Lars Seier Christensen is a Danish businessman, investor, and serial entrepreneur. He is the founder of one of the most iconic financial and multi-asset trading and investment platforms, Saxo Bank. Having spent his early career years at Saxo Bank, and learning some of the most challenging lessons here, Dinis was delighted to interview Lars at the latest episode of his YouTube podcast series, powered by citiesabc.com, fashionabc.org, and openbusinesscouncil.org.

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The two experts journeyed through various milestones within the context of technological advancements, while discussing the potentials that lie within the bedrocks of blockchain technology, and finally how Concordium, a blockchain-based infrastructure founded by Lars, provides identity solutions for its users. The conversation grows up to touch one of the highlights: how all these solutions will meet and enhance the metaverse.

Early in the interview, Lars clearly indicated his profound interest in the business. It was this urge to attain extraordinary dimensions, that he worked in a multitude of industries before starting a brokerage firm with one of his clients, that later popularised into Saxo Bank: an unconventional internet-based trading and financial platform.

“I had no idea about the internet at that time. We were attracted to it as we realised that it had a lot of potential for the world, not just the financial industry. And we ended up bringing up one of the world’s most interesting foreign exchange trading platforms, and it later became a much broader offering. With the internet, we were able to gradually scale up from tens to hundreds to thousands of people at the same time, and then to a much wider public than had prior to that.”, he told Dinis.

Recollecting his experiences at Saxo Bank, Dinis agreed with Lars that while the work culture at Saxo Bank was performance-oriented, it always considered every stakeholder into perspective. “When somebody chooses you for banking or any other purpose, they are there for their own development or to feed their own family. They are not there to make me rich. So, there needs to be something in it for everyone.”, said Lars, sharing his ideology with Dinis as a founder. “It’s not only about maximising the business outcome if you don’t have a nice time,” he added.

Venturing into the world of blockchain

Between 2009 and 2011, when blockchain was just born, Lars started to get aware of this trending technology. Over the next few years, he started to explore it and realised the potential that lay in it. Working in a world where financial institutions and service providers are governed by regulations and legislation, Lars followed it as a hobby.

Although decentralised in its nature, he told Dinis, he understood that the drawbacks of the technology, like anonymity and non-scalability, could become major challenges in its mainstream adoption.

“That’s what led me to set up Concordium as an attempt to combine these two things- take what’s great about the blockchain (distributed nature, no single points of failure) and with the traditional finance system where we know what regulators think,” he told Dinis.

Thus, with a solid framework at its foundations, Concordium provides an impenetrable infrastructure that merges conventional financing with the decentralised blockchain network to offer an advanced model for users where they can build a multitude of use cases.

Seier Capital: Lar’s family office and investment vehicle

Steering the conversation to another dimension of Lar’s personality, investing, Dinis asked him to throw light on Seier Capital. Lars told him that after he left Saxo Bank, he shifted his focus to provide an identity to it. As of today, he has morphed it into an operational unit from where he makes his decisions related to investment in businesses and enterprises and operated his restaurants and other ventures in technology, especially blockchain.

“I’ve allocated a portion to the use cases that I want to build on Concordium. Somebody sitting and thinking I’m building this exciting blockchain use case, may have a look there. You might be lucky to inspire me so much that I help you a little bit financially,” he said about Seier Capital.

Sharing his wealth of knowledge and wisdom for young entrepreneurs and technology enthusiasts, Lars said:

“There will be hard days but you really need to have love and persistence for what you want to do. Further, focus on something that you know about. You need to know at least something about what you are going to pursue. Other than that, make your decisions, and have the stomach for what comes next.”

