Ian Khan is a futurist who expects that blockchain, synthetic intelligence and the Web of Issues will merge collectively to create a wholly new sort of world.
He’s the inventor of the Future Readiness Rating, the writer of eight books and the chairperson of the Cash 20/20 fintech convention.
His first movie, Blockchain Metropolis, is far from an underground manufacturing. The 42-minute movie, which is out there on Youtube and Amazon Prime, is a businessy, optimistic and considerably sanitized tackle the business. It focuses decisively on piercing the nebulous idea of “blockchain know-how” whereas largely dodging the typically controversial phenomenon of cryptocurrency, selling blockchain as an environment friendly monitoring mechanism furthering the pursuits of “the institution.”
Khan’s positioning within the business is due to this fact very a lot in distinction to the cypherpunk motion — the previous guard of the blockchain revolution.
These authentic torchbearers of the business weren’t desirous to see the know-how used to enhance governance methods however to avoid and successfully overthrow them by turning their outdated methods and processes towards them. Such an imagined technological overthrow is, nonetheless, unlikely to succeed with the likes of Khan advising governments on tips on how to forestall disruption by means of future readiness.
At a elementary degree, Khan considers blockchain-based methods as “a option to do issues in a greater means.” The principle causes for this are the effectivity advantages derived from a community that confirms its personal accuracy, and the belief that no unauthorized consumer has been in a position to manipulate data.
Notably, he doesn’t give central reward to generally lauded themes like decentralization [away from governments] or the perceived advantages of on-line anonymity. As a substitute, he emphasizes how blockchains can be utilized by governments to higher safe non-public info and stop issues like identification theft.
500 years of primary accounting rules are going to be disrupted. Are you prepared? Be taught extra from @IanKhanFuturist and his presentation from ACI Studying’s 2021 Audit’s Future digital convention. Watch the total session on demand. https://t.co/jSHgj9xJVE pic.twitter.com/Dvy4hOMpCN
— ACI Studying (@ACI_Learning) August 8, 2021
With regards to “the final 100 years off, how we’ve been doing enterprise,” for Khan, blockchain is “one thing that does issues higher in 1,000 alternative ways.” On the a part of bettering authorities processes, “the effectivity half will come up on account of the alternate of information between authorities entities — unbelievable authorities companies will occur on account of that.”
Again to the Futuracy
This speak of effectivity and the long run doesn’t come from a vacuum, as Khan runs a Toronto-based firm future-readiness enterprise known as Futuracy, which he describes as “an rising know-how educator” that has labored with companies and governments around the globe. The prolific writer can be a key determine within the Dubai GITEX know-how convention — such a key determine, that he was serving because the stage supervisor as I arrived to ship a keynote on the historical past of the blockchain motion on the occasion in mid-October. Whereas I used to be seeking to the previous, his head was (and is) firmly sooner or later.
The agency creates a Future Readiness Technique for every shopper. These methods are tailor-made based mostly on the solutions to 200 questions put to the shoppers that are designed to disclose weak methods and processes which can be disrupted by advancing know-how. Relying on the size of the group, minor weaknesses can have outsize impacts.
“If there’s an inefficiency in authorities, frequent folks will endure,” he explains, noting the necessity for future-readiness evaluation in stopping disruptions to vital capabilities reminiscent of medical care and schooling — each of which have been impacted by the pandemic.
Khan can be different phenomena that guarantees to form the way forward for his shoppers, specifically the Future of Work and Artificial Intelligence The Next Frontier, each of them additionally titles of his two upcoming movies. For him, concepts reminiscent of digitization, the Web of Issues, blockchain and synthetic intelligence are usually not standalone improvements. As a substitute, they’re linked and it is just a matter of time till they mix and combine to kind a wholly new tomorrow for the way in which governments, firms and establishments operate.
“It’s very simple to color the image the place we will speak in regards to the world that’s powered by AI that has blockchain in it,” Khan mentions casually as if the concept is on no account terrifying. It’s about effectivity, as AI-blockchain integration will probably be “saving a lot of time, power and energy,” and data will probably be much less more likely to be stolen, in accordance with Khan.
Ideas from the long run
A lot of Khan’s latest work has been in Dubai, a metropolis he says “is all the time making an attempt to do issues another way.” An early patron of the blockchain motion, “Dubai was one of many first international locations with a blockchain technique on the authorities degree,” Khan says.
Khan believes that one of the best ways for governments, massive firms and establishments to ease into the blockchain age is for them to offer all staff with an understanding of the know-how “whether or not they’re choice makers or not,” as a result of if a corporation is to outlive in a altering surroundings, it has to “change into a studying entity.”
