Let's Talk Cardano
The "Let's Talk Cardano" podcast, hosted by the Cardano Foundation, dives deep into the intricate world of blockchain technology. Each episode explores how blockchain is benefiting multiple sectors across different industries. Join us as we discuss possibilities, confront the challenges, and envision the future together with top experts and industry leaders. Learn more at CardanoFoundation.org
Let's Talk Cardano
Why Enterprises Should Be Talking About Trust, Not Tech
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Join us as we speak with Ivan Branco, Information Management and Analytics lead at the Volvo Group, about what it actually looks like to bring blockchain thinking into one of the world's largest manufacturing and logistics operations. From tracking country of origin across complex global supply chains to exploring a proprietary cryptocurrency for supplier transactions, Ivan offers a refreshingly pragmatic perspective on where blockchain delivers real value, and why changing corporate culture may be the biggest barrier of all.
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Welcome to Let's Talk Cardano, presented by the Cardano Foundation. In each episode, we delve deep into the transformative world of blockchain technology. Join us as we explore how blockchain is reshaping industries from finance to supply chain and talk with some of the key pioneers at the forefront of this revolution. All right here on Let's Talk Cardano.
SPEAKER_01In this episode of Let's Talk Cardano, we speak with Ivan Brunk from the Volvo Group about the potential of blockchain in enterprise manufacturing and what it takes to move from vision to reality.
SPEAKER_02Hi, Ivan. Hello. Good to have you here. Thanks for joining. It's the last session of today, but I'm super excited today to talk about it and to hopefully get some interesting insights into what you're engaged with. As I know that you have a lot on your mind regarding manufacturing and where that meets blockchain. How about you quickly introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what drives you at the moment?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, sounds good. So my name is Ivan Branco. I was um born and raised in Portugal. Been living for the last 20 years in Belgium. And the reason why I bring this kind of retrospective is because originally, when I was in Portugal, I studied law. I never studied technology or information technology or anything of the sort. But life kind of decided to steer me in a certain direction. So today, uh for the last 20 years, I've been working for the Volvo Group, based out of Belgium, in Ghent, where we have one of our biggest factories and one of our biggest warehouses as well. Then of course, I'm not so active in the manufacturing part. I was more active on the logistics part, but bridging, let's say, in between. And in within Volvo, I've been responsible for the data that we are using within that logistics organization. So everything from the data we see, from the material suppliers regarding our spare parts to the transportation, to the way we manage our warehouses and so on and so forth. So and the title and responsibilities of myself and my team are about information management, about AI, and about analytics. So really taking that data and creating or generating business value out of all of that information that we have, both serving as a facilitator for the organization and at the same time, in some cases, developing those core applications that we use in the business uh day-to-day. So when looking into blockchain, it's an additional component that we can see to put in the perspective of the work that we've been doing for the past few years. Amazing. What type of work would that be? The first thing, and a little bit connected to some of the discussions we had today and the panel discussions, the way I see blockchain is when I look at all the technologies that we use within our architecture, we first focus on the business value. We focus on a specific business need, business requirements, really understanding, okay, how can we help the business through these solutions? Blockchain is a little bit of a spin on that because you actually look at the technology and try to understand what opportunities are you bringing to us. Because if I would just look outside, and I and it's an image that I can see in a lot of people within the industry, they think cryptocurrency immediately. Some of them are a little bit more versed in the technology, so they know that there are other applications to it. But it there's still a lot of this um uh stigma, uh a lot of disconnection to cryptocurrency. And when we look at it, we actually see another uh, let's say, opportunity, which is okay, how can we actually use this to decentralize our trust towards different components instead of single components, to go from a silo-minded approach into a kind of a collaborative approach where these different blocks are actually supporting us in keeping security and keeping stability in managing our information. That's the opportunity that we see today. Then translating that into a business value becomes a responsibility of myself and my organization together with my colleagues.
SPEAKER_02I'm glad we only have 40 minutes left. I'm sad it's late in the I'm sad we only have 40 minutes left because you you're tickling all kinds of sensors in me that are getting excited just by the thought of Volvo or you thinking about blockchain as an enabler and a problem solver and not as a speculative asset, which, as you said correctly, is the false stigma that somewhat underpins our ecosystem so much. Why? For Volvo.
