare ofeverybody meant regulation, um,

(22:28):
from a health perspective, youknow, from an age perspective,
from an advertising perspective.
So it occurred to me if we'veseen these things where the kind
of public good, there's somesort of intervention for public
good that it would probablyhappen with data.
And I think, I think when youlook to the EU, it's happening
faster, I mean, here inAustralia, we now have the
consumer data, right.

(22:49):
In California, you have CCPA,you have, you have probably more
emphasis in the us aroundfinancial data and, and credit
rating and people feeling thatthey're disadvantaged, you know,
maybe by machine learning andthings, Europe has taken a more
citizen centric.
So we are seeing things changefor the public.

(23:10):
Good.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:12):
So, um, GDPR was a massive step in the right
direction in terms of privacyand human rights.
How do you see, um, I guessregulation or those regulatory
bodies, what kind of say andcontrol will they have in a more
decentralized world?

Speaker 4 (23:29):
I, I think one of the big challenges for regulators
full stop is that technology ismoving so quickly.
Yeah, yeah.
That the regulators can't keepup and the, and good regulation
is reached by consensus and thetrouble with that is that takes
time.
Yeah.
And it, and it, and it's this,it's constantly sort of trying
to find this middle position.

(23:50):
And so that's both, um, thelinear aspect of time unfolding,
and it's also people beingprepared to negotiate.
Meanwhile, back to what'shappening in big tech, they just
kind of like, wow, we're on themountain and no one is stopping
us.
So let's just keep going.
So, so I think that's, that's aproblem.

(24:11):
I think the other thing is whenyou look at things like
blockchain distributed ledger,it comes back to that the whole
purpose of, of talking aboutShakespeare, just because a new
technology is emerged doesn'tmean those things that are
inherent in our behavior havegone away.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think, I think the bigshift and maybe where regulation

(24:33):
is starting to help, you know,we, we're starting to see, uh,
countries around the worldsaying that they will look at a
centrally backed digitalcurrency or, or that there needs
to be a more mature conversationabout cryptocurrency, um, or
digital currency, or actuallyyou can settle, um, across a

(24:54):
border, a payment in secondswithout it costing a gazillion
dollars.
Yeah.
And, and that we have theselayers and layers and layers of
inefficiency.
Um, and then who ends up paying,you know, it's the, the, it's
you and I at the end of that.
So I think when we're startingto have more mature
conversations with regulation,it creates clarity.

(25:15):
So I think that really helps.
Um, and I think going back tothat 2016 post where we are
today is where we're starting tosee the importance of
governance.
Yeah.
And so regulation can either becarrot or stick, um, in the EU,
GDPR is a good start, um, thatwill be followed by the data

(25:36):
governance act and a number ofother, um, pieces of regulation
that are designed to try andbuild a more equitable digital
market in Europe.
But the reality is, is they'recompeting against China, which
has a completely differentapproach and the us, which is
really, really, um, commerciallydriven.

(25:57):
So you've got citizen centric,you've got state driven.
Yeah.
And you've got C driven.
Yeah, exactly.
And who's gonna win.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
Yeah.
And is there a need forstandardization across all of
that?
You know, I mean, I guess withnew technologies, there comes a
lot of new ideas, new ways ofdoing things and, um,
standardizing, like coming to anagreement on how everything is
going to talk to one anotherand, and work.
Um, I guess I see that as beinga massive challenge.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
Well, particularly with, with you a way that web
3.0 has been described as beingset up, it, it, it doesn't, it
wouldn't recognize these bordersbetween state and public and
government, I guess.

Speaker 4 (26:41):
I think the, the exciting and frightening thing
about web three is it is goingto be the most immersive and
connected experience that we'veever known from a technological
point of view ever in thehistory of humankind.
Yeah.
I think

Speaker 3 (26:56):
It's really hard for people to start getting their
heads around.
You know, if you're thinkingabout how, um, old everything
can be tokenized, it's a really,it's a kind of a concept that is
quite mind blowing when youthink about it changes our whole
interaction, the way that weengage with people in the world
our whole day to day.
Yeah.
Um, how far away do you actuallythink that that world is?

