BBW22 - Day 1 - For the CommonWealth: Leveraging Blockchain for Growth & Innovation

[Music] thank you Ian thank you we're waiting for one more of our panelists Sam we'll come up when he arrives but I just want to start out by thanking Ian and his colleagues at cubic for what you've done really to put together this this this Gathering thank so as Ian suggested my name is Pat Larkin I'm the director of The Innovation Institute at Mass Tech and I'm the deputy director of an organization called the mass technology collaborative I will moderate the panel and what I'm hoping to do in the very first instance is to allow each participant in introducing themselves to really spend some time telling us how they came to blockchain what what does it mean to them why are they here today and what are their Ambitions around blockchain and I think I'll begin by starting myself kind of model the approach The Innovation Institute at the mass technology collaborative is an economic estate Economic Development agency we concentrate our work around supporting growth in new and emerging industry clusters here in the Commonwealth we've got a number of tools and ways in which we do that starting with the convening power and authority of the state uh to project management targeted research and investment tools which we will talk about shortly I say with regard to blockchain I would about two and a half three years ago maybe the baker Polito Administration is the new secretary came in Secretary Mike Connelly turn to The Innovation Institute in Mass Tech and said what's next in Massachusetts help us think about where we should be focusing our energies to further grow our Tech and Innovation economy in Massachusetts so we conducted an emerging text study that really we downsized it to about seven different verticals that we thought offered some promise and really made a recommendation around five of them blockchain was one of them we were able to discern very often very early on in the process that blockchain had a tremendous research capability in this state that was organic living on its own had a lot of entrepreneurs and Venture money that was available to grow this cluster and it had some pretty key anchor institutions from mit's digital currency initiative to the work that's going on at algorand and uh encircle and so we said you need to look at blockchain we identified some of the constraints I mean blockchain is not what I would consider a traditional cluster initiative it's an enabling capability that cuts across different sectors and how you organize in align State support is a real challenge around blockchain and there are some gaps in the ecosystem at the time you know we didn't feel there was a well-organized sector there wasn't convening opportunities or places for incubate firms you know so there were some gaps so the baker Polito Administration accepted those recommendations along with a couple other sectors and identified inside their strategic plan Economic Development priority cluster blockchain and that's how we came to this space since that time I will say we've dabbled in the space we've got we've dealt with our our coven crisis like everyone else what we were able to do is to launch some leadership forums roundtables that we work with some of our leaders working with the Boston blockchain Association and others to kind of tee up the question what can the state do I think that our main theory was awareness was an important element to really supporting growth in this sector your average citizen doesn't know what blockchain is or know what it can mean to the economy so we actually commissioned an education campaign to help municipalities try to understand what blockchain could mean to them with an ambition to see if maybe that someone wanted to adopt it interestingly enough we learned in that process that the public sector and this is my experience elsewhere is is oftentimes the last adopter of new technologies they're not the first ones to take the risks the commercial Enterprises do that first we've seen a lot of that up here already and so uh we we we educated folks but we didn't have much uptake before the covet period but we were able to do a couple more things which we which we appreciate number one we hit that Gap around incubation we put a wonderful investment that we feel good about into cubic to see if we can't leverage blockchain in the first instance to support new applications in D5 and really create a place in a community like this that can be a keynote in in supporting growth in this sector and so that's where we come to the table today kind of excited about the opportunity look forward to engaging in the panels and getting a sense of where we can go and continuing the dialogue in a way in which we can do something material as a commonwealth uh and as a community to really make blockchain a Massachusetts symbol I think I think we have that capacity here in the state it's ours to lose and I would encourage everyone to Rally around that thing so I'm gonna intro invite each one of my our panelists here to tell a bit of their story I think that's as important an element of the program is the question and answers help us out to understand what it means to you and I'll let you go first because I know that you know you've probably shared some of your insights through the course of the day but this is your opportunity to just really tell us what you know how did you get involved and why is this important to you thanks Pat um so I had personally been familiar with distributed technology distributed Ledger technology I guess for you know a couple of years but hadn't really personally uh delved into it um so when we launched cubic in 2019 you know we set about supporting uh three parts of Technology uh Financial government and Civic we were looking to support entrepreneurs building businesses around those verticals um it wasn't until I realized there was an