SPEAKER_03I can give an example of a discussion I was having earlier today. I compare blockchain to an insurance. Do we like having insurance? I'm not saying we don't like having a blockchain, but you don't think about the need of it until you have a problem. That's more that comparison that I want to make. If you go into a C-suite and you try to say, hey, blockchain is very important for us, the first thing they will ask you, okay, what is the value? And then can you show an immediate value? Maybe you can. There's there's ways of doing that, but it's a very hard calculation to make it very tangible so that they say, yes, we need to invest in it today. But once something happens, that tangible becomes immediate. It becomes immediately reality, and you know, okay, yeah, this is something we need to invest in. We need to secure that we're having this as part of our enterprise architecture. That's the step that I see for the future of blockchain is to become an integral part of any, let's say, IT environment, because today it's not. It's not a critical component. When you look at what are the bases for any enterprise architecture, blockchain is not a critical component today. I think it can be in the future. And that's the work that, first of all, through organizations such as Cardano, of educating, of spreading the message, of bringing this awareness to people, I think that's the bridge that needs to be made. Because we had some recent examples of issues that have happened in different industries that show, yes, there is an opportunity and there is a need for this. Then what I think is one of the constraints or challenges or additional challenges that we have also has to do with when you do a decentralization in the mindset of uh industries, of companies, you're adding complexity or to already complex, very complex setup. So, yeah, now you say, yeah, now let's add these blocks. We'll we'll have decentralization of data of sorts in connection, of course, with our cloud solutions. So you're adding a new component. Why? And that's that translation of going back to the message on insurance that you need to be able to do. It's very complicated. And it's not easy to go and say, hey, let's invest in this because it will make sure that in the future we don't have any compliance issues that we can track and trace our goods that really can understand the entire product lifecycle from A to Z, especially because we're investing a lot in remanufacturing. We have now the uh electrification or electromobility coming into place. How do we actually follow each one of the components building or constituting that part? We have European legislation, legislation coming into play as well, where we need to understand where each component is actually coming from. And those are all issues that blockchain can help with. In the logistics area, I can tell you that for the last 20, 30 years, we've had issues with country of origin for spare parts. So where does that part originate, or even with country of origin calculation? Because there's specific ways of calculating when you have, let's say, a composed part, what is the final country of origin for that composed part? Because we're not getting quality information from our material suppliers in some cases, or because that data gets transformed in the process of going from system A to system B to system C. If we then get a ledger that is kind of registering all of that information, then that question of trust is taken away. If all the intervenients in the process are using the same approach, can you imagine how easily you can get to that quality of information?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03That that's the perspective and that's the sales argument when coming into our business and into the possibilities that we have with blockchain.
SPEAKER_02Does blockchain in that case also save you costs? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03In that specific scenario, it absolutely would. If we can get it, of course, we're talking hypothetically, so we would have to see it in practical effect. Everyone using the same type of communication, registering the information. I would I would be 100% uh sure that it would. Because nowadays what happens is let's say you procure a part from a material supplier, the person doing the agreement with the material supplier will be a uh purchaser. His main uh deliverable is not country of origin. It's about the contract, the quality of the part with that specific supplier. So somewhere in that um interaction, the focus is not on the quality of the information of the country of origin or any other attributes, because the purchaser is not a technical person by default. So they have some technical insights, but that's not what they will focus on. The focus is best price, best quality, best location. That's what, or best supplier. That's what they will focus on. But if we could go directly to the material supplier and say, hey, you need to register the information in this way, so that we then also collect the information, we can understand if there's any transformation that is needed, and we can secure from end to end that the information is always the same and that it is correctly registered. So we actually go to the source because today we're not going to the source. We're going into a system where someone is inserting what the country of origin is supposed to be, but they have it, they know it. So if we go to the same ledger, if we read the information from the same origin, then that problem goes away. This is just a simplified example of benefits that we could gain and that can be quantified and that can be shown to say, okay, this is the value that blockchain can bring. But then you will trigger another question, which is how much does it cost? So there's there's that question. Also, how how do we um which supply, which provider will bring that into us, uh allow us to do that? We already have many different vendors with whom we work, also in terms of scalability, in terms of maintenance and support. Those are all questions that will come when you're going, let's say, into an implementation of that type of solutions as well.