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4IR: AI Blockchain Fintech IoT Reinventing a Nation by Dinis Guarda and Rais Hussin (4irbook.com)

Dinis Guarda citiesabc openbusinesscouncil Series is also available as podcast on:

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Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post Digital ID, Financial Security, Metaverse – Dinis Guarda Interviews Lars Seier Christensen, Founder of Concordium and Saxo Bank appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

Felix Xu graduated with Finance, and Information Systems degrees from New York University, which is known for its Computer Science and AI research. For the past 6 years, Felix has been working on venture capital investment in Fintech, big data and AI startups. Most recently he led blockchain sector research and early-stage investment at Fosun Group, one of the largest conglomerates in China. He is also the Co-Founder and CEO of ARPA, Bella Protocol.

Felix Xu’s views on scalability

During the interview, Xu describes scalability as the ability of a system to handle increased load or traffic. In the context of blockchains, it is the ability to process more transactions per second (TPS) in order to meet the growing demands of users, something that layer 1 networks really struggle with.

Why is scaling such a problem?

“The two most obvious examples of a Layer 1 network are Bitcoin and Ethereum. These blockchains are base networks – they handle every aspect of every transaction on-chain and without assistance from any other network. 

But this makes transactions on those blockchains extremely heavy and slow – every single new transaction needs to be validated by the network; then, before a new block is added to the chain, it requires to be checked against the entire history of the network. There are no shortcuts in layer 1 blockchains.”

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The importance of Layer 2

Xu also touches upon the importance of Layer 2. Layer 2 blockchains are so-called because they sit as a second layer on top of a base mainnet.

“Layer 2 chains are designed to enable more transactions per second to be processed, and they achieve this by doing something novel – they move transactions off of the heavy mainnet. Different layer 2 solutions achieve this in slightly different ways, but the objective is always the same: streamlining the amount of information that needs to be validated by cumbersome underlying blockchain.

There is a multitude of layer 2 solutions currently being used with different blockchains, but for simplicity, let’s look at one of the most well-known, to better understand how it works.”

About ARPA

In fact, ARPA is a blockchain-based layer 2 solution for privacy-preserving computation, enabled by Multi-Party Computation (“MPC”). Founded in April 2018, the goal of ARPA is to separate data utility from ownership and enable data renting. ARPA’s MPC protocol creates ways for multiple entities to collaboratively analyse data and extract data synergies while keeping each party’s data input private and secure.

As Xu explains:

“We propose a blockchain-based secure computation network of Multi-party Computation (MPC). ARPA cryptographically enables private smart contract, unprecedented data-at-use privacy protection, as well as scalable computational sharding ARPA network is flexible, easy-to-use, and compatible with existing blockchains such as Ethereum and EOS. Let’s rethink blockchain for the real world”.

About Bella Protocol

Bella Protocol is an aggregated user interface for existing Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocols. It aims to simplify the user experience of existing DeFi protocols and allow users to deploy their assets and earn yield with ease.

“Our protocol aims to create a better user experience by eliminating the high fee and slow transaction issues that can affect some blockchain platforms like Ethereum while simultaneously improving the user experience through its simplified DeFi smart portal.

Bella’s smart pool feature allows users to access the best yields available in the DeFi market while benefiting from nearly zero gas fees since these are directly subsidized by the platform. The project launched in September 2020 as the first project distributed via Binance’s Launchpool platform, and has secured investments from several prominent firms, including Arrington XRP Capital and Ledger Capital.”

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4IR: AI Blockchain Fintech IoT Reinventing a Nation by Dinis Guarda and Rais Hussin (4irbook.com)

Dinis Guarda citiesabc openbusinesscouncil Series is also available as podcast on

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dinis-guarda-citiesabc-openbusinesscouncil-series/id1510330391

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Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post New Podcast: Felix Xu and The Future Of Blockchain And DeFi At citiesabc & openbusinesscouncil podcast series appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

A software architect and AWS cloud specialist, Carlos Salas is currently serving with his technological acumen at NordLayer. Carlos has more than 12 years of experience in fields such as Unix Administration, Software Development, Database Administration, Cloud Architecture, and Research and Development.

As Carlos explained early in the interview, he was always innovating and experimenting since his childhood days and has had an inquisitive mind toward technology and its application. He received his Master’s Degree in Informatics from the University of Vilnius.