opportunity to support the blockchain ecosystem before I met Pat and Massachusetts technology collaborative so you know not really a plug this is a true story so um in January of 2020 uh the organization had launched an education series for municipal elected leaders uh to try to give them ideas and understanding of what potential blockchain deployments could look like within cities and towns so it sort of bled into my my public hat and um you know we we said oh this is this is really interesting in what it could do for a potential city um in terms of I don't know licensing Opera opportunities trying to you know increase or better serve residents in any way through different operational measures through adoption of blockchain technology and we started thinking a little bit further into other Concepts but through that course alone I had the chance to get to know more parts of the ecosystem so started participating in a blockchain leadership development Workforce Development Group and got to know the local industry players and local Capital providers some of the founders in the area and we realized that there was in fact an opportunity to support the ecosystem and so um it was through 2020 into 2021 that we started banging the drum and looking at what we're trying to do we're trying to spread entrepreneurship and Innovation south of Boston specifically from Quincy it's a global effort that's headquartered here we're just trying to redirect some energy and so you know we started saying we're going to build a globally recognized technology and development Hub and we started searching for partners which At First Bite at the Apple we were able to raise a little bit of money from Castle on Ventures and from algorand and from Nutter to host a a blockchain focused startup competition it was heavily marketed we ended up uh having about 70 applicants from around the world which is really cool to meet a whole bunch of Founders from around the world and hear what they're up to we called that down to seven participants we had a final pitch night in May of 2021 and Nick Carter is going to be here tomorrow with a judge Sean Ford from algorand was a judge as well as Josh French who's a partner at Nutter and uh it was really on the back end of that that just through that sort of pathway of relationship development Al Grant had suggested that we could explore ecosystem development helping to create and support companies that would operate on their protocol and uh I you know I just was catching up with Pat and I said hey Pat you know we kind of have this opportunity he said let me apply for this grant so we spent the next year arranging what became a first of a Kind public-private partnership to support uh really the creation of a conceptual r d and commercialization hub to develop blockchain Concepts from scratch invest in them and then support them through our cubic ecosystem so it's been um you know we followed a thread of you know sort of opportunistically but it's led to this whole uh really great concept that is going to set the groundwork for uh for years to come for us excellent Ian thank you yeah and I have to tell you in in our business we work with multiple clusters from fintech to robotics to Quantum and one of the things that we look for when we engage in an ecosystem is what I call the real champions of an initiative because the state is not the agent that's going to make the the the difference at the end of the day it's the energy that migrates around it and I think we uh we're very fortunate to have Ian and John and his team really stepping up in in playing their role and we're also grateful for the megaphone and the support the boss and blockchain Association is doing to really create educate and create exposure uh to what needs to be done in the Commonwealth and so now as I turn to our next two guests I have to tell you that uh our work collectively is nowhere is it not does it not resonate with our public sector policy leaders who fundamentally understand in a really geared toward a Solutions approach from a policy point of view to help everyone achieve their Ambitions uh on the landscape so I'd like to start out with chairman Josh Cutler who is the co-chair of the black house blockchain Association and chairman of the education and Workforce Committee in the house Josh how did it great how did it come to you right good afternoon everybody it's a pleasure to be here again I'm Josh Cutler I'm a I'm a South Shore guy so I appreciate that we're here in Quincy I have the pleasure of representing uh the sixth Plymouth District including part of the towns of Marshfield Duxbury Pembroke Canton and Halifax and it's uh Pat Ted I'm the co-chair of the labor and Workforce Development Committee and also have the privilege of working with Kate here as uh co-chair of the house blockchain technology caucus since we're here in Quincy I'd be remiss not to thank and acknowledge our great colleagues in the house representative Bruce Ayers representative tacky Chan who represent part of Quincy and work with Ian in his other hat um who does such a good job and of course uh speaker Mariano who is the leader of the house and it's a tremendous public servant and someone I really look up to and respect so really grateful to them and our Quincy team whom we work so closely with uh as well we're really grateful for the baker pollute Administration and Mass Tech and Pat and everyone and his team who's been so generous with time and and and expertise to help us in our I'll I'll admit myself Kate is a little more knowledgeable as a newbie learning uh here I've been been very generous with this time and and uh and talents so um just briefly Pat you know so I think I think um Ronald Reagan said it well we're here from the government and we're here to help and uh I said as a joke but you know we're trying to uh change attitudes and perceptions a little bit and uh we realize that the private