Public & Private Sector Collaboration in the Blockchain Space

[Music] hey we are live with our next panel discussion we have draw again with us he was also participating in our last european blockchain convention and then we have paul nina new participants of the european blocking convention welcome to the three of you i'm very glad to see you and paul the state is yours thank you very much and thank you everybody uh welcome thank you for joining us this afternoon for the european blockchain convention panel where we'll be discussing public and private sector collaboration in the blockchain space i'll be the moderator this afternoon and uh i'm from the interest group um blockchain ireland and i'm a journalist and presenter in the technology space for more than 20 years so our topic this afternoon is around public and private uh sector collaboration in the blockchain space so every day more and more governments join the race to pass legislation and commence pilot projects centered around blockchain technology governments can leverage blockchain technology to provide cyber security process optimization and integrate hyper-connected services whilst bolster bolstering trust and accountability and within that context there are a number of areas of collaboration whereby governments can provide infrastructure and base projects with which the private sector can combine services all to the benefits of european citizens so here to discuss that with us are uh two leading experts we have nina dakazov of the ministry of economic development and technology in slovenia and joao rodriguez friday head of sector of building blocks with the european commission so nina is head of project group new economy and blockchain technologies with the ministry of economic development and technology in slovenia nina is an experienced center director working across public sector administration with expertise in policy analytics government strategic planning and marketing strategy uh joao is a bachelor of economics with a master's degree in information systems and technology management who has worked on development implementation deployment and evolution of the most important large-scale distributed trans-european systems of the european union he's an experienced enterprise architect specializing in large complex projects with a decade in management positions consulting and project management and his sector is responsible for the implementation of european blockchain services and infrastructure so welcome to you both and thank you very much for joining us so to set a context uh for the discussion um it it might be useful to just set out some of the key features of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies that lend themselves for use in in public service applications so uh maybe jarrod do you want to take that one first in in terms of of um the specific aspects of these technologies that that are so interesting and and promising for new public services so good afternoon paul can you hear me well that's always the first question back always worth checking i'm going to answer that question having in mind the european blockchain services infrastructure that you just mentioned we normally call it ebsi or apse and the first idea there is that governments as you might know issue a lot of documents and typically we issue those documents to citizens and businesses and then those citizens and businesses have to use those documents to carry out you know a number of things in their lives like when you get married or when you have a child or you set up a business you typically have to provide those documents as evidence of who you are what kind of profession you have and things like this so the idea that we are exploring with the bsi is to turn these type of documents into something that is commonly known as verifiable credentials or verifiable at the stations supported by blockchain and that means that in the future these documents as they become digital they will be verifiable through blockchain and this is actually i would say the most important feature for us at this point in time which is actually to use blockchain as a single point of truth but still in a distributed fashion not centralized like before and also respecting data privacy so that's far as very important because with blockchain you can using you can use the ash of a document this hashing function that transform anything into a verifiable code and you don't need to keep of course the documents themselves on the blockchain the documents are kept with the citizen or with the business on something that we called the digital wallet and then you can use through cryptography these mechanisms to verify the authenticity and the integrity of the document making of course the transaction much more reliable and trustworthy and for governments this is extremely important as we move from let's say paper to digital and everyone now is working remotely and of course wants to provide evidence in a very convenient way online without needing to travel to get those documents and then presenting them somewhere else so this is why the commission is involved in all this so we are helping the member states to set up and participate in the ebsi because we believe a lot in the cross-border idea so you can set up a business not only in your member state in some other member state you can go leave and study somewhere else this is why uh we are working as european commission on blockchain and specifically in the european blockchain services infrastructure very good there's a a number of kind of key points there i think uh that that we can follow up on so thank you very much for that nina from from your perspective then and uh the the governmental aspects in particular what uh what are are the the key advantages with the technologies that you see that you've been able to uh to leverage and i i know you have a specific healthcare um experience in implementation uh yeah thank you very