Speaker 4 (27:18):
It depends on how old you are and who you're talking
to, because if you are a youngperson that's living in side
Minecraft or Roblox, it's heretoday, right.
It's there now, you know, and,and I think this is one of the,
the, the challenges, um, youknow, and I include myself and
my sort of stage of life isthat, you know, you get to a

(27:38):
certain place where you have themeans or, or the experience or
the, the power to be, you know,designing and shaping things.
Um, and, and that's why I thinkthe work that Martin does at
trend wolves is so importantbecause you have to remember,
okay, that's the world that youare in now that you've evolved
towards, but there's a wholeother world that is shaping

(27:58):
where, how, um, peoplecollaborate work to get other
solve problems, uh, exchangevalue, you know, that is
happening for a digitalgeneration.
That is really, really, reallydifferent.
And so it's also part of thereason why I really think we're
going to have a, a big shift inour, um, monetary policy and the

(28:22):
way we create an extra rangevalue, um, because we've got
generations now who have grownup or are growing up in an
immersive game driven digitalworld.
And you can't basically say tosomebody who's 13 today in three

(28:43):
years time, okay.
Now you are an adult give upthose ways and come into the
physical world and go back todecades.
Yeah.
It's, it's the user experience,the, the collaboration, the
immersive experience, the userexperience, the connectedness
that will all be expected, butit'll be expected in think

(29:05):
banking, ride share, seeing adoctor booking an airline
ticket.
And so I think if we wanna kindof understand what would that
look like spend a day insideMinecraft, and then imagine how
you build a bank.
Yeah,

Speaker 3 (29:21):
Yeah.
So, so what does that meanbetween, you know, the lines of
geography and country andsociety that we put up between
cultures and everything inbetween, you know, um, where the
whole world is, you know, ifit's, you know, using gaming as
an example, um, Chris is sittinghere he's like super engaged and

(29:41):
he loves his games.
um, and you know, soChris can be playing with, um,
someone in all different partsof the world and having a really
common understanding aroundtrade and, um, working together
and all and, and, um, commerceand everything.
And so if that gets lied to thereal world, um, what does that

(30:03):
mean for the kind of governmentstructures and everything that
tries to tell us who we are?

Speaker 4 (30:10):
Look, while we are recording this, we have this
impossible to imagine horrificsituation in the Ukraine
happening mm-hmmyeah.
In, in our time and, and we don't seem to be able
to stop it, or, or, or thediplomacy of stopping.
It could be the trigger tosomething even worse.

(30:35):
And, and again, this is mypersonal perspective.
I think everything that you'vejust described now is that the
world is getting smaller.
We're becoming more connected,but in that Shakespearean way,
are we ready for it yet?
And what it's doing is it's kindof pushing the old way of
thinking.
Let's put up walls, let's put upborders.

(30:57):
Let's, let's exert that control,which is also sort of part of
this evolutionary, you know,shift.
And, and that is not to minimizejust the heart wrenching horror
of what's happening right now,but it is indication that things

(31:18):
are evolving and not everyone iscomfortable with that.
And a natural way when thingsare moving quickly is, is to
exert control.
And, you know, we see that in,we, we see that, um, right now
from a military perspective, butwe see it, you know, sometimes
with regulations, with trade, wesee it with the fact that

(31:42):
there's a lot of 10, you know,within society, these ideas of
left and right.
And I think it's an indicationand technology can help solve
that in some ways, but not ifyou don't work out some, what
some of those underlying factorsare, which, which comes back to
this idea of how do we get theright data to make better

(32:05):
decisions and

Speaker 3 (32:06):
Agree and agree on.
Yeah,

Speaker 4 (32:07):
Exactly.
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
So that's really interesting.
I think, um, we all feel, youknow, sadness for what is
happening in, in the Ukraine.
It's a, it is a terriblesituation.
It's hope that by the time thisgoes out, um, there's been some,
some kind of resolution of that,um, situation, just bringing you
back to, um, to yourself, uh,Katrina and the relationship

(32:33):
that you've got with Hadera.
I know that that you've, um,just recently, uh, announced
that you are getting even closerto them, um, and that you've
chosen, Hadera your underlyingdistributed ledger tech
platform.
Can you describe the rationaleyou went through for making that
decision, um, and what youexpect to emerge as a result of

(32:55):
the relationship?

