Leveraging Technology Towards Public Efficiency - Buenos Aires 2025

Uh welcome everyone. We have the the title of the panel here is leveraging technology towards public efficiency. So basically Bitcoin exists since uh 15 years ago was created 15 years ago. Uh Ethereum is more like 10 years ago but we we should be able to see visible notable change in government. Uh would it be nationalwide government or local governments?

So we're going to talk about this uh with a Nanak Nhal Kalsa, James Stunningly, Teodoro Petrivich and Austo Ardilles. So I let uh each of one of them to present uh present you.

Sure. Thank you very much. And uh hey everybody, how are we doing? My name is James. Uh I co-run a company called Architect.

We are an investment and advisory firm based out of Switzerland. And I'm one of the leads at Protocol Labs. So I'm sure many of you know Fun in the Commons was spun out of PL. Um I spent best part of a decade as a British diplomat prior to my career in crypto. Um, so I'm sort of fusing those two worlds together.

I'm very excited to discuss with my esteemed panelists today.

Well, thanks thanks to to funding the common for this invitation. I'm Austard under secretary of investment. I used to work as a chief of staff of the governor of the central bank in Argentina six years ago. So yesterday during a dinner I was thinking that uh it's part of my life try to make bridge between the the fiat currency and the cryptocurrency and now today between the public sector and the blockchain sector. So so happy to be here and to have this discussion with all of you guys.

I'm Nak Nahal. I'm one of the co-founders of Holland building human tech. So we embed digital human rights into the web. We build uh sepic infrastructure for identity and wallets. Really happy to be here with these incredible people.

Uh hi everyone. Um yeah, as you introduced me already, I'm Theodore. I work for United Nations Development Program. Um I have a role of digital partnerships lead and accelerator lead. What we are doing basically we are trying to develop the ecosystem that will allow higher or better adoption of the blockchain technology within the UN ecosystem but also uh across the governments.

Okay. So keep the micro please to you. Uh I I want um I want to to dig into the the program the United Nation development program the Alfin lab. Can you like present a few use case that were implemented uh using a distributed ledger technology or blockchain uh depending on the number of nodes or a few a few details?

Yeah. So the I I would say blockchain industry is collaborating with UN for a long time. So the first cases we had in 2013 2014 uh and just recently we mapped 156 use cases that we have in the UN ecosystem. uh 89 were validated which basically means that both sides UN agencies and blockchain builders agreed that they did something. Uh so still I think 90 well use cases are quite good right.

Uh what we are doing so basically we started experimenting with the blockchain technology in 2015 asin lab working with the governments of Morocco for example in Lebanon. uh in Morocco we did we we had the initiative with the ministry of agriculture um certifying basically doing the traceability of the argan oil production. Um we have I think like 22 cases uh with the governments currently which go u they go beyond the education and training etc. Maybe I can do introduce that later. But one use case that is really uh somehow spotlighting uh I would say success of the of our work is the blockchain implementation in the um civil registry uh in Usbakistan.

Uh this is the project that started in 2019 uh between UNDP and the ministry of justice. It was funded by European Commission if I recall correctly. U 5 million project. Um and basically what we did there um we scanned u more than 60 million uh different documents, birth certificates, marriage certificates, you know, death certificates and put them on the blockchain. Unfortunately, private blockchain built by the private company.

Um but the project still exists and it's running great. So currently we have uh 15 million users which is like 40% of the population of those Pakistan and um we see a lot of benefits of course you know we reduce the time of the issuing the document or using the document from days to minutes now it's accessible also on the mobile phones etc. Um and now we are expanding this. So now we are working with the Pakistan government to expand this to the healthcare records uh to educational credentials uh land registry etc etc. And uh uh the project was also recognized this year as the best blockchain government project in the central um Asia.

Uh so uh yeah this is just the one use case. We have multiple ones in different industries. Um but um maybe people don't know what is the role of UNDP. UNP is somehow the integrator. So we are the biggest development agency in the world and we are working primarily with the governments as a translator between the private sector and the

there is a lot of education to to do between the deciders people taking the decisions. uh they're they're not they don't have all the same level of knowledge uh obviously on the on the topic and um yeah we will get back to the to the topic of identity because for for for example in the law enforcement is very important to prevent identity theft. So to have a shared truth on a ledger everyone can can verify and be able to to to control. So this is very interesting uh topic. Um maybe um can you give us uh all one or two use case um in your experience?

