The Evolution
Contrary to my Grandmother's assertions I firmly believe we the Gen X and younger are living in the most interesting times of human evolution, as cliché as that may sound. As a Generation X baby I have really marvelled and been embedded in the advancement of technology in the last 40 plus years. From saving command line data on a 5.25 inch floppy disks, to my first Excite Email account, Hi5 Social media, Google, Nokia 3310 to making purchases from China on my touch screen smart phones and everything else in between.
Purpose drives advancement and the current tech offers the foundations on which future tech is being created at an alarmingly fast rate for that. Never in any other time in the history of humankind has the world been this interconnected. This in itself is the largest contributor to the exponential growth and development of new ideas and novel technologies. Every so often however there is some sort of seismic shift in life as we know it, industrialisation enabled Henry Ford to build the assembly line, the internet literally allowed for global connectivity and now I feel the Blockchain is adding a very significant page in the history books of human advancement. I for one is super excited to be in the thick of things at this stage of the world transforming as we know it.
Africa - The Greenfield
Africa, the enigma, the quandary, the paradox but perhaps most importantly…. The Opportunity. Africa maybe plagued with a whole lot of deficiencies right now but therein lies the greatest of opportunities. The blockchain and its distributed ledger provides perhaps the best form of accountability for doing any form of transactions in the one place where accountability especially for public funds has been the most challenging. Just like Africa leapfrogged the conventional telephones and jumped straight to the mobile phones the Blockchain stands to trump accountability and transparency opportunities that have been implemented and worked well in other parts of the world. Blockchains ability to increase secure data exchanges makes it the most ideal modus operandi in all forms of transactions in Africa. My biggest gripe has to be government departments. There is such a defragmented and delayed exchange of information which is constantly impacting citizen services. If the data is interlinked between departments with blockchains this would allow data to be released in real time as both the departments and the citizens consent to sharing the data. This would facilitate the quick processing of government related documentation like Birth Certificates and would also negate the notarization of government certified documents as we now know them.
The Blockchain Solution
Distributedly Linked (DLinked) is a concept in motion looking at streamlining the process of generating immutable documentation from the government departments. Anything from land title deeds to national IDs. The distributed ledger technology of the blockchain and the strength of the asymmetric cryptography will give confidence of an irrefutable record created in a public ledger. The level of credibility that will be associated with these documentation will reduce the level of anxiety that comes with dealing with sensitive information and the threats of data being compromised. DLinked’s idea is to have legacy documentation “De-Linked” from the old system and have it “Distributedly Linked” to the automatically notarised ledger being the blockchain.