much i agree with all that uh joao said before because the our motivation um either on the government side or and on the european uh blockchain partnership side because i have to mention that we started to develop this european blockchain services infrastructure within the network between member states and european commission this is really unique network and this is called european blockchain partnership the policy group is taking care of policy and strategic issues the technical group is taking care of uh technical issues on um ebsi or fc like joao said and then we have a certain services or use cases that can be used and what is from the governmental point of view very important first the safety and security of the transactions can be very high on blockchain a second originality we can put the original file and then trace the file through the time and have very high historical um data um and this is very valuable because we are trying to minimize for example the the paper documents and we are trying to um to of shift to digital but we need to have a traceable documentation so that we can follow this and also uh share with the other institutions and the other partners the third thing is uh what we are developing here is uh for example digital identity or self-sovereign identity um the technology here is very important because uh on one hand it fulfills that um social value proposition it keeps the authenticity and autonomy of the the human beings and the participants or stakeholders here in the center of the technology on the other hand uh this is democratic technology that uh is going through the process of voting confirmation of cooperation of the nodes uh and so on so uh it is specific from at this point of view but there still is a challenge uh we are facing the challenge because the technology is still very not mature very young so it is the really challenge how to ensure the broader um implication of the technology itself we now for for example slovenia we are going to open the node for ebsi but we before we completely assimilate the technology within we will need to upgrade our skills on the technology on what the performance it is how uh we can use this and also um how we can um train the other ministries for example or how we can communicate with cross-border ministries as well on the european level here is also the challenge of the legislation uh because we are developing on one hand standards on the other hand the legislation for certain uh areas of of um intervention for example we now have in europe the whole package of digital finance uh that would be very uh relevant for um the government for the financial sector and also for the retail and for the citizens so here we can expect a really um huge revolution in the interaction between governmental sector and also the private sector as well but yeah in slovenia we here started to develop this um very soon and the cooperation between private sector and public sector is very strong i will be um i will tell about this a little bit later but yeah the technology is very important and uh while it enables paperless and also trust for um communication and transfer it is very important also for the government and for the data that we are collecting here and transferring to uh to the citizens very good thank you thank you for that and just a reminder to the audience that you have the ability to to to ask questions but we would also encourage you to uh give us your insights and comments as well um i'm sure a lot of people have experience out there in terms of working with these technologies so please do feel free to share your experiences as well as ask questions but we have a few other questions here just in terms of of uh of setting context for the conversation but please do get involved we want this to be as interactive as possible but um maturity was something that that you mentioned there nina and is is there um are are there any examples of um mature implementations of of blockchain and and dlt in in public service settings so i know that your your your own um uh your own department has has been active for a number of years so what are the mature implementations out there that maybe we could learn from in terms of of um structures and and frameworks for for other possible services uh maybe the most mature with because it is not only on blockchain but uh it is also um with the other technologies is uh trying to find or to implement digital identity uh solutions uh and we are now in the face that we are going to test uh the self-sovereign identity use case so that it will it will enrich also the um the usage of blockchain but uh in uh in any case we have some uh very strong private uh mature solutions that are helping us to create the orientations the guidelines how to use a blockchain for the practical so in slovenia we uh really started very early in 2017 uh we started with strengthening the ecosystem and then we somehow connected the business part the research part and also the governmental part and the government was very supportive we created for example the action plan where we identified the areas that where blockchain can be used as one of the main or key digital uh technologies and what we found out that some certain use cases were developed here um and they are still growing um and they didn't reach the the maximum yet but in any case uh i would like to just point out maybe um our first national um blockchain service infrastructure that is c chain and it is quite mature now we are uh okay in the testing period but we can test here certain private use cases like like digital identity like motorization like e-delivery service or um something similar then we have in slovenia one of them maybe uh pro broadest uh implementation of blockchain with payments it's called eligma uh this is the company that has a very uh rich track record and uh um very good in the development of that use cases some blockchain um for example we had um