Speaker 4 (32:57):
So, so that was, was a very, um, it was a very
considered and deliberate pathfor us.
Um, we, we had been doing a lotof work, you know, going right
back to sort of 20 14, 20 15with Bitcoin Hyperledger,
Ethereum R three quarter, um,we'd built some proof of

(33:17):
concepts.
We'd done some work around zeroknowledge proof.
So we'd, we we'd looked at prosand cons.
Um, and we started doing somereally interesting work with
FPOS here in Australia, uh, in2020, um, around what became,
um, connect ID.
So digital identity.
Yeah.
And at the time we, we did ourfirst sort of proof of con set

(33:39):
proof of technology with them,uh, using Ethereum and at the
time F O started to talk to, um,Hadera hash graph about joining
the governing council.
And so Rob Allen at the time wasthe entrepreneur in residence at
, uh, at F OS.
And he approached us after thefirst proof of concept and said,
would we sit up, um, workingwith them on sort of a world

(34:04):
first, a micropayments, um,proof of technology.
Um, but would we consider usinghash graph, um, uh, the move to
Hadera?
And so, as soon as I started todig in with the team, it was
really obvious that there were anumber of things about had that
were really compellinggovernance, the consensus, the

(34:25):
cost, the security, thescalability.
Um, at that time we didn't havethe proof point on, on carbon
neutral mm-hmm andthe big, uh, incentive from a
sustainability point of view.
Um, and that came later, therewere, there were lots of
reasons.
And I think for us, the mostcompelling reason is we were

(34:45):
doing a lot of work, uh, arounddigital identity verified
credentials.
And it was becoming increasinglyobvious that when people wake up
in the morning, they, they don'tnecessarily go, Hey, I wanna use
my identity today, or I wannaprove I have a university
degree.
They're doing that in thecontext of something that's
meaningful to them, um, you know, booking a flight enroll in

(35:09):
university, whatever it is.
And so what we loved aboutHadera was the possibility that
that stack could be extendedinto both payments and really
exciting, um, of the tokenizedworld.
Yeah.
Tokens.
And so that was a big part ofit.
And, um, that leads me to, uh,kind of, uh, the announcement,

(35:32):
uh, and that is that with thesupport of the H bar foundation,
we are working on a new opensource, uh, capability, which
we're calling trusty, um, whichis a way to explore visually
it's a, a way to visuallyexplore the trust and Providence

(35:52):
of an NFT of a token of a, of a,of a carbon offset, um, to be
able to look at that whole chainof Providence, the policies that
are involved, um, and then also,uh, support that with
decentralized identity wallet.
And, um, we're also doing somereally interesting things around

(36:12):
zero knowledge proof.
So we're very, very excited that

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Is also them.

Speaker 4 (36:18):
Uh,

Speaker 2 (36:18):
We'll definitely put some something in the notes with
the podcast to link people tothat information that really
does sound interesting.
So, uh, so what can we expectthat to result in, in the next
year or so we gonna see anyoutcome from this?

Speaker 4 (36:33):
Yeah, I, I think first of all, it's open source,
so we wanna see more communitygrowth.
Um, I think back to thehighlights of this week, that
sense of people around a tablewith different ideas and, and
how that community grows.
I think one of the challengesthat we have as we go from the
old world to the new world isthis idea of, of trust.