sector is you know much further ahead in uh this cutting technology as it is oftentimes with other uh you know new uh new sectors and so we want to make sure you know as policy makers we're making smart decisions about uh about blockchain and that we're not you know kind of rushing the judgment and making ill-advised decisions and so that's you know something Kate and I have been working on uh through creating our caucus was sort of our first step Kate has a good piece of legislation that she's been championing that we're working on uh myself as chair of the labor and Workforce Development Committee really try to look at this through a Workforce lens knowing that all of you great folks here are doing such creative things you're going to need to hire people you're going to need if you're successful you're going to grow and you're going to need to attract new Talent we want to make sure that here in Massachusetts we have that pipeline of the skilled workers to fill those growing jobs that we expect and hope will be year so that's my role I'm really excited to be here looking forward to kind of sharing some of that but also hearing from all of you we're looking to really learn and it's to answer your question Pat all my good ideas come from my constituents as people literally I had a constituent from Duxbury who reached out to me to talk about Bitcoin back in 2014 or 15 and that was what put it on my radar screen and uh like anything else hearing from our constituents and folks who reach out is what drives us as policy maker so I'm delighted to be here letting to have a conversation here and hope this is the start of many good conversations thank you Josh Josh let me just start by welcoming Sam Sam Dash Sam it was not your fault we started early there was a lot there was a lag here and we've just begun just going through a little background on why what where how we can't come to blockchain is our interest in life and uh uh we think it's a good use of our time to set the table around the discussion and the Q a that we will have so now I'd like to introduce representative Kate Lipper garabedian who is the co-chair of the house caucus and and one who's really uh like a representative Cutler has devoted a tremendous amount of time looking at some of the things that the that the legislature can do to see if they can enhance opportunities for blockchain so okay thanks Pat and nice to see everybody uh Caitlyn for garibi and I'm the state representative for the 32nd Middlesex District which is Melrose Wakefield Malden I'm the state's first covid rap I was sworn in in March 2020 about a week after the state of emergency was declared so I'm pretty new in this roll I come from a background as a seventh grade public school teacher in Atlanta then went to law school and practice in education law and policy for more than a decade including at the Executive Office of Education here in Massachusetts so when it came time to start thinking about the bills that I would file in this current legislative session my first full session I was sort of listening to the news and picking up on this thing called blockchain my background is not in disruptive innovation technology so I thought well what are other states doing and sure enough a number had moved more quickly than Massachusetts in setting up study commissions and actually substantively editing and updating their statutory Frameworks to invite in this industry and support the ecosystem so somebody who doesn't come from this space I thought well I like this approach of a commission something that we stand up to teach us to inform legislators and policy makers about what are the appropriate ways in which to Foster support for a driver of economic growth of Workforce Development in our state so I filed a bill in January of 2021 that would create that type of commission with a cross sector approach people from the industry people from the legislator legislature executive branch officials to meet quarterly and prepare a report for folks like Josh and me to consider as we think about how we want to fund initiatives like math collaborative and the grant making that it can provide as well as any updates that we need within our own framework for the types of services that we're providing at a government level or things that we want to be mindful of in terms of ensuring there's regulatory consistency and a sense of understanding of what type of playing field we have here in Massachusetts particularly as Congress continues to sort of work its way through this we sometimes see State legislatures although we move slowly move a little bit more quickly than maybe the federal government can do and you know it was really resonated with me the importance of a caucus which was Josh you know Josh came to me and said would you be interested in a house blockchain technology caucus we can start meeting monthly and inviting in speakers we've had NASA collaborative come in Boston blockchain Association algorithm the Boston fed MIT so across you know range of people which has been really great and really necessary um there are 160 reps there are 40 Senators I'm probably about the median age and when I thought to file this bill I started asking some of my colleagues have you ever heard of blockchain Technology including some younger than I am and 201 everyone said no then when I showed up at the Melrose middle school for a government day with the Civics teachers and started talking through some of my bills that I had filed and asking the kids if they had heard anything about data privacy and you know a number of Rosa hints how about cryptocurrency and blockchain Technology everyone raised their hands so you know I'm always thinking about what is the economy we're preparing our students for what types of jobs are going to be really meaningful to them ways in which they can take their passion and apply it in ways that to the point of this conversation are good