SPEAKER_02Upgrading the systems from legacy to new is is a large topic, and we've we've addressed this today as well multiple times. We talked about country of origin as being an important data point for Evolvo. Is that because of the digital product passport, or is that because of something else?
SPEAKER_03Even before digital products, it was already quite important because um we always have certain countries that have certain limitations. So if you produce in a certain country, you cannot ship for another country. So even before we had digital products, digital product ID, we already were focusing on country of origin because you you become liable. I mean, we if we ship, be it the spare part, be it the full constructed vehicle to a destination where the main country of origin is, let's say, a country for that is facing a blockade, you you are you're uh liable to a fine. Those fines can be quite heavy, quite big.
SPEAKER_02So the So you're saying some countries don't allow imports of goods from specific other countries?
SPEAKER_03Very simple. When when you had the Russia-Ukraine uh situation where the European Union said you don't ship any more goods towards Russia, yeah, you need to know if the goods are getting to Russia, for example. Because you're sending them to importers who might then resell those parts and you but you're still liable.
SPEAKER_02And that hold on a second. I didn't know about that. And that boils down to the subparts within an assembly?
SPEAKER_03Uh it it really depends. If you get to a point where you have a fully built uh vehicle or an assembled part, then there is a calculation on that country of origin. But still, if one of the components is from one of those uh blockaded countries, yes, you're liable to a fine. Crazy. Yeah, and we're talking about huge fines, especially if you do it on a repetitive basis, then yes. So we have to, it's very, very important for us to know, like the US cannot ship to some of the countries in uh in uh in the Middle East. So how do you manage that? You really need to know and you need to make sure that all of that information is available and that the information is correct.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I I knew about those geopolitical issues to keep it light for whole parts, parts within the assembly. Interesting. Okay. Well, yes, blockchain. In that case, it certainly saves cost on the risk of fines and probably also improves the whole supply chain management and logistics part, makes it easier for you to trace.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and we've done we've done explorations also with certain um transport suppliers to see if we could create, let's say, an enclosed environment uh using blockchain for the transactions in between material supplier, transport supplier, and ourselves with a proprietary cryptocurrency that we created for that specific purpose or for that investigation or exploration to try and remove that complexity. Just to say, yeah, if you do it from it doesn't matter from where the parts are coming, doesn't matter which currency those countries actually use, you would use a single one, which would be the cryptocurrency to facilitate the uh exchanges between suppliers and uh Volvo. And also you would have the ledgers where all of the information regarding the transportation, the orders, would be kept. So that's an exploration that we have done because we truly believe that it can simplify the way in which we exchange information.
SPEAKER_02Cool. That is one of the first use cases of abstracting cross-company payment processes that are within their boundary onto the chain, also on the transaction side. Because what at the end of the day, you you just settle at the end of the month all those tiny transactions and you look at the accounts at the end. So what's happening is you're basically putting your accounting ledger onto the chain and those transactions and purchases with your Volvo currency, which is valid only within that ecosystem.
SPEAKER_03But like I said, it was an exploration. Yeah. Oh, it's not industrialized, but that was an exploration ideation of what are the potentials that we can reach by using blockchain.
SPEAKER_02That is extremely cool.
SPEAKER_03And I think most companies need to do that as well to kind of think outside of the box, um, see which are the which uh whichever other type of application that you have. I mean, another talk I was having during one of the breaks was regarding AI, the generative AI trend, and the studies that show that a lot of the exploration, or 95% of the explorations or whatever the number is, don't succeed in producing the value that had been identified at the beginning. But for me, that's not a problem because that's what how you do exploration. Most of the explorations fail, and then you will find the good things, the things that really produce immediate value. And I think for black blockchain, we you we need to do exactly the same thing. Be thinking outside of the box, be trying, testing, seeing which uh whichever other scenarios do we think that the technology can bring value to us. And I don't see that enough because it is a more niche type of technology. I think that's the mindset that needs to change to become more uh more common in a way.