Yeah. So speaking of identity, I think uh a lot of the use cases come down to identity. Um and identity looks different in many situations, right? So one for example for voting need very rigorous identity for for voting to prevent um people from voting who are not valid constituents, prevent the civil attack problem of multiple people voting. Um so anything in the voting uh spectrum.

Now there's also stuff like refugee identity which I find very interesting um because these are situations where governments cannot provide identities and you know there are many refugees that need some sort of way of proving who they are. So this is a great place for decentralized technologies to provide identities with without an issuer without the government being an issuer or with a third party issuer um such as the UN which the UN has has done. Um we've also done a bit of work on that as well. Um and um even like decentral more decentralized systems like in Africa for examp Africa for example where you have um like more community based things where you have community reputation um and you can get attestations that way um on identity. Um so yeah I think identity is a super interesting intersection of maybe not blockchain per se but web 3 technology cryptography.

Okay. Well, to be honest, in my case, I mean, in the city of honor service case, we don't have a an specific case of use yet. Uh, of course, that maybe could be use it for identity or maybe for the health systems

for the budget.

Yeah. But but I I will go to to that point. But before that, uh, last August, we launched with the mayor of the city program which is called BA crypto. There are four reforms. Three of these reform are so focused on tax things.

I mean low tax for crypto. And the last of these reform is to avail the crypto system. I mean to avail the wallet of crypto to pay taxes and to pay it uh some service like for example the driving lency. So, I'm totally sure that if we could connect the blockchain systems and the blockchain market, the crypto market to to to be more specific to the day of the citizens, you will have you are something to put the offer and the demand together. For example, for the for the driver license, we were talking just before with Nanak uh with the Californian uh project, they have like the shared ledger for the driver license.

They use blockchain. So maybe that this could be like a great inspiration or a discussion between Buenosi, the state of of California for to improve citizens life.

For sure. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure.

But in addition of that why we start with the tax things or maybe with the pay systems because in Argentina you have 10 million account of crypto that's are some some dates from the CNB it's more or less the SEC in the US. So you already have a big market of crypto user in Argentina and particularly in Buenosirus because Buenosirus is an a small point of the map and a small point of the country but 20% of the GDP grows in Buenosirus 70% of our service portions grows in Buenosirus. So we don't have really big station of lands. We don't have mountain time. We have a really high quality of human resource.

So this human resource grows in the city of Wenosirus because we have lot of university we have the capacity we have the uh the circumstance I mean the the service good internet so the idea is try to connect something that it's happen now today that is you have 10 million account of crypto user and this is only the the account that are publics I mean maybe you have many many other that are not publics so if these people could use more easier their crypto day by day where you are trying to to connect.

We will talk about the frictions and the the the things to to go beyond to to improve the the daily life. Um

passing the micro yes for you for example two example like

totally. So what are we talking about here? We're talking about national level and city level governments that are providing services to their citizens. And we're also talking about the international community and multilateral community that are enhancing and augmenting those those services to global citizens at the same time. Ideally, those services are interoperable.

Not always, but the rate of innovation of trying more and more implementations and more and more use cases will increase the rate of innovation of crypto enabled digital public infrastructure replacing existing public infrastructure which candidly doesn't work. It doesn't do the job of providing services to citizens. now holistically across the world which increasingly when I moved out of public service into becoming a sort of a crypto technologist I sort of saw the power of this technology globally and so whether I'm looking at in the payments industry I'm seeing what's happening in India with settlement layers I just came back from Bhutan where they've obviously just put on their ID sets into um onto Ethereum mainet I'm looking at like the energy and procurement markets in neighboring Chile these are all really good examples of different verticals where cryptoenabled public goods can replace in a sovereign grade mission critical, transparent and interoperable way the services that governments have been providing for 100 years now. This is transformational. The fact that to is on this panel here right now saying look the UN is committed just from the DP side to figuring out with national level governments on the one hand and crypto ecosystems on the other how we can enhance these services tells us how much we've come on in 10 years plus in the crypto industry to be able to deliver the services we've all idealized for so long right and the shoulders we've stood on before that.

