Tag: blockchain

The AI Health Tech subsidiary of Google, Deep Mind Health, is creating a system, based on the blockchain technology, to show how the company uses all the medical data that passes through its processors. The “Verifiable Data Audit” will allow hospitals, doctors and even patients to track their personal information in real-time and see if it has been changed or compromised. Deep Mind is trying to improve medical diagnosis with machine learning. But for developing those tools requires large amounts of confidential data. The company was already criticized, after gaining access to patient records for 1.6 million people in three London hospitals. With its new project, Deep Mind will try to win back some of the lost trust.

“Data can be a powerful force for social progress, helping our most important institutions to improve how they serve their communities. As cities, hospitals and transport systems find new ways to understand what people need from them, they’re unearthing opportunities to change how they work today and identifying existing ideas for the future”, the company’s Co-founder Mustafa Suleyman wrote in a blog post.

It is working in partnership with London’s Royal Free Hospital to develop kidney monitoring software called Streams, but critics still feel that data sharing can give Google too much power over the National Health System. According to Suleyman, data can only benefit society if it has society’s trust and confidence and that is the reason why auditability becomes an increasingly important virtue. He explained that any entry will record the fact that a particular piece of data has been used and also the reason why, for example a blood test was checked against the NHS national algorithm to detect possible acute kidney injury. The new systems are related to the bitcoin cryptocurrency and just like blockchain, the ledger will be append-only, so once a record of data use is added, it can’t be erased later. The ledger will also make it possible for third parties to verify that nobody has tampered with any of the entries. Meanwhile, Google announced a series of new tools to assist users with data preparation and integration, which will upgrade the power and agility of Google Cloud for business clients. The first released product is the new private beta of Google Cloud Dataprep. The tool is visualizing the data preparation, detecting anomalies and using machine learning to suggest data transformation that can improve the quality of information. To learn more about the latest trends in FinTech & Blockchain, Health Tech and Big Data & Cloud visit Webit.Festival Europe in Sofia on April 25 and 26. During the event you can listen to top level speakers, such as the Vice President for Cloud and Mobile Technology Strategy at IBM Jonas Jacobi, the Global Head of FinTech at ING Group Benoit Legrand and the Consultant Surgeon and Co-founder of Virtual Medics and Medical Realities Prof. Shafi Ahmed.

The Blockchain technology has the potential to lower the bank infrastructure expenses by nearly 30% if it is implemented in the right way. This will help the banks worldwide to save between $8 and $12 billion per year. But there are still many questions to be answered before Blockchain becomes the go to tech in the world of big banking, and not only. The Executive Chairman of Alphabet Inc. Eric Schmidt described it as an incredible achievement of cryptography and said that in the modern era the ability to create something that no one can copy has a great value. One of the main reasons for success of the internet is the constant changing of the way we transfer data, audio and video. But until now, the global network never had a method for transfer of assets. Blockchain is the technological solution, that made this thing a reality. But still most people remain skeptical about the libertarian utopia of Bitcoin and the radical philosophy it presents. Of course Blockchain is much bigger than its most recognized cryptocurrency and has the power to be the main tool of the Big Data global infrastructure of the future. The main concern about Blockchain remains its safety. In December, Forbes reported that hackers have stolen millions of dollars in Bitcoin, using only phone numbers. Unfortunately, unlike the credit card transactions, the transfers of cryptocurrency is irreversible. Recently even the big industry players, like venture capitalists and entrepreneurs were hit by a wave of Bitcoin scams. Most of them are done by a phone number highjacking and changing the passwords of email accounts and bank profiles. This type of security weakness can be used against anyone who is using their phone for services as Google, PayPal, Dropbox, Facebook, Twitter and iCloud. In the period between 2017 and 2021 the expenses for cybersecurity worldwide will surpass $1 trillion, compared to only $81.6 billion for 2016. Meanwhile experts predict that in 2021 the total cost of cybercrime damages is gonna be around $6 trillion - double than the $3 trillion in 2013. With the expanding of IoE we can expect around 50 billion connected devices by the end of the decade, and all of them will need to be secured. By 2020 the volume of data in internet will be around 50 times bigger than it is today. The connected future of the world present many opportunities, but along with them will come the serious risk for our privacy and personal and financial safety. To learn more on the topic of cyber security and privacy, visit the Security & Privacy Summit within Webit.Festival Europe. Top level speakers from all over the world will share their experience during the event, which is held on 25 and 26 of April in Sofia. You can listen to the CEO of LSEC-Leaders in Security Ulrich Seldeslachts, the CEO of Intel Security for EMEA region Raj Samani and the Co-Founder of Distil Network Rami Essaid. During the Webit’s FinTech & Blockchain Summit speakers like the Executive VP for Global product strategy of Wirecard Christian Von Hammel-Boten and the venture capital investor and CEO of Novus Ordo Capital Liliana Reasor will share their views on topics, such as the future of payments and the ventures, driven by digitalization.