SPEAKER_02I agree. And I I see this or observe this only since maybe a year, and I've been in the blockchain space since forever now. And the the the perception of blockchain changed over the years so much. But what I've been saying is that for the past decade, we've been in the age of developers. Smart developers use the technology and and spin up some idea that is novel and innovative and then happens to be useful for a handful of people. I'm not talking about the DEXs and the DeFi's and then some other very blockchain-y applications that are purely tech driven. Barely anybody thought, hmm, there is like a need for this certain application. How can we solve that? Let's use blockchain for that. No, it was different. It was blockchain, what can it do? Oh, we can do that. So it was developer-driven business which works up to some point. I mean, probably most of the companies around the world are created that way. But what I'm seeing since a year or so is a transition into an era of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs see technology as a solution, they see problems and identify a business case to monetize solving their problems. And whatever they're solving could could have blockchain embedded. So they're using the tech because of its properties and not because it's blockchain. They don't use blockchain as marketing. In fact, it became quite untrendy to label something blockchain behind it because of speculation and whatnot. So that really that that picture you have, or that that that vision really fits that observation that I that I that I have, where we're seeing way more use cases that solve problems, that look at current inefficiencies, and choose blockchain as a technology of their choice. And I find that beautiful.
SPEAKER_03But it's a good analogy analogy, and because if we go back to the discussion on generative AI, the biggest ambassadors for generity generative AI were everyday people. And what is the technology behind it with the large language language models? The everyday person doesn't really know how that works. They don't really care about how that works because they see the the user interface, they see uh what is right in front of them. I think that's the mindset somehow that we need to find for blockchain that it enables a lot of solutions, but that you really don't talk about it so much. Of course, within the, let's say, the industry, we will talk about it. But for the potential end users, for the ones that want to visualize, it's more about an engine. But you need to look at the full car. That that that's the transition that we need to make. And also the acceleration in development also came from grassroots, from the people, everyday people, people testing, trying, failing, some people going out and using it, not for very good things, but that's how you grow something into something that becomes more objective, more clear regarding the the what it can offer. I think for blockchain, it needs to kind of go that same journey. That's why I mean blockchain discussions were there before Gen AI, but it kind of lost a little bit of pace because Gen AI took the lead. People were really interested. This is the new thing generating value. So blockchain didn't stop, but it's behind the curtains. So I think that that kind of redressing the topic is very important because the value is there for sure. But how do we attract people to to visualize that value, to use that value, to stimulate new new solutions? That's what for me is lacking or has been lacking in the last few years, even if we still have a lot of different companies working with that mindset and perspective, but maybe not enough for that scaling up of the solution.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, that's true. The you and you framed that perfectly in the beginning. The question is not what can we do with blockchain, but what problems do we have right now that need solving, and there is a full stop there. There is no blockchain yet. Maybe one of the answers to that question is well, use blockchain. And I've said that in my panel today as well about verifiability. The question that my moderator asked was how enterprises should think of gen AI and blockchain together? Should they should they implement it very generic? And I said they shouldn't think about blockchain at all. They should think about generative AI because they have the most immediate benefit from doing that. Making employees more efficient, cutting out some of the grinding tasks, sorting things, all these um the no code. Suddenly product manager can can develop proof of concepts very quickly just by thinking about it, basically. So there is immediate value to be gained from AI. And what AI's problem is, in my mind, is trust. And solving that trust requires reverifiability of where the data comes from, and so on. And then we are having the discussion of okay, how do we solve verifiability? How do we prove stuff? And then blockchain comes into play. At the very very end, in my mind, those two go to beautifully together because of that reason, and there is nowhere in the equation the question, what do we do with blockchain?