uh i real network uh which was on the health uh area was very um advanced for example they provided the solutions for azealum uh seekers and the zerum camps uh providing them medicines and so on we have company origin trail for traceability of resources of um in the in the agriculture also some contract some contract is a marketplace or a platform for exchanging uh energy um and uh creating the energy from renewables uh we have here one of the most mature vibrate uh project that is um that is um on the musician's side providing them access to musicians to the festivals to djs providing content uh and also um we have strong alliances for example here we have blockchain alliance europe that is um acting in slovenia like a strong connector and some cases like these are building that ecosystem and are contributing also to the solutions for the government uh in the next period i hope that it will be used more um yeah to to to be developed also for the governmental uh usage maybe i forgot somebody from slovenia but that's that's that's quite a list so thank you but uh i'm i'm just seeing here that there's uh there's quite a few questions coming in so joey if if i could just get you to to uh to comment briefly on on some of the mature examples that uh that that have caught your eye and and then we'll jump straight into the questions because there's there's a number coming in there already so you're out i will quickly touch upon the diploma use case of fc we are working with a number of member states on the professional qualifications use case which means that you will be able to share your diploma with an employer or another university and that will be very valuable and we have seen a lot of interest around that one and there are many good examples very good very good okay well the first question has come in uh marta is asking joao what's the status on ebsi so i i presume uh in terms of of uh availability readiness uh that that sort of thing uh very quickly uh ebsi started with version one which was a let's say a demonstration version with the member states uh we reached i'm looking at it now 25 29 nodes across europe uh in ebsi version one and we are now upgrading those nodes into a pre-production environment and soon will be in full production so this year bsi will be in full production with the use cases that we just heard about so we have the self-sovereign identity we have the diploma we have notarization and we are working on um several other use cases with different dgs we have also data sharing use case with the tax suit the taxation and the customs union director general we are working on the social security use case with the dj employer so we have many uses use cases coming up and therefore um yeah we we hope to let's say slowly and surely of course take the infrastructure to fully operational mode and then each one of the use cases will have their own roadmap and that will depend on the what we call early adopters program that we are running and if you want to know more you can go online and you can of course get in touch with us okay thank you very much for that and and thank you marta uh stefan then is asking how should government increase trust in dlt without adding necessary services there is no trust without proof and he cites uh the nist um 800-207 so i i don't know who who would like to to come to that first is it is it down to governments to try and establish trust in these technologies or is it better to sort of uh show how the services can can be delivered and uh let the services them speak for themselves as it were should i maybe do do you want to take that one first uh i will let nina give uh some of the good examples but uh my my my own experience is of course that the uh trust aspect and uh so seeing is believing in a way right um what i would say is that i would encourage everyone to have a look at our ebsi homepage on ceph digital and you can see all the work that we are doing with the member states and the the belief is there and also concrete deliverables are there that people will be able to use and that will in my opinion create really the adoption that we are hoping to see in the future well nina from from the extensive list of examples you gave then uh is is trust emerging from those um those examples yeah this is a this is really the challenge also for other digital technologies but uh if we go first to increase trust we need um a kind of legal certainty that uh the data of the people will not be abused or misused in some other way then we need technological certainty that um this will enable supporting uh to support the processes that are um are flowing uh from or are being implemented from government to people so government to uh community uh and the third thing is uh if we enclose the technology closer to people so that they can be sure that their data they own the data which is their ownership and it is not abused in any way then we have um that trust in technology and also in blockchain um this is very important so the government should uh give very clear message that this is technologically and legally uh also safe and secure uh to be implemented for the transactions and for the communication okay okay thank you um then from stanislav uh he's asking of nina what do you think helps slovenia to advance um in this bct field compared to other member states and he's referencing obviously the the country's size government attitude to innovation things like that so what what is that special formula i suppose to to to allow you to become a leader uh yeah thank you very much for this question i think all that country size uh it's important because smaller you are then more identified people who are working on this you have then um government attitude to innovation uh it was very important from the beginning because the government was one of the four uh very strong pillars developing that uh blockchain ecosystem in slovenia uh the third thing is that um we have a lot