After that first contact between the two experts, they talked about how NordLayer’s cutting-edge products and solutions create an impenetrable layer of security that is affordable for and accessible to everyone across the globe. From there on, the conversation turned into a masterclass in cybersecurity in today’s digitized world.

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The challenges of cybersecurity in the Web 3.0, NFTs and Metaverse era

NFTs, Metaverse, and Web 3.0 is the recent buzz in the town. Hilton was interested to know if the cybersecurity technologies that are a huge success today are equally (or even more) effective in Web 3.0. Carlos has the perfect answer for that: –

“It’s actually very peer-to-peer in essence. By using NordLayer, everyone is in the local area network. It doesn’t matter where you are. For systems where there is no centralisation, you have a segment that is connected to the internet, to the main net, but at the same time, it is micro-segmented. So, there are only very specific people that are going to be accessing certain central resources, and not all of them.”

He also explained how private gateways by NordLayer are responsible for maintaining a private line of communication between the peer group. Carlos patiently explained to Hilton how NordLayer maintains the level of security, while also maintaining the authenticity of digital avatars and an overall landscape of cybersecurity in the Metaverse.

Drawing an interesting simile, Carlos explained the cybersecurity measures at NordLayer: – “We use military-grade encryption. You can’t actually unencrypt this even by using a good force (unless by quantum computers). If you look at the research, it would take a few billion years to unencrypt these types of connections and put them into a perspective. The universe is younger than the time you will take to unencrypt this type of connection.” 

Carlos also told Hilton that to keep abreast with the latest technological advancements and provide cybersecurity to the expanding landscape of technology, NoedLayer is constantly educating its users and the general public through its blog posts and websites.

Concluding the interview, Carlos assured Hilton that the world is going to witness a wider adoption of the latest technologies in the next few years.

“Actually, right now, anyone that has a relatively modern device can use augmented reality. So, it’s going to be a matter of a couple of years, that people are going to start that more. I would say it is already mainstream. You could go to the streets, take out your phone, and scan a QR code, and you will see something pop out in real life. So, it’s already here.”, he clarified.

A life dedicated to cybersecurity and software engineering

Carlos joined NordLayer, a digital security and privacy solutions company, in 2021. His passion overlaps with the company’s mission to help the people to interconnect in a secure and faster way. Serving as an Engineering Manager at the NordLayer, Carlos is responsible for supervising and coordinating the efforts towards updating and deploying their privacy and security solutions.

He explained the company’s contribution to “empowering the user to be responsible for their own cybersecurity” while being at the backend for support and round-the-clock assistance.

In the words of Carlos, “It’s actually easier than it sounds, especially when you are using this type of technology where you are like plug n play install and everything will be working as a system.” 

Set up in 2021, the company has its offices all around the globe. The team of developers and experts at NordLayer is always innovating to provide cutting-edge solutions to keep cyberspace as secure and private as possible.

The solutions under the umbrella of NordLayer include:-

• NordVPN – the world’s most trusted online security solution, used by over 15 million of Internet users worldwide.

• NordPass – a password manager that securely stores and helps users organize their passwords by keeping them in one convenient place.

• NordLocker – a file encryption tool that secures sensitive files and folders with zero-knowledge AES-256 encryption.

• NordLayer – network access security that scales with businesses.

• NordWL – An infrastructure, know-how, and tools for businesses who want to build their own VPN products.

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4IR: AI Blockchain Fintech IoT Reinventing a Nation by Dinis Guarda and Rais Hussin (4irbook.com)

Dinis Guarda citiesabc openbusinesscouncil Series is also available as podcast on

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dinis-guarda-citiesabc-openbusinesscouncil-series/id1510330391

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Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post Engineering Manager at NordLayer Carlos Salas on Cybersecurity in Web 3.0 at The Latest Episode On Dinis Guarda YouTube Podcast Talks About appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

Growing up with an inquisitive and enquiring mind for technology, Sameep achieved his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. During his early years, his innate bent towards technology led him to develop solutions, like an all-device-accessible calculator and websites for his school and a library management software for college. Beginning his professional journey as a software developer at Dell Technologies, Sameep transitioned to blockchain while it was still in its infancy.