Despite fears of Brexit disruption, 2016 was really a roller coaster year for European startups. According to French investment advisors Clipperton, EU startups have collected $12 billion of investments for the year, which is comparable to the record levels of 2015 for investment on the continent. It is still too soon to measure the impact of Britain’s decision on the startup market, but the dynamics of the two-year process of leaving the EU will have to be monitored closely. Experts believe that this year there will be several main engines for startup development in the tech sector. During 2016, big corporations invested lots of money in better predictions with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. In 2017 we can expect a lot smaller companies to take part in the AI revolution. Part of this is due to the fact that many universities started classes to educate students about the possibilities of this exciting new tech. Gartner already identified AI and machine learning as one of the top 10 strategic tech trends, that expands the spectrum of implementations to physical devices, apps and services. With the development of AI there is a lot of room for growth for startups, that specialize in chatbots. Business will look for bots more often than ever to help reduce its spending on customer service. Chatbots will be hot in the years to come, just because there are great way for corporate optimization. More than 85 percent of customer interactions will not include a human being by 2020, and chatbots will be the No. 1 consumer application of AI during the next five years. Another generator of startups is the cybersecurity sector. Insiders say that after every hackaton in the developed world, a new cybersecurity startup pops up to address the problem. This field is full of opportunities for new companies to step in, and we all expect the number of threats online to continue to rise. According to a report by Frost and Sullivan the implementation of blockchain technology can put an end to cyber attack. Until now many thought that blockchain has only the potential to fuel innovation in FinTech sector. European startups are really on the rise with the help of many accelerators and events like Webit.Festival Europe. During this year’s Founders Games an international board and jury of investors and enterprise leaders are selecting semi finalists from over 1500 applications. Five of them will get to the finals and one will win a seed investment. Last year the award was €200 000, but this year the organizers hope it will reach €500 000. With over 93% startup failure overall rate, the selected Webit startups for the Founders Games’s semi-finals in the past 7 years have less than 30% failure rate. Being among the Webit's Founders Games startup list is a statement of the company's credibility, innovation and potential in front of enterprise and investors as well as a great marketing opportunity. Webit gives startups access to a community of over 100 000, including some of the most influential people on 5 continents. The festival consists of 12 parallel summits - a fact that gives the unique opportunity for targeted networking with some of the best in the industry.

Bitcoin has gone the way of every new technology – big players shame it at first, ridicule it, but soon new business, markets and even whole industries emerge in order to commercialize it. Now, according to many of the biggest names, like Bill Gates, Eric Smith and Al Gore have taken a stand for it. However, when we speak about Bitcoin we have to answer a question: what problems does it solve, and why is it so good? Researchers have tried for decades to find a way to make all the machines on a given network to agree on the state of something, but it wasn’t until 2009 when Bitcoin was introduced, that a practical solution was found. The concept of the blockchain was created. The blockchain is a public journal of every transaction made with Bitcoin, ever since it was found.

"This blockchain is shared between all the machines, so if someone tries to cheat and create fake Bitcoins, everyone on the network can actually see that they have no legitimate history. Using this technology, everyone can send pieces of digital property to one another, without the need of a centralized structure or an expensive middle man," said at CEE Digital Summit Lasse Birk Olesen - Chief Product Officer of Coinify.

Among the many problems that Bitcoin solves is reducing transaction fees and pretty much eliminating fraud. According to Golden Sax, card payment transactions cost around 125 billion euro to business every year. In addition to that another 80 billion euro is lost due to card fraud. The reason we have these huge numbers is that payment cards were invented in 1950s and never really changed much in terms of security. This technology was never designed for the Internet. On the other hand we have Bitcoin, which is designed specifically to exist in the era of Internet. There are more and more businesses that accept Bitcoin payments. One of the biggest advantages is the smaller cost of Bitcoin transactions – every transaction costs you 2 euro cents, no matter if you are sending 100 euros or 1 million euros. Bitcoin payments are also easier than card payments – instead of looking for your card and entering tons of numbers when trying to buy something, you just click a button, enter your password and you’re done. By accepting Bitcoin payments you can also get paid from any country in the world, because Bitcoin is global. For example, sending money from Uganda will mean losing around 9% of the money in every transaction. According to researches, 50% of the people don’t have a bank account, meaning they can’t do digital transactions and that their money is in danger. However, Bitcoin will enable these people to send and receive money internationally, and even apply for loans from other countries. Another great use of Bitcoin is crowdfunding. If you use a platform like Kickstarter, you pay around 8% of the raised money to the website, but in return you get a secure platform that guarantees the investors to get their money back if the project is not fully funded. However, you can do the same with Bitcoin, using self-enforcing contracts. A contract can be programmed to do a certain action under certain conditions. For example, if you get a given amount of money for a given time the money would be transferred, otherwise it would be given back to the investors. This is better than using Kickstarter, because it eliminates the middle man and it has much lesser fees. There aren’t many countries that regulate Bitcoin, but some of the ones that do are USA, Germany and Sweden. One factor that eases regulation is the fact that Bitcoin is far from anonymous. In the blockchain every transaction is linked to an account and a name, meaning that every transaction can be easily tracked back to the sender. Coinify has helped on several occasion for the arrests of criminals, using the blockchain. Even though Bitcoin is still volatile, this is a normal trend for any new currency or product and is one that will go away with time. We have seen the volatility of the currency go down and we can be sure it will settle down even further in the coming years. Wanna learn more about the bitcoin and the future of that currency, watch the archive of CEEDS'15 HERE.