of skilled persons um developers programmers that had an opportunity to um try to to try to go to the entrepreneurs or entrepreneurship way and this was very important because on the other hand in the period of icos it was a motivation how to access to market as well so uh it was another um target area for accessing to market and uh this is what we are very proud of them and the fourth thing is that it was developed from practice it was not brought from the academia down but it was developed from practice so the effect of mass development was uh quite strong in the beginning in slovenia and it is still yeah okay thank you for that i'm actually going to jump ahead a little bit because there's a question here just around uh privacy and and gdpr which which feeds very well back into the the example that both of you were talking about in terms of of uh self-sovereign identity so stefan is asking how should dlt support privacy while it's not gdpr compliant uh and he he cites articles 17 and 20. so i i i suppose the the privacy and secure our privacy and and um uh data protection is always going to come back into these things so specifically with in in in light of gdpr how how is that to be handled with these technologies um do i do do you want to take that one first yes so i will be brief because we could discuss this uh for hours in indeed and i i know that we're we're coming near the end of our slot so i want you exactly but um but i believe that the most important message is that we are addressing that not as blockchain as a whole but use case per use case so it means that we need to look at the diploma use case then we need to look at the social security use case then we need to look so we look at each one of the use cases and then we have to make decisions on the best way to use blockchain for verification purposes to support that use case without ever again without ever questioning the data privacy of the citizen or let's say the legal person which is the business so we are of course being very careful and we are analyzing this thoroughly in ebsi and every use case is subject to a very let's say specific analysis so we cannot just talk about blockchain we talk about diploma on blockchain we talk about you know so one that's that's the idea okay thank you nina do you want to comment on on the gdpr aspect yeah maybe uh we decided to put on um to take the approach uh for to take into account uh in eithers and to have on blockchain um a limited number of data that should be in compliance with eides regulations so what can not be put or what is critical to be put on blockchain better not to be put on blockchain not to be uh countering uh that either regulation yeah and uh this is uh through that joao was explaining uh case by case but on general ebsi is respecting uh through um eid as uh the solutions on blockchain okay thank you and um just uh stanislav has come back and and said i think an interesting read could be this position paper and it's a sovereign dot org uh gdpr position paper so uh hopefully we'll be able to share that out to the audience members because it it it's probably shedding a bit of light on that uh i'll i'll just we we've got about a minute left so i'll i'll just go back into another um question there claudia says it is great that the blockchain will bring simplification less paperwork and bureaucracy it can dramatically reduce the public budget deficit in many countries um however she says i don't know if it will be very welcome in countries with high dependence on public employment and it will probably impact on unemployment what is your opinion so um i i think that's that's that's an uh an interesting point um if if uh countries where there is very high public sector employment uh will blockchain have an impact there what's your thoughts nina i think you're probably best place to answer that one first yeah i think that it will affect public employment or public employees but in a positive way so that they can concentrate more on content and less on papers and this is very important because now we know that we are in some moments of time concentrating on papers on creating papers or or manipulating with this and when we introduce blockchain for example um i will give you just concrete thing when we have uh eu funding okay uh that european cohesion policy funding uh we have a lot of the people in uh audits and controls units that are checking a whole uh all the invoices and the um they are verifying this and everything when we have blockchain technology here and all the work with this uh with automatically automatic verification with the smart contracts with um the process that will smoothly go uh they will be uh it will move that bureaucratic burden uh and they will be able to to concentrate on the content onto what uh because the focus of the public administration is also to participating and co-creating policy so we can uh here on the other hand um strengthen the other types of work that will be more uh contentful and less bureaucratic very good okay do i if i could just get a a final brief comment from you because uh unfortunately we're up against time just to say that i agree i mean reduce red tape we don't need more of that and we need to add value as governments and that's what we are trying to do every day and i hope that ebsi contributes to this i'd say main purpose and in case you want to know more as i said there's a lot to read on safe digital as well so go there and we keep in touch great okay thank you very much unfortunately we had many more questions that we could possibly have got through in our time slot so thank you very much to the audience but thank you to nina and joao um that's uh incredibly insightful stuff and as evidenced by the amount of questions that we've got and and the great comments so thank you very much to everybody for attending thank you to our panelists and i will hand back to our producers for the rest of the event thank you very much