He gained a rich acumen for blockchain principles while being associated with Openbazaar, ParaSwap, healthcare, ICO companies, gaming companies, and even Polygon and Ethereum. With his experience, he was able to realise the power that layer one and side chains (of the blockchain) hold to support the businesses.

“I realised in 2020 that layer two and side chains will have their own impact. With the gas price, the transaction costs on layer one solutions on Ethereum and Bitcoin were increasing because of the increase in the volumes of transactions on these platforms. And the prices of the tokens were also increasing. With layer one, you have a very limited competitional power, and you have to divide that across the entire planet. So, the logic is very simple: Higher the demand while the supply is constant, the per-transaction cost increases. And that started happening”, he recalls in the interview.

Hilton asked the blockchain expert, Sameep, to explain Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake in the very basic language. “There are multiple ways to validate a transaction on a blockchain. So, if I’m transferring 1BTC to you, whether I own that BTC or not- somebody needs to validate that and transfer it from my account to yours. There are many ways- PoW and PoS are the most famous ones. Anyone can enter a blockchain and become a minor or a validator. Even a malicious party can become a minor, start validating my own transactions. To counteract those particular parties, these validation protocols are used”, Sameep said, explaining the essence of PoW and PoS in the blockchain.

Having worked with almost every player in the blockchain, Sameep was able to share the issues with the existing blockchains in the decentralised space. He also explains ways to create a personalised solution for the business, out of the various tools and blockchains (and side chains) available.

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Pedro Gadanho – Architecture, Arts, Cities & Society – Former MoMA & MAAT Curator, Architect

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Quickswap: A new-generation exchange over the decentralised space

While working with the team at Polygon (formerly Matic), Sameep came across the idea of establishing an ecosystem that provides a decentralised exchange and supplemented it with security features. This exchange was capable of handling large volumes, consequently proficient in providing liquidity of even billions of dollars.

Quickswap was created to bring one million users to the blockchain, overcoming the challenges that were prevalent amongst the existing chains. Constructing an entire framework of infrastructure solutions, Quickswap gradually improved the user experience.

“In my opinion, the biggest problem with UX is higher transaction costs and low transaction speeds. If I haven’t provided good gas fees, I would have to wait for minutes or even hours to complete a transaction. The main focus of Quickswap was to solve user experience problems. If these problems persist, forget about one million users, even ten thousand users would not join the space”, he said.

Concluding an extremely informative and interesting session, Sameep expressed:- “It is a very exciting space- the digital realm, where individual identities are valued over a network that follows a digital ledger format. Through Quickswap community channels, we spread information and educate people so that they are able to join blockchain and tap it to its utmost potential.”

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4IR: AI Blockchain Fintech IoT Reinventing a Nation by Dinis Guarda and Rais Hussin (4irbook.com)

Dinis Guarda citiesabc openbusinesscouncil Series is also available as podcast on

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dinis-guarda-citiesabc-openbusinesscouncil-series/id1510330391

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Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post Decentralisation, Fungibility, Validation, Side Chains…. Quickswap’s Sameep Singhania Unearths The Foundations Of Blockchain At Dinis Guarda Youtube Podcast appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

Financial and IT services expert, Lars Rottweiler, was interested in computers since his childhood. With a computer frame box in his garage during as early as 1981, he was absorbed by technology ever since. In a recent interview carried out by Dinis Guarda, he recalls, “Our consumption of energy was as much as a factory those days, but he let me experiment and use the computer as much as I wanted. So, my childhood was actually hacking and nerdy years”.

After studying Computer Science and Business Administration, he served many multinationals like Accenture, Deutsche Bank, and Infosys gaining extensive acumen for banking and IT services. Lars shares with Dinis that through his managing roles, he offered some unique and customised solutions for the industry.