for the Commonwealth and so it's been a pleasure to get to learn more about this through a lot of conversations with people here in this room and elsewhere and glad to continue to deepen my knowledge of it as we prepare for our next legislative session when I anticipate that the caucus might put forward some bills as well to really continue to drive in this area excellent thank you Kate and Sam Nathan Vice chair of the Boston blockchain Association we had a little prep call very brief last night and I can tell you that Sam's thought hard about economies and how to have an impact leveraging this technology so Sam for now tell us tell us how you got involved in blockchain in in in in and why it's important to you yeah so um my background in technology professionally was in distributed systems and decentralized data sets and that lent itself towards kind of two primary areas of of research and and business uh being artificial intelligence and blockchain so I initially went into the financial markets world uh developing AI products for uh High Finance firms and at the same time I was experimenting with blockchain very kind of early on as a side sort of thing because it was a continuation of systems that I was already familiar with that pre-exist blockchain distributed systems distributed databases consensus algorithms Etc but blockchain added this one extra element that was relevant to my uh the area of my career at the Time Finance which was transactionality I mean you there was a different sense in the the technical space of what transactionality means when you're dealing with systems talking to each other yeah but there really wasn't this kind of financial aspect of transactionality is what you would consider to be information related to each other in a database or in in some sort of data set yeah so this kind of changed the dynamic of what you could build with these kind of network systems and that fascinated me um so I read satoshi's white paper in late 20th 2011 I've been a researcher in this space for over 10 years my primary focus has been on Commercial and uh financial markets infrastructure and on the more personal side it's been around both Civic engagement and digital identity so personal information data privacy that sort of stuff um so I've worked with not just the technology as sort of a systems architect but I've got extensive experience I initially went into technology through the user experience side of things so I did business process analysis business logic analysis trying to figure out how information and decision is made with technology before I started doing deep dives into the actual computer science side of things so as a result a lot of my research both with academic institutions and with startups has been around the application of the technology when it is relevant to apply when there's not really to apply the relative maturity of both Industries who adopt as well as the technology to be adopted yeah so my hope for the future uh in in Massachusetts and and broader is that we can kind of carve a way forward that not just economic development in the sense of private Enterprises using blockchain to therefore benefit the citizens I really want to see a emerging of information and services uh in cooperation between government services and programs and Private Industry services and programs at a digital level so I see blockchain as this fourth revolution of did the sort of digitization of business and I really think that the way that this is sort of democratizing a lot of secure Technologies and interact multi-party interaction I think was something that was mentioned on the wall era today there is now an opportunity for government to start having open source code open source transparent processes for internal decision making around applications you know form filings all the bureaucracy that people find opaque about government can now be not only made transparent but self-hostable yeah there isn't going to be an over Reliance on these proprietary private systems yeah excellent Sam thank you and I have to tell you having been an economic development now for more years than I care to admit going into our sixth Administration uh many times I find building on your point that the technology is almost the easy part it's it's it's changing cultures changing patterns that is a real Challenge and the notion of Open Source I think has real resonance in the public sector I know we've worked very closely with Boston University both on their open Cloud initiative that we put a million dollars in about 10 years ago uh we're working with them on a technology called multi-party computation Technologies so that folks can mine information without taking custody of data sets and not compromising any confidentiality in it and get insights that inform your Enterprise that has a blockchain application to it it's in related cryptography and and so as we think about our work and how we organize you know this is not a traditional cluster initiative this blockchain's embedded in all these different uses and applications uh and I do we do think that it's it says transformational as the internet was 20 years ago and so with that I just want to start with Ian with the question just from an economic global economic point of view what it means to economies what it means to our society going forward and what are your thoughts what can we anticipate in the way of blockchain changing changing our world yeah from from Economic Development and Industrial I guess growth perspective we're excited to prove the model uh because we'll be identifying Founders uh you know who come to us with Concepts that we can help uh to One enable uh the conceptualization research and development process that will guide towards a business plan development and then commercialization or sort of seed funding so you know there's certain the model for us has been we've proven out the incubator we've