SPEAKER_03It's just a natural connection.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Do you see that same observation with the within the manufacturing space?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It has to work like that. But I see also another obstacle or challenge that needs to be surpassed for that acceleration or that, let's say, seamless connection to to exist. And and for me, it has to do uh going back. Back into let's call it blockchain literacy, that if we exclude, let's say, business people, everyday users, if we focus just on IT people, the people that know blockchain, it's either because they work on the industry or because they have done investments in cryptocurrency. Otherwise, you have a lot of people within IT that have heard about blockchain, but do they have a true understanding of what it means and what the possibilities are? Because they would be the initial ambassadors. And they are the ones that could create that seamless connection in between. Now we're talking about uh generative AI, but many other technologies towards having blockchain as either a critical component or a natural add-on to the um environment that has been created. I I fail to see that. I mean, I I I I communicate, I talk with a lot of people within the IT industry. And blockchain is like I said, either you've invested in crypto, so yeah, you need to understand how it works more or less, or because you are working with uh with blockchain actively, and then yes, you know how it works. The other ones, it's a very generic knowledge. So I think you really need like a kind of um media campaign on a, or or not, because like going back to your statement, it should be seamless. You should you we shouldn't even need to talk about it. It should be part of any reflection by any enterprise architect to consider it is critical that we have these this as one of the fundamental components of whatever environment we're creating. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I think the the message could easily just end at blockchain creates trust.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And and if that's the information that people know about it, that would already be enough to do that. I've had an interesting statement today in an earlier um uh interview. And I don't remember because I'm I'm too young, I'm born in 91, but a person said that in the 90s when first laptops and computers, consumer laptops came around, they had big star stickers on them that said TCP IP inside. Yes. If you if you think about that today, imagine your phone or your laptop mentioning a specific detailed protocol of how the internet works. It's outrageous. Barely anybody even knows that TCP IP is a thing. And nobody should care about it. People care what it brings, and blockchain isn't there yet. Everybody says, how do we use TCP IP for our advantage?
SPEAKER_03You know, it may you made me think about another conversation from today, which was um talking about how how new technology is perceived and received, and that it's not always or rarely the first developer that gets the success. And that discussion was about the smartphones. That smartphones have existed since what, uh late 90s, but the focus was on the technology. And for me, uh now talking about Apple, the reasons of the success of Apple is because they translated it from technology into what can it do for you? Having your your music on your telephone, having your foot your uh photo machine on your telephone, etc. That's the step that needs to, that's the bridge that needs to be crossed when talking, let's say, about a general adoption of a technology, it's always coming back to the value. What does it mean for me? And then you don't care about how it works in the background. That because we we say blockchain is trust. How can we show to people? Because otherwise it's just a statement. How can we show to people that it is trust? If you would be on a sales uh exercise, what would you give as an example to a uh C-suite on the reasons why they would need they should adopt uh blockchain?
SPEAKER_02It just depends on their problems. But if the statement is limited to blockchain is trust, arguing for that statement would be a technical answer.
SPEAKER_03And that's why you might lose the audience. That's today, yeah.
SPEAKER_02But wouldn't it be the same then asking why why is TCP IP important for global information exchange?
SPEAKER_03It is. But that's why I say we shouldn't focus on the technology. Technology needs to be there. But if you say blocks uh blockchain is trust because, and you take a practical example, say, hey, though, like we had the example about uh Amazon and the issues that that existed in the past weeks with stability and so on, that blockchain, because it's a multi-supported, supported application that you would not have necessarily the same type of problems. Here it was regarding, I forgot the name of the company. But they they're using that as let's say global nordists. Yes, yes, that they're using that as a component for their cloud, multi-cloud solution and so on. Then you're putting it in a practical perspective, and then you can easily say, yes, blockchain is trust. Because in this same scenario, if you would have blockchain, this would not have happened. That's the end of the conversation.
SPEAKER_02I laughed at. No, you're right.