“We created Pre-internet solutions which are continuously a little bit evolved but still using the old database and stuff. That’s why we decided to do things differently and started a new company”, he says in the interview.

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Pedro Gadanho – Architecture, Arts, Cities & Society – Former MoMA & MAAT Curator, Architect

Susan Oh, Future of AI, Blockchain; Blockchain For Impact Global Summit @ UN HQ, Top 10 Frontier Women in Digital

It is this rich knowledge and experience that drove him -and partner Vladimir Lounegov- to establish Mbanq, a fintech company in 2017. Dinis was excited to know about his realization of setting up a revolutionary solution for the world.

Asked by Dinis, Lars explained the fundamentals of his idea: “We quickly realised that there must be a market for it. An all-in-one banking platform that uses a completely different data architecture. Today, the biggest challenge with all the banks is to keep up with the regulatory changes and requirements.” Lars explains that much of the investment goes into operations instead of developing innovative solutions. This prompted him to use his acumen and present society with path-breaking solutions.

Talking about the evolving financial industry, Dinis asked Lars about the changing paradigms. Lars shares: “The fintech area in the crypto space is unregulated. But more and more regulations are being thought of. There’s more and more drive in this direction. How future regulative jurisdiction can probably control the market and control banking in a crypto space? We talk to many regulations by now to set the target lines and give a guideline on how this could be achieved in a way that it still has the freedom that crypto allows but gives a control. With control, we talk about the trust it gives us in this kind of operations”.

With the Web3.0 fast approaching, Dinis was interested to know how banks are transforming themselves. Lars explains to him that banking and financial services are increasingly being digitalised. He further shares how Mbanq acts as the link that offers innovative and digitalised solutions for banks to be able to thrive in the market that is subject to dynamics of regulations and jurisdictions.

A Lifelong Dream: Creating Mbanq

Mbanq is a FinTech company that sets up and operates banks for clients using its digital banking platform on a Software as a Service (SaaS) basis. Its proprietary technology provides an advanced, modular, end-to-end banking platform with everything required to instantly launch financial services for any use case.

“As a fintech we learn what market demands are and what our cohorts, our clients, our existing other banks, and the neo banks need as a service. So, we create an interconnected ecosystem and see it as part of one.”

Services include banking licenses, compliance, regulatory, lending as a service, payment as a service, credit card licenses, visa licenses, payment drills, ACH, SWIFT, and connecting to blockchain and exchanges.

“Just to summarise it, what do we do differently? I mean, many banks do think digitalisation means you have mobile phones and mobile apps, but we think digitalisation is in the backend, how it’s used to run the whole platform. So, we use Big Data Algorithms where the entire bank has a mobile platform, we have no disrupted data flows, and we never change data. We never accumulate and send it back to the database. We always process the transaction almost instantly, which makes us very flexible and very agile. And obviously, with the new IT infrastructure, we can achieve this kind of tremendous success”.

Mbanq has grown to become one of the most comprehensive digital banking providers globally since its formation in 2016. Today Mbanq is one of the fastest-growing FinTechs in the world, serving banks, credit unions, and financial institutions of all sizes, across the USA, Europe, and Asia.

“We offer for our customers to be compliant at any given time”, concluded Lars Rottweiler on the Dinis Guarda YouTube Podcast.

About citiesabc.com
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About openbusinesscouncil.org
https://www.openbusinesscouncil.org/

4IR: AI Blockchain Fintech IoT Reinventing a Nation by Dinis Guarda and Rais Hussin (4irbook.com)

Dinis Guarda citiesabc openbusinesscouncil Series is also available as podcast on

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dinis-guarda-citiesabc-openbusinesscouncil-series/id1510330391

On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1vA8KaDaRpJ0mAfpNbfTSF?si=H_WngL4RSOyu1W7VAmM41w&dl_branch=1

Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xMDMyMzg4LnJzcw==

Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/953a5156-823c-4e86-baeb-4fda1128e44c/DINIS-GUARDA-CITIESABC-OPENBUSINESSCOUNCIL-SERIES

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post Lars Rottweiler, Mbanq Founder, Explains BaaS, Digital Banking And Fintech at Dinis Guarda YouTube Podcast appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

Sundeep Reddy Mallu pursued Electrical Engineering at the undergraduate level and began his journey by selling seeds to the farmers in his native place. Grasping the basics from his early years, he postgraduate in management and business administration with Marketing and IT as his majors. He gives credit to this stellar journey that made him adept with Data Science skills and being able to deliver business values to Fortune 100 clients globally.