been able to you know identify Founders work with them help them grow identify Capital sources for them and now we're going to apply that lens to this blockchain opportunity um you know we look at it a number of ways and I think it's it's going to continue to gel but you know we're doing this in Queens because I live here I'm on the city council here I've got sort of these two hats and I see an opportunity to give a place like Quincy a new industrial shine that it hasn't had in a number of years you know we see tons of stuff going on in other parts of the Greater Boston area but with the economic development that has taken place in the form of real estate here it needs a compliment which is job creation to support that growth right you need people to live work and play in these areas in order to support that economic activity so we look at it pretty holistically and then we also look at it from uh you know partnership engagement perspective where you know we have a great relationship with the city and you know we want to explore deploying blockchain technology in the city to see how it works to see how can how it can operate more effectively and efficiently for the government and for the people um and but you know even in what Sam is just think I'm thinking about uh it takes a champion as Pat outlined before to make these things happen because not always are the incentives uh apparent or prevalent especially in government to enable those emerging Technologies to implement better Solutions so uh you know while we are currently in this very unique place where we have a good relationship with the city you know we see John talked about earlier uh opportunities to promote Technical and non-technical curriculum at places like community colleges especially Quincy College where it can give access to uh education that uh people who you know don't go to MIT or any of these traditional Leading Edge research institutions can have access and come out with high-paying jobs without the debt burden right and then also working with the small medium-sized business Community because we want to prove that blockchain has real world use cases for regular people because right now outside of the you know most of the people are sitting in this room it's pretty esoteric people don't understand it um you know just like examples were made earlier people don't understand how the internet really works or how Mastercard or VISA processes works but we want to provide a value proposition for small and medium Enterprises to either provide a better service for their customers maybe help them with uh better uh you know Financial processing that reduces their cost burden in the normal course of business but real world problems that touch real people that they can understand what's going on so you know I started off by saying that this is uh something that we would like to prove out but you know the sort of model that we're at you know operating under for this first project this research and Innovation project is that you know it leads to immediate full-time job creation and then with the creation of companies it leads to sort of next uh order uh job creation and then economic growth on top of it thank you right here in Quincy thank you representative Cutler you guys are doing yeoman's work on the talent side critical element to building any kind of an ecosystem tell us what you're seeing how you're approaching that what what do you think the opportunities are around uh Workforce in trying to get uh the talent we need it's a very timely question Pat because actually this morning and some of you participated our committee had a hearing on a bill that Kate and I worked on together to create to to work on the the workforce issues that were talked about creating a trust fund uh to be administered by a commonwealth Corporation directing some of our state Partners to um to look at the blockchain Technology field and making sure we're aligning our you know our certifications our curriculum incentives in you know the same kind of high demand jobs that we anticipate and know we're going to be there so um creating opportunities you know Enterprise funds so that when there's funding available we can put that towards the great Folks at Mass Tech to then you know get out to the folks uh like yourselves that can really make it can power that and make it work so that's just one lens I think you know from a stepping back point of view and Kate can probably speak to this better but I think our first step is like first Do no harm we want to make sure you know state government is is welcoming and I know that that's not always been the feeling I mean we want to make sure we're kind of changing that Dynamic and letting people like yourselves and everyone know that we you know we really welcome and embrace this and want Massachusetts to continue to leverage its natural assets that we have we have really smart people we have great institutions we have the high-tech sector and so we want to make sure you know we're encouraging that so that's sort of the number one uh I think goal that we have also it's about you know educating our colleagues and making sure people kind of understand what this is about you know we're I'm new to this we're all new to this a little bit on especially in the state house I mean when I first started we didn't have Wi-Fi so we are a little slow to sometimes adaptive technology I didn't know that yes well yeah yikes yikes exactly is it the Great Hall no I have to bring in a hot spot and that's the only way I could do it um but no so things are changing that's the good news and um you know and delighted to have new colleagues like like Kate who bring a lot of energy and and uh really expertise in this so you know I think that's the kind of our goal um I would just say we also are looking and we're open to ideas we want to come up with sort of a demonstration project a pilot initiative that we