So I think all of these use cases that that have been mentioned on this panel and more stand to reason that in the next two to three years we're going to see major governments and the international community move almost fully onto these rails and the user experience of citizens will be so much better even though they won't notice that it's on crypto rails

and and do you see one or for example one domain where it's easier to implement because government can get it uh way uh faster than the other for example you were talking to you about academic credentials. For example, in France, you have like 70 million of people. It's it's not like Argentina, but you only have like 8% of 10% of the French population uh who who has crypto and use it and everyone has a bank account. So, when you try to convince uh politic and deciders, it's not that that clear for them why should I use a blockchain? Why why a blockchain should be better?

And um but for the academic uh credential they see the interest to to fight the the fraud or to has uh a shared truth with the document anyone can can see. So this is one example but uh uh yeah we need we need to to to go beyond a few um uh a few obstacles. Um what's your point all of you from the main obstacle for for example you were talking also about uh intraability um first you got to teach so education then once they get it and they can uh understand the the interest uh for the public transformation of innovation and distributed ledger and blockchain uh there is also the problem of security and interoperability. So there there are many but pick one.

Yeah, I have to go first on on challenges and opportunities. I think on the challenges side, you know, literacy is like on the government side, it's literacy, right? You don't have the level of understanding often in especially at the national level, including at city level, but let's say at the national level of governments to understand this technology well enough, right? And they they're not going to be like a senior level civil servant in any major economy is not going to put their career on the line to make a decision, right? inaction is no grounds for firing in in government systems, right?

It's very difficult to get things done because people are not willing to go and do the work to understand what can be transformative. I think the major unlock there is finding a very senior sponsor in a respective government that understands this technology, has spent time with it and actually is willing to put resource, time and effort in social proof.

So yeah, social proof and also they've put time to understanding the technology, right? So you can have a conversation that's quite deep on crypto rails. can differentiate between what is a ghost chain a shitty piece of tech and actually what is sovereign grade technology that can support the use case that they're trying to do. I think we're at this stage now where like some crypto technologies not all for certain use cases are at a place now where you can replace existing infrastructure. The problem is only one example needs to go wrong and then the entire government infrastructure can say well look all crypto is bad and I think that selectivity of government is really difficult because it's about getting in the room and convincing the decision makers and often that's done in silos.

So if we can do this as transparently as possible, the tender processes from the government side are put in full public and everyone can debate on whether or not this particular tech stack is right for this use case and we can have that conversation which crypto I think does really really well. It sets us in betterstead but there's also a massive opportunity for crypto eons to do more education. I think if I'm the head of a foundation or I'm the head of a crypto labs I should be in these conversations with government with multilaterals with institutions more and more because it's my job to convince them that this technology is ready to be adopted. And if I'm not willing to do that, no one's going to shield my technology for them. So I think we need to see more senior technologists also put more time and effort and resource against having those conversations.

Yeah, maybe I can continue this. Uh so two and a half years ago, we recognized that problem and started building internal capacities. So we started the blockchain academy and we educated like 500 first, you know, UNDP people that understand the technology and basically can go beyond thinking and going to the ideation. uh and somehow then the blockchain community or practice within the UN started to evolving currently we have 2,000 people you know that are working or designing or something working with the blockchain industry and um that evolved to the acceleration program where basically we are supporting with the blockchain partners you know internal pro internal pilots internal pilots in terms that they're working with the government on some specifications from governance to identity payments climate whatever it is right so we did a little bit of our job in terms of the educ education internally. Uh then governments like you said um we are starting now with the government blockchain academy.

Next year we will pilot in three to four countries and then we are planning to expand to 70 countries in 27. So uh yeah their literacy and the you know level of the understanding but also the capacity to build something or co-design something with a with blockchain is really important. Um I saw that a lot of business schools like side business school etc. They also now have the government blockchainmies you know that build raise the capacities of the blockchain but uh we also have issue in the blockchain industry because uh builders don't understand the impact side why they are building this so they're not questioning you know so they're just you know answering the question what they are doing and what they built not why they were building and why they are built something and this is uh totally opposite of the thinking of UN or development organizations but also the governments. So I think this is one of the things that blockchain industry can also work on right to raise the capacities of impact design and why basically these solutions matter.