SPEAKER_03Because even if you go, if you go into those types of settings and you try to explain the technique, you will lose part of the audience. Some will not understand, so there's some others will not be interested because it's very technical. You probably have this still a CTO or CDO that will be kind of ah, that's interesting. But for the rest of the audience, you lost them because they don't see the practical applic uh application or applicability of the but if you say, hey, this happened a few weeks ago, this is the these are the millions of dollars that were lost, or millions of euros that were lost by these different companies. If you would have used this setup, you wouldn't have lost anything. Yeah, then everyone is listening. And they don't even care about how it works technically. Yeah, they shouldn't.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I wanna return to something you said earlier. The all the suppliers that you source, procure parts from, it would be great if they were to use a distributed ledger for tracking when they sent it from where and so on and so forth. That is painting this beautiful picture of hyper-blockchainization of the world where if we were there, if blockchain would be a commodity, which it isn't yet, then we would get all those benefits. At the moment, we are at this proof-of-concept phase where we think, yeah, it would work, but it would cost a considerable amount of money to upgrade our whole supply chain to do that. And preceding that question is always, in my mind, always this barrier of human incentives, and you touched upon it. A CTO or a decision maker within a company may be invested in a certain blockchain, maybe emotionally drawn because the kid explained to him the night before about a specific specific blockchain. So there's always very practical and egoistic reasons for people to prefer one technology. Now I'm specifically differentiating the different blockchains, which we have way too many from, um, for one or the other. So rolling out a system across the whole supply chain that would enable them to do that is, I think, extremely difficult for those personal incentive reasons. Because if I'm not invested in Ethereum, and then my boss suggests to me write a smart contract on Ethereum that does supply chain, like, would you consider Cadano as well? And then already the file starts. How do you have you do you have those conversations?
SPEAKER_03Of course. I mean, you you uh define a scenario. Most decisions are either emotional or logical, yeah, because people are different. Some people decide more with how they feel about the interaction with the other person, more than just the content. Others are really going into the details and really trying to understand every single component, every single detail of what is being proposed. And it's very hard to find that balance. So a good a good sales organization is one that caters to both. You have the technical side, but you're also trying to captivate the sentiment, the emotional side. In those discussions, I think, or like to think that I'm more on the pragmatic logical side. So for me, what is important is scalability, is support, maintenance, because in our case, we are a rather big organization, so it needs to be something that you can deploy and that you can maintain. I would say that those two are the most, of course, then you have the cost as well. You have the reputation of the company that comes into play as well. So there's different factors that come into consideration to make that final decision. I like to think that when decisions are made within our organization, that we take into account everything and not just one thing, that there are there are no preferences. It's purely based on the uh the the value that is being offered. Then of course you have other things that might come into the discussion, like do I already have a partnership with that provider or not? That can also play a role because yeah, for us becomes less complex because maybe it's something that is more familiar for our environment, for the infrastructure that we already have in place. So those are all topics that we are taking into account before making a decision.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, I find that um I kind of see this always as a bit of a dilemma of the values plural that are within those blockchain, isolated blockchain ecosystems that unfortunately barely talk. They're competing and they're doing God's work for hyper blockchainization, praying for their own layer one, while the world would benefit just from consolidation and and agreement on a handful. Sure, there will be specialization and and um and subcases that justify a multi-chain. But those 200 that are around right now and offering the same thing are it's just yeah, it's just too much. And also they don't die. Yeah. Because within the ecosystem, they do create value within their island, within their bubble. So it's not like a company that suddenly doesn't have revenue anymore because they're not used. So they die out and the competition gets, or the landscape within that competitive field is getting narrower and narrower. That doesn't apply to blockchain.
SPEAKER_03But um, do you not see a future of potential merges, acquisitions, stuff like that, where companies become one? Because in many industries, that's how it starts. You have like this uh multitude of different uh startups, uh different companies getting to a certain maturity level, then yeah, maybe some just disappear because they fade out, because they don't meet their uh business objectives, but others end up just being absorbed. You think blockchains can merge? No, yeah, no, but um if you look, for example, at the history of Cardano with the connection to Ethereum and then becoming an entity on its own, you can wonder if you can do one. Can you go back and have two different um solutions that are operated by one single company? That you can have.
SPEAKER_02But blockchains are not operated by companies.
