I interviewed the CEO of Eden, Ahn Myong Ho, to let my readers learn more about him and the blockchain project.
Eden (earlier known as Edenchain) is a Blockchain Platform Technology for Eden's Implementation of Programmable Economy. Eden is cost efficiently, safe, and very fast. It is targeting the Korean market with their ICO platform and marketing services.
If you want to participate in the ICO you can use this link to register: http://edenchain.io/
1. Let's start with an introduction of yourself. What is your position in Eden and what are your tasks?
Hi, my name is Ahn Myong Ho, the founder and CEO of Eden Partners. As the CEO I oversee the entirety of the Eden development, primarily focusing on the technical and business side. Sometimes I feel I'm doing too many things as I'm also responsible for the Eden vision, business and technology strategy, recruitment, and development. While there are individual department heads, I am deeply involved in every aspect of the company. I'm so overwhelmed by the amount of work that I barely have any time to rest, hopefully this craziness won't last over a year :)
2. Tell me more about yourself. What other positions have you had before you got this job? And what interests do you have?
I am a very curious person by nature. I am fascinated by new technology, especially when I believe that the new technology will bring upon revolutionary changes. Before there was the cloud, machine learning, now it is blockchain.
I am grateful to have have survived the drastically changing technical landscape. Mostly thanks to my ability to learn new technologies in a relatively short period of time.
I have worked in technology for a long time. Prior, I worked on a game venture Ellicion and a tech company called Cyber Renaissance. I came back to Korea and founded cloud and machine learning company. While I have various tech experience, I've only been involved at a C-Level management perspective. Thankfully, being self-directed, I am very accustomed to making and working on my own projects, rather than having tasks handed down to me.
Right now my mind is completely preoccupied by two things. One is Eden and the other is stress. One of my biggest concerns is to create an Eden and link it to an actual service thereby proving the possibilities of blockchain technology to everyone. The blockchain is a disruptive innovation and it is an unique technology that can bring about social change similar to the Internet. I want to show everyone the true value of blockchain.
3. How will your knowledge and experience make an impact on this project?
My prior experiences in the tech industry have collectively helped me build Eden: Programmable Economy Platform. The cloud technology experience has been a huge help in the organization and operation of Eden. I constantly ponder about questions such as: Which architectures do you need to make a system that is safe, scalable, and how to obtain High Availability?
I find that experience in Big data and cloud data experience, which is the cornerstone of Eden, are all invaluable in developing Eden.
So far, experience in machine learning has not helped much in this project, but we expect machine learning to become more valuable once Eden accumulates more data and is applied across a wide variety of services.
I add a bibliography about the main projects in the footer notes.
4. How did you come up with the idea Eden represents?
After reading Bitcoin and Ethereum technical documentation, I came up with Eden. Bitcoin and Etherium are great projects that show many people the massive untapped potential of blockchain. However, these technologies have problems such as Legacy, Scalability, and Security flaws that have tagged along from previous technologies. In their current state Bitcoin and Ethereum are not enough to be applied to actual services.
Initially, I researched on how to solve the Scalability issues utilizing existing technology stacks. I also looked into solving the Security issue via existing blockchain technology. But they were all unsatisfactory. I decided to focus Eden, rather than waiting for a new blockbuster technology to be applied to real service. I underestimated how monumental of task Eden will be.
5. Which part or the world will you be focusing on in the beginning when launching the Eden project, and how will you attract users to use it?
The most important part for Eden is to focus on areas with immediate real world applications and demonstrate the true value of the blockchain technology. In order for the blockchain industry to truly flourish, there needs to be additional development in IoT, Supply Chain, and related legislation. On the contrary, it is relatively easy to apply blockchain technology in the media and ecommerce industry.
As Eden is a platform, it is very important to cooperate with industries rather than ordinary consumers. In the future, users will come directly from these partnered industries. We are developing two projects to attract more industry partners.
The first project is HelloEden. HelloEden is an ICO platform that provides all the necessary services to business owners who want to launch an ICO. Although not enforced, HelloEden also actively encourages users to use host their ICO on the the Eden Platform. 😃
The second project is to secure a business partner with a extensive network. Talking with business partners within Korea reveals that ICOs and blockchain technology have a close knit relationship. We aim to procure more partner industries through their existing network.
6. What are potential blockchain use cases for the enterprise world as you see it?
At this point it is still unclear which blockchain project will become a blockbuster business that can be applied to the enterprise. The blockchain community still has a long way to go. However, there are few clear cut examples on where not to use blockchain.
The first example is not to apply blockchain on existing business. Blockchain is not a one-stop-fix solution. For most business, it doesn't make sense to implement blockchain because of variants such as the speed, cost, and governance required to replace existing with blockchain-based systems.
The second example is to apply blockchain on industries that were hindered due to the lack of blockchain benefits. An example would be a new type of business model where different organizations share data such as supply chains and bypass superfluous middle man.
7. Who are your main competitors in the blockchain industry?
While the expression "direct" competitor does not represent Eden that well, but if we had to choose one it would be Ethereum or EOS. Ethereum and EOS are both platform-oriented, therefore have various industry level applications. It's better to say "potential" competitors, as they both strive for the same goal as Eden. Both are great technologies, but Eden tries to differentiate itself with Scalability, Security and Customizable Transactions.
8. What are your main challenges right now?
The biggest challenge as of now is fatigue. All my team members, including myself, suffer from being overworked and continuous stress.
My biggest challenge now is to add more developers to accelerate the development of Eden. It is not easy to find blockchain engineers. Even if we find blockchain engineers, it takes time to adapt to Eden.
I am actively using my personal network and head hunters to expand the development team.
9. Where do you see the blockchain industry in two years from now compared to the current level of adoption?
I recently contributed articles to technical magazines. I predict that the issue of scalability will be resolved within 2 years and new real-world business applications will finally come into fruition. I predict that a new economy based on the blockchain will create new content and ecommerce business that in which participants share the profits, instead of giving in to monopolizing Middle Men. This new economy will create a symbiotic economy that grows with the community instead of a predatory economy that monopolizes profits.
10. Other ICO's have experienced challenges like not reaching their soft cap, overwhelming growth in short time due to popular YouTubers mentioning it, scam attempts etc. How are you preparing for it?
As Eden is the first ICO I've personally led, there were a lot of areas we could have done better. Moreover, the sudden popularity that Eden attracted also didn't help, as the Eden team was not ready to be dragged into the world stage yet. Thankfully, we have met a good partner that is helping is be more professional. Despite being in Super Early Stage, I am grateful to the community and their interest.
11. Something else you want to add?
Eden believes in the power of the community. It was quite a thrilling experience to have people all over the world show their interest towards the Eden project. I feel great pride whenever I see the Eden community in action, such as when they review the website and critique the technical white paper. I am eager to finish developing Eden and show Eden to our community and the world. I am grateful to be involved in this blockchain revolution and truly believe that blockchain can change the world for the better.
Thanks to Ahn Myong Ho for this great interview! If you want to read more about the project or participate in the ICO, follow the links below.
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