Uh because then we are not talking only about the interperability and the security but also the scalability and this is the biggest issue that we faced like last three years working with multiple blockchain. So whenever we put on the table some of the challenges the the answer immediate is of course we can build it but then when we add the context you know for example identity today we have 1.2 2 billion people without the identity who can solve this right so it's scalability uh and understanding that a systematic change is important not only to build a product and implement it on the lower scale in the municipality on the country level etc but we need to have systematic approach holistic approach to fully change this because without having the proper solution for the identity those 1.2 two billion people will not have access to you know payments. They will not have access to health.

They will not have access to education. They will not be able to move across the countries if they are refugees etc. So we have big challenges and we need big solutions now. Uh so from my point of the view uh all three parties for example we had like two weeks ago we had in Copenhagen we had interesting discussion between these three parties like governments blockchains in and UN and u we we really honestly said okay we all have issues right internal as well one of them is corruption it's already happening also in the blockchain industry so you know how we can stop this how we can go back to the core our values and principles and who will be the gatekeeper of those values and principles and then the talents like we discuss uh how we can basically together design educational program to co-build the ecosystem that will work together and collaborate. Um all people are quite often asking me what is the one message to the to to the blockchain industry to the blockchain ecosystem collaboration.

First of all, you need to start, you know, collaborating internally within the ecosystem and go beyond the ecosystem because uh for now I didn't met any builder, any company that can really solve that problem. Identity is so tricky.

So, so it's a human problem because we say we are building the commons and and everyone is joining and saying okay but my common or my network or my protocol.

Yeah. Yeah. So we need to go outside the eagle approach you know and do the common things identity leg it's really really really tricky we have countries with legislation without the legislation we have identity issues you know where we need identity but maybe we need just proof of human nothing else you know so um and these are big industries you know and big processes like only in UNDP health procurement is five billion alien you know and we don't know for example how to solve this problem because we don't have proper solution that can go across 152 countries where we are distributing drugs. So it's not like targeting one community, one country, one spot but how we can build something that could be fully scaled, secure and then interoperable in the future.

Another obstacle maybe on on boarding. I want to hear more on on boarding like the UIX and boarding because centralized system are have this thing that they are convenient. They are easy to use. If you build something beautiful which is a common on protocol that actually working but it's very hard to onboard people you're missing something don't maybe on this this track.

Yeah I would love to answer that and also respond to some of the points um about identity for example and um and how to talk to government.

Thank you. Um so yeah I mean none of this will work right if we cannot have a way to to actually let normal people use blockchain. Um I think as far as the point of the biggest blockers to decentralized technologies working um it's showing government's an actual value prop um that that people can use and a lot of folks have had to implement custom solutions like for example um Estonia you know people do have their cryptographic keys but they're not um they're not like standard wallets because there's no way Estonia could ask people hey install MetaMask uh you know and write down your seed phrase somewhere. Um, so making uh self-custodial uh crypto easier to use is definitely u one of the major unlocks. Um, and on that note, I think that talking to governments about crypto is a lot easier when you're not talking to them about crypto.

When you're talking to them about, you know, for example, some of the successful conversations we've had, you know, we've never had a government say, "We want to use crypto. We want to use decentralized technology. um how do we do it? We've had governments say we want to build a new identity system. Um and we said okay well we can help design that in a way that also has these properties um for when you want privacy or stuff like that.

And like okay cool give us the privacy too. Um so finding value props that are are relevant and don't even necessarily mention crypto um you just you know mention hey are these other properties that would be good to bake in. Um

technology leveraging public um public services not technology on itself. Yeah. So it's a branding problem also.

In addition of that and with our public view yesterday we we were discussing about that if you show the people if you show the minister of the secretary okay you have this problem. Okay, I have this solution and you could show the solution. This solution has a simple UX experience and then at the end you said well I forgot to to tell you something. Maybe all of this is happen by blockchain. It's your idea actually.