SPEAKER_03I know, I know, not in that sense, but the the model that you have for Cardano, it's a different model from what you have for Ethereum. But basically, you can become one single model. That's what I mean. More in that standardization of how you operate, more than just having these multitude of different companies that you have in the universe today. Is that possible? Who is backing down? Who is changing? That's the challenge. Because everyone's making money, that's my understanding so far. Yeah, so no one has reasons to back down. But that that's going sorry to interrupt, going back to blockchain is trust, that hinders trust. And trust? Hinders trust.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes, yes, it does.
SPEAKER_03Because it's too many.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I don't know how long it will take for for that ecosystem to to shrink. And blockchains are dying. We were just two months ago, so I forgot I forgot the name now. But that foundation that announced we shut down, we spent all our funds, the block produces, the nodes are still out there and they they do their thing. But supporting the supporting entity doesn't exist anymore. And it was an amazing announcement. It was the first type of announcement in my time within blockchain of of that sort. And how terrible it may be for the technology and for all the energy that went into there and all the innovation. I think it is natural that that at some point happens. All entities at some point run out of money, especially if they're a non-profit. I mean, the Cardano Foundation is net negative at the end of the year by design. In 10-15 years, we're not around anymore. If we haven't fulfilled our mission by then, well, the community is on their own then. And I think it's a good thing.
SPEAKER_03But but if we go back to your question, huh? Because they need to understand, okay, if you being our support structure, if you're saying we will fade out. Who is maintaining the internet? Good question. But the but the mindset needs to change, that's what I mean. Because when a contract is made, it's made between two organizations. So even if the internet, no one's maintaining the internet, you have uh a contract with an internet provider. So your dependencies with the internet provider.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I think the internet works because of that collective interest. Yes. And there's money to be made to run an internet backbone. There is money to be made in creating cables that run across the Atlantic from one continent to another. And I think blockchain as this public infrastructure that it is, is the same thing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but let's say when you have issues with your uh with your internet, people go to your internet provider. Oh, yeah. Then the problem might be with the infrastructure, which is not necessarily the responsibility of the internet provider, the telecommunications company, what what whatever. But your first point of contact, let's imagine that we we have a um a relationship with Cardano, Cardano is our provider. For us, it's your fault.
SPEAKER_04That is that's how this is true.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I see your point. I disagree with it, but I agree with your point.
SPEAKER_03It would be the perception. Yeah, the perception will be that. I agree that that might be that it's in fact the infrastructure provider, but our main our main contact point or uh primary contact point is the provider. Well, we we don't provide the technology. I understand we're making an analogy, yeah. We're making an analogy, but that's perception as well. And perception is extremely important, especially when we make the statement blockchain is trust.
SPEAKER_02It is an interesting statement, though, because you're 100% right that from a traditional procurement perspective, tech comes from somewhere. And the Carana Foundation maintains Krano. It isn't true at all. Yeah, but support questions can be answered.
SPEAKER_03And also because maybe it maybe you're you're reaching, let's say, a let's say a fundamental point in our discussion, which is today the mindset of any business relationship is between two parties because you need someone to become responsible for whichever service you're using or that is being provided. If you go into this collective environment with where you have a platform that is built for everyone by everyone, who do you point your finger to? A company needs someone to be liable for something not working. And of course, the the the basis behind blockchain is that it is there to secure that everything works.
SPEAKER_02On the other hand, when Amazon went down, nobody claimed any liability towards Amazon?
SPEAKER_03Oh, I don't know, I'm not so sure about that. Yeah, you think uh regarding AWS not working, yeah. Of course, they there there have been, I'm 100% sure there have been a lot. We don't use AWS, but there have been long discussions on on uh the losses that were uh made that day. Because you have a contract, and in the contract, you can specify the type of service level that you expect from that provider.
SPEAKER_02But in that case, it's a cloud provider, essentially cloud provider. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And that that becomes the issue with something that is collective. If you have those types of issues, where is your service level agreement? Who how do you recover what you might have lost? And to translate that and explain this, like let's say, more say it abstract concept of blockchain to people in upper management that need, yeah, you need to find responsibilities, you need to define responsibilities. More than find responsibilities, you need to define responsibilities.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I like where this goes because it somewhat challenges that 20, 30, 40 year endeavor of companies to centralize, to control, to hedge themselves from risks and so on. And blockchain flips that on its head and says, well, no, you you don't need to even consider that because there is this sea of redundancy and it doesn't go down. How would you say what's more difficult? Teaching the tech or challenging the culture that hinders it?