Sundeep is currently serving as SVP Analytics at Gramener to advise executives on aligning their data science strategy with business vision. He is also responsible for building teams to apply analytics and data visualisation, while also helping businesses adopt a data-driven culture. His keen interest in the application of Data Science and Machine Learning in ESG makes him believe that the action of humanity in the next decade would be critical.

“It’s no longer within 1.5ºC of temperature rise. It’s the case of how far are we overshooting it. This means ESG, as an overall ecosystem is gaining traction. This is evident in the number of companies who are making public commitments to carbon-neutral initiatives. This means that the climate effects are slowly starting to show up in the company top lines and bottom lines.”, he indicates.

More Interviews

James Zhang, CEO The Concept Art House – Games, Art And NFTs

Adam Hollander, Serial Entrepreneur, Pack Leader at Hungry Wolves – NFT, Gamification

Interview with Rishi Kapoor, Founder & CEO of paus.tv – The Revolutionary Streaming Platform For Independent Creators

Interview Kireet Khurana, Filmmaker & Creator Of Animation Film “Toonpur Ka Superhero” – Homelessness In India: The “Invisible Visible”

Pedro Gadanho – Architecture, Arts, Cities & Society – Former MoMA & MAAT Curator, Architect

Susan Oh, Future of AI, Blockchain; Blockchain For Impact Global Summit @ UN HQ, Top 10 Frontier Women in Digital

Hilton asked Sundeep about the drivers that helped him apply his skills to agriculture in India. He fondly replies that though India is a country with its own share of challenges, he has been able to provide leverage by introducing simple yet effective technological concepts to farming.

While citing the exemplary work he has done in the country, Sundeep adds, “The kind of solutions that we could bring into the Indian context was way different from the ones in the US, particularly due to the huge difference in the percentage of population dependent on farming as their primary source of income. Therefore, while the AI and ML applications have been in practice for a very long time in the US, India is still experimenting with tailor-made solutions. With startups budding up in the country, there seems to be a whole lot of optimal progress being made here”. 

On this note, Hilton was interested to know what prompted Sundeep to join Gramener. In the words of Sundeep, “The vision of Gramener is about the public impact. While the organisation is a commercial entity, the underlying goal that the founder’s support is the impact it makes on society. The intent is to take the help of data to narrate inside stories to create action so that impossibilities can come to life. Gramener focuses on custom solution-building in pharmaceutical and life sciences, logistics, and ESG.”

He further adds, “Given that our ESG solutions span not just across climate or agritech alone, it’s the fusion of these multiple problems that interlap with each other. And we, being at a position, where we can understand the science part of it the climate standpoint, understanding the solution point of it from a technology standpoint, we are fortunate that we are able to play a small role in this big picture of assisting in the ESG space to our clients.”

On being asked by Hilton about how data is managed, Sundeep tells him that to reduce the noise and create relevant data, technology helps them connect to various data sources. They are also able to aggregate the data, and standardise the data cleaning access and data quality checks, thus reducing the manual effort.

Sundeep told Hilton that three basic ways to maintain data ethics at Gramener involve the collection of only the required data, maintaining standards even while procuring the data from the third party, and aligning the policies while complying with industry regulations.