(36:56):
And, um, it comes back to thisissue of governance.
And so what we are hoping, um,uh, we will achieve with, um,
trusty is a way of helpingpeople understand what the
tokenized world is about thisweb three world, um, how you can
trace things with someconfidence, how you can

(37:19):
understand the policies that,that govern, um, this tokenized
world.
And so I, I think one thing ishelping to educate, build
confidence, build trust, and ifyou have those things as
foundations, then it's anotherway of helping to, to scale out
that change.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
And it's, it's definitely what the industry
needs right now.
I think one of the challengesthat, that you've got is, uh,
it's quite hard for privateindividuals, even companies to
really engage with a lot ofthese things, conceptually, but
if you've got tools liketrustfully that are gonna help
you visualize the, the thingsthat you're getting involved in,
you know, it suddenly becomesvery, very real,

Speaker 4 (37:59):
You know, it's just gonna say, I mean, if, if you
look at the design, it's, it's alittle bit like discovering an
album cover yeah.
Right.
For, and then, and then sort of,you know, flipping it open and
seeing the yeah, exactly.
And I mean, I, that's probably,that's probably a very old
school, seventies vinylexplanation of the digital
world, but

Speaker 2 (38:20):
The only thing you need to do is to add the smell.
Yeah.
yeah.
If you can add the smell of thatfirst record that you opened
,

Speaker 4 (38:27):
But you know what I mean?
It's that, it's that, I mean, II'm, I'm hacking back to those
days of, you know, buying avinyl record, taking it out of
the sleeve.
Yeah.
You know, having the lyrics and,and sort of being part of that
whole creator experience.
And I think that's, what's soexciting about what's happening
in the NFT space what'shappening in the token space is,
you know, and back to this ideaof this immersive experience

(38:50):
that, that young people haveevery day is, is how you closer
to creators, how you understandwhen something was created, how
it was created, how it movesfrom, from creator to, um, you
know, to the next and, and or,or how you are offsetting
something like carbon or, orwhat you are doing, how it's

(39:12):
contributing to, you know,sustain or some of the big
challenges on the planet.
And we talk about these things,um, and we want to know these
things are effective.
And the whole point of trusty isto try and to provide that way
of exploring, discovering,validating, um, as a means of,

(39:32):
of laying a foundation for thattrust.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
Yeah.
Cause it's, it's, it's the bigthing with, um, with, with
blockchain and, and NFTs andthings like that, because the,
the average person they'd belike, well, that's great that,
you know, you can say that'scompletely traceable and that
it's, um, auditable andeverything like that, but, you
know, show me, show me yeah,

Speaker 4 (39:54):
Exactly.
And with a money.
Yeah, exactly.
So many.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:57):
So it sounds like a, um, some kind of way for an
individual to actually see, um,you know, the different points
along the way where the, theactivity that has happened,
which I think is providinginformation that actually proves
its value.
Um, so that's a really exciting,

Speaker 4 (40:17):
So I will use that.
It's the show me tool, but lookin the physical world, you know,
if, if you want to understandwho owns a building, or who are
the directors of a company, orwhen was a company incorporated,
or, or what is the, who's theauthor of this book, or when was
this book published?
You know, we have all these, um,ways of tracing Providence or,

(40:41):
or being able to trust somethingwithin a legal context in the
physical world.
And I think what we are seeingnow is how does that move to the
digital world?
And then what we add to that issome cryptographic proofs of
being able to show thatinformation, um, sources of data
is not tampered with even that,that, that chain of trust has
not been broken to build thatconfidence.

(41:03):
So again, it's, it's us physicalbeings moving more and more into
that.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
Yeah.
And I think that's becoming everevident with, you know, what
people experience when theystart searching for everything
and anything yeah.
Stuff comes up and in a list,but there's no understanding of
the Providence of thatinformation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The history of, and it's reallyjust got a lot to do with the
kind of, uh, the skill of theSEO and the S SCM world in

(41:31):
getting something to the top ofthe list as to whether or not it
becomes the first thing you see.