SPEAKER_03I would say challenging the culture because we shouldn't really I I said we need to involve invest in um blockchain literacy, but I don't mean explaining all the details of the technical part. It's more about creating an awareness on the value and the basis of how it works. That part I think is easy to achieve, but to change the culture is extremely hard. Culture is inherent to each one of each of each one of us. I mean, even most companies try to create their own corporate culture, especially big companies, because you're in multiple different locations, so you want to create a single identity. You can create the basis for it, but you can never dissociate. I mean, I can never not be Portuguese or be influenced by the Belgian culture where I've been living for for so long. It defines who I am. So part of those principles will be part of my everyday business life, even if there is this corporate culture that you want to instill. So to change that, because it is a multitude of different cultures and the different mindsets, that will be incredibly hard. I mean, maybe in some scenarios you have a company that belongs or is existing in a specific type of culture where this type of mindset about uh collaboration, sharing, having uh co-development, then it's easier. You have cultures where it's more individualistic, yeah. Then the mindset is extremely hard to change.
SPEAKER_02That's a beautiful answer. Yeah. Yeah. What I'm definitely taking away from this conversation is how does the Cardano Foundation get rid of its maintainer status? It's gonna be hard. And we can't change the culture. We can teach.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Maybe that's the the first step.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I think so. I think you can you can play a very important and significant role. I mean, it's not exclusively the Cardano Foundation's responsibility to educate the world about uh blockchain and its benefits, but you can be you can start.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Unfortunately, we did already. The Cardano Academy is super successful, and there's tons of other academies from other foundations and and and crypto companies that do the same.
SPEAKER_03But to put it more out there for people who might not be your number one target audience, to create an awareness, to create ambassadors. Because for me, going back to Generative AI, the ambassadors were extremely important, and the ambassadors were everyone.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I think that can be one of the pivoting points.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Last closing question. In your current role, looking into innovation for logistics and then having your manufacturing industry, where are you most excited about where that industry will be in 10 years?
SPEAKER_03What I'm more most excited about is that I don't know. Because every prediction that has been made, you know, you should make predictions, you should prepare for the future, with the understanding that the reality that you might face is not the one that you expected. So for me, that is actually I'm not I'm not afraid of that. I'm actually welcoming that to be surprised. Because in the last few, let's say 10, 20 years, technology has advanced really quickly. Really quickly. I mean, the cycles that we had in the past of 10 years, strategic plans for the next 10 years, you cannot make a strategic plan for 10 years. It will not make sense. So I think that's that's for me, that's what gets me excited. Uh, we've done so much, and there's still so much to explore. I mean, quantum computing is coming up, edge computing is not coming up, it's already been there, but okay, let's use more and more of that data. And I see blockchain again as one infrastructure component supporting all of these different uh different ways of capturing, creating, generating data, generating information that can be used by the business, generating information for people to use. I mean, we have never had so much access to information as we have today. How can we make sure that it's right, the right information? That's where it can play a role. Because a lot of the security issues that we see for the future, I really believe this could be we need to find a way of not complexifying it. Like how do you use blockchain for big chunks of information to say this is the right information? That's some of the ideas we need to think about for the future, to use it to secure data that we're having so that generative AI, creating the connection into it, the discussion that you had today, that is just natural.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But I have no expectations, I don't know where the industry is going. Embracing the uncertainty. Yes, the unknown.
SPEAKER_02Except the chaos. I loved it as a closing word. It was lovely to have you here.
SPEAKER_03Thank you so much. It was a really nice conversation.
SPEAKER_02Indeed, it was. Thanks for all the insights and hope to see you tonight. Sounds good. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for joining us on Let's Talk Cardano. For more insights and deep dives into the world of blockchain, don't forget to subscribe and reach us at CardanoFoundation.org, where you'll find extra resources and content on all things blockchain. Leave us a review wherever you enjoy podcasts. Follow us on social media, and stay tuned for more coming soon.