Explaining the challenges while providing solutions that meet ESG goals, Sundeep says, “The popular culture, folklore, is for companies like big companies consuming every data that they can collate and use it. They have the means and resources to spend on these. When it comes to the ESG space, you already have a limited monetary means that you have. That is a space where we invest a lot of time to optimize that stretch the dollar to the longest possible impact. And getting the data right is a big step in how much you invest. Because each of these solutions has to be maintained in a longer haul. It’s n0t that you built that and it’s done. These are the systems that have to survive and fight any of the windows. Unlike other engagements, ESG engagements don’t give you results in a quarter, they have their long tail where they play and out and they generate value, which means every system that you build has to withstand the test of the time. And that’s where creating a long pull- the total cost of ownership of a solution goes a long way. And hence, starting with data is key”. 

Concluding the interview that promises to enlighten the audiences with its deeper impact and awareness about the challenges in creating a sphere of intersection between technological advancements (AI, Data Sciences, and ML) with ESG, Hilton asks Sundeep to give his views on the future that lies here. “The hunger for data is constant. What we will see increasingly happen in my view is that the access to data would become uniform. The differentiation would not be a lot more different. How data gets put to use for digital making is what will go into a drastic change”, he shares.

About citiesabc.com
https://www.citiesabc.com/​​​​​​​​​​​
https://twitter.com/citiesabc__​​​​​​

About openbusinesscouncil.org
https://www.openbusinesscouncil.org/

4IR: AI Blockchain Fintech IoT Reinventing a Nation by Dinis Guarda and Rais Hussin (4irbook.com)

Dinis Guarda citiesabc openbusinesscouncil Series is also available as podcast on

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dinis-guarda-citiesabc-openbusinesscouncil-series/id1510330391

On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1vA8KaDaRpJ0mAfpNbfTSF?si=H_WngL4RSOyu1W7VAmM41w&dl_branch=1

Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xMDMyMzg4LnJzcw==

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Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post citiesabc Podcast: Hilton Supra With Sundeep Reddy Mallu On Sustainable Application Of Data For Business appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

A thought leader and a preeminent authority, Professor Lisa Short has led multiple frontiers in digital technology systems, design thinking, education, and removing disparities. On the latest episode of citiesabc’s podcast with Dinis Guarda, Prof. Short shares some inspiring insights of her journey through business and technology and spreading empowerment across the globe.

Professor Short began her career with a small business, after her early education in accounting and financial management. This initial venture helped her understand the importance of building relationships and establishing an ecosystem for a business to thrive. Over the course of her entire career of 35 years, Prof. Short has been able to bring a transformational change using powerful technologies like blockchain, cryptocurrencies, AI, and IoT.

“Technology is not about technology, it’s about making the lives of people better, businesses better, more profitable, better jobs, and better, healthier, and more productive people”, she tells Dinis.

She was granted her professorship from the University of South Africa, for her years of dedication and hard work in bridging education, technology, and business. She explains to Dinis that it is her driving passion for technology, and establishing its relevance in business and other fields. She states, “I’m a rogue academic, really, that likes to drag an academic world that is sitting 30-50 years behind the rest of the development of the world and drag it to the table of innovation, and get them to connect with industry”. She is currently associated with the Global Market Acceleration program by La Trobe University in Melbourne, where she is the Adjunct Professor. This industry-led program intends to bring together industry experts worldwide, and facilitate the acceleration of businesses to the international markets.

More Interviews

James Zhang, CEO The Concept Art House – Games, Art And NFTs

Adam Hollander, Serial Entrepreneur, Pack Leader at Hungry Wolves – NFT, Gamification

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Interview Kireet Khurana, Filmmaker & Creator Of Animation Film “Toonpur Ka Superhero” – Homelessness In India: The “Invisible Visible”

Pedro Gadanho – Architecture, Arts, Cities & Society – Former MoMA & MAAT Curator, Architect

Susan Oh, Future of AI, Blockchain; Blockchain For Impact Global Summit @ UN HQ, Top 10 Frontier Women in Digital

Halfway through the interview, both experts reached a tipping point when Dinis asked her about her work in Africa and in EdTech, and how she took technology as leverage and made impactful moves in various fields.