Speaker 4 (41:35):
But also we have this massive shift now with the
possibility of deep fakes and,and, you know, you're seeing
things that are, that justyou're looking at it.
And you're thinking, okay, I'mlooking at Barack Obama right
now.
And he is wrapping.
And it's like, is it

Speaker 5 (41:50):
Really him doing

Speaker 4 (41:51):
This?
And it's like, I know it's not,my brain is saying it's not, but
it is, but it's not.
And so I think absolutely toyour point, it's that it's so
easy also in the digital worldto alter the experience and in
an immersive digital world,knowing who to trust or what to
trust or how to, or, or that oldadage, you know, to trust, but

(42:13):
verify, it'll be okay, I'mgetting this video from this
source.
And I know I can trust thissource, or this is really in
entertaining what I'm seeingright now, but it's highly
unlikely that it's, it's notreal.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
Yes.
Being able to make a, a, a valuejudgment on it, it's becoming
harder and harder.
Um, we've, we've gotta drawthings to a conclusion.
Um, Katrina, thank you so muchfor coming to see us.
It's been a real pleasure havingyou and, uh, hearing the story
of Miko, the work you're doingwith the Hadera group and H bar
foundation.

(42:49):
Um, I know you're heading backto Europe, um, tomorrow, is it

Speaker 4 (42:53):
To

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Tomorrow?
Tomorrow?
Yeah.
And, uh, so, so good luck withour journey and safe travels.
Um, is there anything that weneed to know about you from your
past that you wanna

Speaker 5 (43:03):
Share with us?
what a question.
No, like the answer to that isno, there is nothing you need
that you, I intrigued me.
No.
Do I really want to

Speaker 4 (43:13):
Share?
I know trying to make the end ofthis podcast interesting to
listeners, but

Speaker 5 (43:19):
,

Speaker 2 (43:20):
I heard a rumor.
I dunno whether it's true ornot, that, that you're quite
clean on keen on cleaning

Speaker 5 (43:26):
.

Speaker 4 (43:26):
Is that true?
Okay.
Okay.
So first of all, to everyonelistening, I was very young,
right.
Okay.
First up early to early twenties, really early twenties.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
He's 26 now.

Speaker 5 (43:37):
Yeah,

Speaker 4 (43:38):
Exactly.
Traveling through Europe, nomoney.
uh, met some guys inVienna Christmas time.
I was about to go back to theUK.
They convinced me to stay.
We had nowhere to stay.
Um, what do you do?
It was with an English guy and aRussian guy.
The Russian guy said, why don'twe borrow, somebody's borrow

(44:00):
apartment over Christmas, um,which I was horrified at the
concept of such a thing.
Anyway, it's got a very longstory short.
That requires a lot morecontext.
The place was filthy.
Yes.
Horror afterwards.
Sorry.
So I spent most of Christmascleaning it as well as exploring

(44:21):
their record collection.
Um, van Morrison.
Fantastic.
They had some great final, uh,fabulous night for a moon dance
again, which absolutely datesme.
But I, to this day would love tohave seen that family when they
got back from holidays andwalked in and saw their
apartment, absolutely squeakyclean with everything, tidied up

(44:44):
everything, the kids' rooms,tidied up the bathroom, the
kitchen and everything.
So, yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
And, and explaining to the police, you know, place
has been broken into.
How do you know that it's beenbroken into?
Well, we came back and it wasincredibly tidy.
Excuse me.

Speaker 4 (45:01):
So, so I guess the moral of stories, if you do
something you're not supposed todo good, do good.
Do good.
That's a

Speaker 2 (45:08):
Very, very good way of wrapping it up.
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (45:11):
Love to see you.
Thank you so much.
Come

Speaker 2 (45:13):
Back and see us next time.

Speaker 4 (45:14):
You're in Sydney.
I would absolutely love to.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
Hope you enjoyed today's episode.
Please feel free to check us outon our website, digital feeling
truck network for our pastepisodes.
We'll be back next month on thelast Wednesday of every month,
as we are with more greatstories.
See that.
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