My tackle The previous yr and Future Readiness. #futurereadiness #future #change #win #success #strategy pic.twitter.com/JpZs7bixYk
— Ian Khan Futurist (@IanKhanFuturist) August 23, 2021
The efficient option to study new paradigm-shifting applied sciences like blockchain, in accordance with Khan, is to begin with examples of profitable technical implementation with the purpose to “massively simplify the understanding of those large big buzzwords, so that individuals can relate” to what the know-how is definitely able to and helpful for. In apply, this might imply investing in schooling programs — maybe starting with watching his movie.
Regardless of his emphasis on studying the fundamentals, Khan concedes there isn’t any want for everybody to have greater than a surface-level information. In spite of everything, blockchains are horribly advanced, however the way in which we work together with them may very well be made quite a bit less complicated. Simply as not all automotive customers want to grasp precisely how a combustion or electrical engine works, sooner or later will probably be the “blockchain that’s caring for issues beneath the hood,” he says.
“Everyone must be on the primary minimal degree of understanding of know-how — it doesn’t matter in the event that they don’t work in the identical division. I feel schooling of primary know-how ideas and the worth it creates is vital.”
One other means through which organizations, particularly governments, can harness the advantages of blockchain is to open up the ideation course of by giving as a lot artistic freedom to their folks as potential, so as “to provide you with concepts that may actually change the way in which they do issues.”
On this advantage, Khan provides particular reward to Estonia, a small European nation of only one.3 million, the place he says “there’s lots of freedom to specific” one’s concepts to the very best ranges of choice making. As a small nation with an enormous emphasis on know-how, as evidenced by the eResidency program making it simple for digital nomads to function companies from the nation, Estonia has solid a popularity as a digital hub.
The third means, Khan says, is for organizations to constantly run small experiments and pilot tasks “that show some extent,” even when there isn’t any apparent short-term profit or return on funding. As a chief instance, Khan brings up Zug, a Swiss metropolis of 30,000 which in 2016, adopted Bitcoin as an possibility for paying metropolis permits. Because of the success of the experiment, Zug quickly became referred to as “crypto valley” as blockchain firms from around the globe opened workplaces there.
Kashmir to Canada
As a substitute of being a blockchain native, Khan is future-native. “I simply love studying these items and understanding them and serving to others perceive them,” he proclaims.
He was born on the Indian facet of Kashmir, a area whose different half lies in Pakistan. There, Khan remembers that he turned considering rising know-how on the age of six when he noticed a pc in school. “It was a BBC Micro hooked on to a black and white display that had Pac Man on, and my thoughts was utterly blown,” he remembers.
He studied engineering at Kuvempu College in southern India between 1995 and 1999, acquiring a diploma in software program on the similar time. Quickly after commencement, he moved to Bahrain the place he labored in a gross sales and advertising position within the power business, whereas additionally working in direction of a diploma in journalism from the London College of Journalism which he obtained in 2003. In 2007, Khan moved to Canada, the place he lives at this time.
In Canada, Khan tried his hand at various facet hustles, upon which he based Agnitio Options. He tried his hand at quite a few tasks and startups over 4 years, till “I acquired into the publishing business and began a healthcare journal,” he remembers. In his free time, he continued to review, incomes a undertaking administration skilled certificates from Humber Faculty in 2009 and a certificates in public relations from the College of Toronto the next yr.
Blockchain documentary
Khan had the concept to make a documentary in regards to the blockchain revolution in 2018, across the time that he attended the primary Future Blockchain Summit in Dubai, a part of the bigger GITEX know-how conference for which Khan serves as Good Cities Convention Chair. He noticed that, along with blockchain being extremely complicated to most individuals, “there’s a lot of hype round it and there’s a lot of misinformation round it,” he notes.
“The story must be informed that clarifies issues, brings some gentle to the scenario and helps enterprise choice makers, governments leaders and people perceive this know-how higher”
Blockchain Metropolis – The Way forward for Cities Pushed by Blockchain tells a “story of cities around the globe and their shift in direction of being technologically powered by means of Blockchain.” Within the 2019 movie, he interviews representatives of varied governments who communicate on the wonders of blockchain know-how and the alternatives it holds for making societal capabilities extra environment friendly.
In step with his mantra of instructing from real-life instances, blockchain use instances that have been introduced up embrace stopping over-fishing and little one trafficking. These examples of the following degree of the digitization of governance infrastructure may help international establishments “be part of palms and take the following steps collectively.”
Whereas Blockchain Cities largely avoids cryptocurrency, he has made a separate documentary titled The Bitcoin Dilemma on that topic. It’s technologically agnostic and impartial of any politics or ideology, which is thought to permeate the cryptocurrency business.
I lately spoke to the BBC in regards to the Worldwide Financial Funds (IMF) upcoming International Monetary stability report and its suggestions on Crypto. Additionally mentioned was my new documentary movie “Bitcoin Dilemma”, El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption, and the ou…https://t.co/lBCKK5e6vV
— Ian Khan Futurist (@IanKhanFuturist) October 1, 2021