could see involving the the private excuse me the public sector to kind of show like you know proof of proof of work to use an analogy um that we could come up with you know on a small scale to to kind of demonstrate how blockchain technology could be you know useful I think that's a good government so we'd love to hear some ideas we're kind of in the drafting stage now that's a great conversation for us to follow up on how to demonstrate something replica Caribbean um don't listen what are you seeing both on the talent side the regulatory side you know you've really took a scan of the landscape here what what are our challenges well just to build on what um chair Cutler was saying I think it's both we're looking for suggestions from Partners around um pilot programs which is exactly what the bill that we filed would do it would enable a two-year pilot program operated out of the executive office of Labor and Workforce Development to support programming at community colleges VOC Tech schools Career Centers to support uh professionals who are really interested in Skilling up in this field uh and being prepared to support a larger ecosystem and and you know we do have a lot of that natural resource those natural resources including in our financial services industry I think the other thing that I'm interested in that I've been exploring both with colleagues here in Massachusetts and then in other states that have legislated in this space is whether there are any barriers to entry that are really problem Matic from our statutes I haven't heard that in any conversation but that's something I'm always curious to know more about I'm just just reading an article this week that was talking about how Congress is working on you know some some legislation likely won't happen this session so I'm sure they'll turn attention to it again when they reconstitute but that states meanwhile are sort of moving more aggressively around licensing for example stable coin companies and certain requirements that you know they need to put in place to be able to operate in the state you know I don't know what the field feels like about that I think regulatory certainty is sort of important and I you know we don't want to race to the bottom we want to sort of you know a race to the top to demonstrate you know who is really valuable and creating value in our communities as well um so it's sort of a combination of where can we demonstrate promise and the real value here are there impediments that are preventing Massachusetts and Boston and Quincy from really being known as a an international leader in this space and are there problematic things that we need to address at a state level as well excellent Sam you shared some thoughts yesterday on that very topic you know what what is this what are some of the constraints that you see in the ecosystem in ways in which you think about uh the path forward for the adoption of blockchain Technologies so I actually like to address that by going through some of the points that were made here first off you talked about secure multi-party computation and that's related to a piece of technology that's part of kind of a lot of the cryptographic side of innovation that's been happening in the blockchain space um and called zero knowledge proofs and and one thing that that I think is key for people to take away is that blockchain uh as a term for the industry is actually a whole host of different technologies that have different properties and different utility that you can compose to have different functionality in different systems right it's it's really people have been using it in a bundled term but it doesn't necessarily mean that yeah and and in the same way um when you're talking about Skilling up people in an industry um transactionality is interesting and it did start hold Bitcoin and the whole functional Revolution but a lot of the emerging cryptography that's come from this space has applications far beyond Financial so the actual just fintech which is primarily everyone here who deals with blockchain is probably seeing you know cryptocurrency and nfts and digital assets and and things that are supposed to be quote value have valuable or tokenized value associated with them Financial applications that's probably going to be 10 percent maybe twenty percent of what blockchain will actually be doing in 20 years time and eventually when we get to that point hopefully we'll be dealing with a situation where in the same way that people right now don't talk about um you know are you is your industry or your your product or your company tcpip ready do you have a domain name like those are things that are not really critical talking about blockchain as part of your product stack your technology stack is going to be just as kind of in the background rather than the Forefront but we are in such a nascent space right now both on the technology side and the adoption side that the only thing that we're really dealing with in terms of Regulation is just the financial services use cases right so if we're just tackling those there is a that's a such a highly regulated space there's a lot of friction with this kind of disrupt and Innovative mentality that's that's emerged from not just the Silicon Valley philosophy but a lot of this sort of uh libertarian crypto anarchists rub against the grain uh philosophy that is this blockchain Innovation ecosystem and so they're kind of at odds with each other and not really willing to learn enough of the language or terminology or connotative differences between definitions yeah uh between each other to find some sort of Middle Ground yeah um you know regulation is really all about process and auditability and can we can The Regulators have transparency into these systems as they are right now and blockchain is changing the methodology of how these processes might be done internally or between participants in a way that