So this is happening on blockchain or maybe if you are talking to a band this is like a a a D5 protocol but don't worry about that. But I I mean I need I don't know if David is this uh recording or Okay. Well, I I need sometimes I need to talk with uh some people in politics that are a bit old. So if you need to speak to that old people that no this is blockchain and you have lots of people that are working but anybody is the own of the thing that are happen there but actually all of us are the own of this blockchain and this system it's so strange okay okay no no call Microsoft okay okay call Amazon no no nothing so so new nothing so uh revolutionary so focus on the problem. We have lots of problem in the public center.

We have lots of problem at the city level and the state level. Actually, the city of Osiris is a city, but it's an estate. I mean, it's a really big city is one of the 24 states of of the Argentina Republic. So, we have lot of lot of problem and I'm totally sure that blockchain technology could be in a big part a way to to solve this problem. So focus on the UX experience, focus on how to to sell to to the mayor and to sell to the secretary this solution and then at the end maybe you forgot to to tell that it's happening blockchain but that doesn't matter at the beginning.

Okay, that that made me think about one of the the experience in France. we had like this um sports event and everyone was trying to to to to take like fraud um to to enter the stadium without a ticket. So the ticketing problem is is also you have sport in Buenos, Argentina it's very popular. So to fight uh fraud uh on ticketing blockchain

we are not going to speak about football

now. So, so this is for example, it's far from um like um um basic human condition and sustainable goals and all of that, but I think it's something really important and when the technology could apply very well and not just for sports but all all entrance in any in any events. Uh okay, so we are lacking time. Uh last uh thing um um I wanted to talk about uh democracy because democracy usually is direct and it's something uh you you have to vote on the policy. You don't have to elect uh someone who who will be in charge to to make the policies after.

But the problem is the direct democracy uh it can scale well and the representative democracy is not really a democracy because it tends to corruption and to abuses. So we have liquid democracy. We will allow you to cast your vote directly. But you also Yeah. You can also um um give a temporary trust to someone uh who has skills and the more skills he has the more votes you will he will get and you can still remove the trust if you want and this is allowed uh by uh blockchain technology and I I I want to have uh your your your view on that or very quickly something that could trigger uh that could trigger the next domino.

Yes,

I have one minute

10 seconds. I mean it's not only connected to the democracy and governance models but I was thinking now during the conversation what we can do as a UN is you know showcase we can lead by example. So for example one of the easiest thing that we can do we can put our funding and spending on chain. Uh this will encourage also the governments and all of the stakeholders and donors to do UNDP you know to also be more transparent and maybe that can lead to something else. uh and then maybe that we can tackle also the government governance models you know what we are doing in terms of the decisions and how we are doing basically our work and job but that means that we need to fully rewrite the business model of the UN right uh you mentioned corruption so uh that would be a tricky thing but the good thing is maybe this is like a really positive message uh in UNDP and UN now we really have uh high level senior management ment green light that we should do start doing some kind of the experiments like this putting everything on chain so maybe in terms of the democracy you know and the better governance maybe we'll see next year even good results uh with this I I'll take the the answer as leading by example and I think with Bhutan uh country um putting public services on Ethereum will be something to monitor very huge in the next in the next year Um so they can lead by example.

Yeah, I think um that is is one effective way and another effective way might be you know something terrible happens and blockchain is the best solution right like I think um you governments are pretty wary to adopt new technologies but if there's a new threat uh they can move quickly like um let's say misinformation just becomes much worse and then blockchain or decentralized technology somehow provide a way to combat that. Um I don't know what this sort of imminent threat would be that blockchain can solve but uh I can imagine that making rapid progress.

10 seconds.

10 seconds.

Argentina next president on the blockchain. On the blockchain for sure that you're right now I I think just little so quickly the central line could help in transparency. So if you put transparency in this system, you are changing the big systems. That the main point you need to start with the first steps and maybe the first step will be thanks to blockchain.

Sure. Yeah. Look, crypto has been pushing the the vanguard of experimentation with regards to voting and governance and it will continue to do so. There's some great pieces of tech out there. Everyone on this panel I'm sure knows and everyone on the audience as well.

Carry on building, carry on experimenting. go and talk to a public official if you can find them and just do not let them out of your site until you've convinced them you're excited about this tech. They should be too and to to spend more time looking at it for real.

Okay, thank you everyone and uh see AFTER