changes the transparency Dynamic sometimes it makes it irrelevant that it's non-transmittent sometimes it makes it transparent to a degree that the technology isn't supportive of privacy considerations that the industry wants or The Regulators want so there really needs to be a much more of an open dialogue yeah around instead of mandating at a regulatory level processes you are figuring out ways to test whether or not these new methods and new processes that blockchain is producing or an analog or or able to produce the same outcome and follow the same intention that the regulatory rules no question I I would I would I would proffer that the way to move the needle on that is really through pilot projects it's going to be very hard for you for us to change the overarching yeah structure that runs Commerce runs government runs every just exactly what you're talking about but if if you can take and demonstrate this this transformation we're actually trying to start one up right now in the area of digital health to see if there we can leverage these Technologies to access data inside the Health Care system to do research on new discovery and new drugs and to do it in a way in which the Legacy ways in which the healthcare industry looks at at the technology it's turned upside down because the Technologies themselves redefine the problem so uh I think that's the way to go well yeah real quick what this sounds like is um government venture capital almost yeah yeah so you're talking about pilot projects that's exactly right so our friends in the legislator here are going to have to help us because I think some of the ways in which uh the grant funds or whatever would be seen as the pilot projects for Venture funding from the government need to be spent might be a little you know cumbersome in the way that could provide the same uh level of results or return that I guess the private sector would similarly support that's the kind of feedback that we really value um because you know we want to know if this funding is getting to need so absolutely we'd love to hear it you develop a whole different pipeline of uh of interest and enthusiasm to change operations in government and promote economic activity if there was more or less stringent methods for spending that Capital that was deployed by government and I understand the risk uh that's at place which financial investors do on a regular basis but it would really be changing a dynamic and probably set an Innovative tone uh you know around the country it would it would represent what the state is Right Innovation I'm gonna we're we're at time I'm gonna wrap up with a rapid one question everyone think of you can come up with an answer uh let's set aside the financial world if you were to recommend one application for blockchain that would that is doable achievable in the near term that you think would be a good application to consider In This Moment In Time Sam what would yours be one sentence one Civic oriented I'll give one I'd call it like smart contracts you know what what are the applications that you think can get some Traction in the ecosystem within our lifetimes around uh leveraging blockchain we're seeing it happen and in financial sector what's the next one so I think the number one problem for finding like low flow hanging fruit applications that's exactly right is um there's this connection between the physical world and the digital digital world the blockchain world and how you're connecting those things so it's just a as an example uh voting it's like it's really good one good good one to to an idea for for you to do blockchain-based voting but in order to do that you need to have digital identity yeah which itself is its own logistical problem that maybe blockchain doesn't particularly solve yeah so I would just couch any type of low-hanging fruit that you're really considering what information is being pulled into the chain and how blockchain related processes Etc are then able to monitor results or actions taken yeah that are based on the information outside of the chain got it so blockchain is an application with all the apparatus around took the voting one from I think that one's a little long stream okay can you think of one that would be sooner I don't really I don't know if this is one thing that pops into my head is just um you know document authentication particularly around like credentialing and um diplomas and just coming from my background and being executive office education one bill that I worked on and that space that the legislature really LED on at the time as well was around small colleges that were closing separately um and having each other doors and then the state becomes responsible for all the records and if someone decades later says I need a copy of my transcript or I mean you know that's such a conundrum possibly blockchain for that right registry oh so mine is going to sound like a copy K but it's a little different since you're here in the city of presidents and I'm sort of an amateur historian myself uh historical records if you're ever doing any historical research I don't know how profit making this would be but it would be benevolent certainly to use blockchain technology to be able to track all you know all the letters that we have come off uh digital Commonwealth has that does a great job using that combine those two I think would be a great great application yeah and so I got one for public and one for private one for public would be d54 it's a bond market I think that'd be interesting yeah for people to participate in funding uh local and state infrastructure and other types of projects uh and then the other one would be defect or small businesses excellent mine would be uh Supply Chain management being able to track and support our supply chains I just want to check I thank the panel this is a tremendous group so thank you appreciate it thank you Josh foreign [Music]