“I’m called a design ecosystem thinker. I look at the touchpoints, look to see the weaknesses, and look to see how we can improve those connections. That’s where I see myself as sitting between these two worlds of frontier technologies and businesses.”

With podcast as the medium, she pointedly drew attention to the inconsistencies and disparities amongst the systems around the world. Social, economic, and gender-based inequalities that exist worldwide are her areas of concern that can use technology to bring awareness and sustainability.

Being part of some of the outstanding projects like Social Impact Exchange, Prof. Short has utilised her acumen to benchmark some of the most remarkable principles in making a social impact.  “Work in the humanitarian space is really the driver for me because this is about people, and how we can empower them so that everybody has something- access to resources, to live in a safe environment, etc.”. Prof. Short is applying similar principles while working for the Ukraine Development Impact Bond.

Giving examples of her work for African women in agriculture, she explains that technology can empower women and businesses to achieve some of the most unimagined heights of growth and prosperity. It is her firm belief that it is high time that the technologies that are meant to benefit all must be accessible to all. She emphasises, “We are in such a rapid rate of change now, we are talking about smart cities. It’s so critical at this point that we have level playing fields of conversation. It’s not just about ROI, this is about a world moving forward”.  

Dinis was appalled when Prof. Short revealed the disturbing statistics about gender bias in business and entrepreneurship. She emphasised that much of the resources could be redirected by shunning the biases for making a thriving ecosystem for all.

However, she is optimistic about the current situation and spreads a very positive light on the grim situation, “I don’t say we can’t make a change, we can. But, we have to be honest about what we see. We’ve been talking about Smart Cities, it’s a social contract. It’s not about the technologies, because technologies haven’t created that inequity, we have, people have. We can use these technologies to empower us”.

About citiesabc.com
https://www.citiesabc.com/​​​​​​​​​​​
https://twitter.com/citiesabc__​​​​​​

About openbusinesscouncil.org
https://www.openbusinesscouncil.org/

4IR: AI Blockchain Fintech IoT Reinventing a Nation by Dinis Guarda and Rais Hussin (4irbook.com)

Dinis Guarda citiesabc openbusinesscouncil Series is also available as podcast on

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dinis-guarda-citiesabc-openbusinesscouncil-series/id1510330391

On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1vA8KaDaRpJ0mAfpNbfTSF?si=H_WngL4RSOyu1W7VAmM41w&dl_branch=1

Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xMDMyMzg4LnJzcw==

Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/953a5156-823c-4e86-baeb-4fda1128e44c/DINIS-GUARDA-CITIESABC-OPENBUSINESSCOUNCIL-SERIES

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post Professor Lisa Short with Dinis Guarda at Citiesabc Podcast on Technology, Business, and Disparities appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

Born in a family that was imbued with entertainment, Valentina Castellani found a bond with theatre and arts during her early life in Florence, Italy, watching ballet, classic opera, classical music, concerts, theatres, and plays. Pursuing her interests in designing and fine arts at the master’s level in Paris and New York, Valentina was fascinated by the world of art and creativity. After the painful and untimely demise of her husband, she found her ‘moment’, and created Quinn Studios Entertainment.

“Simple gestures in our life can really bend our destiny, shift our way of thinking, and make us see in a different way. We start making courageous choices and look ahead. So, that’s pretty much how I started production”, she recalls in the early moments of the interview with Dinis Guarda.

Taking Dinis on a journey through the rough patches in her life where she had to make bold and courageous choices, Valentina shares that the driving factor for any film is its content. If the idea and story are convincing, no matter what platform or film festival it is screened at.

“It’s the story that has to carry you, not vice versa. You have to find a way where the story is carrying you, where there is a thread, where you are following. Just like Hensel and Gretel with little white stones in the story, you know. Just like Cinderella with a fairy coming and putting on a dress and knowing that at midnight, the dress is gone, you know. So, in my case, this film is leading me. The story of the film is leading me.”

This thrilled Dinis into asking about what prompted her to screen some of the most unconventional films at the festivals. Valentina says that keeping a good portion of the budget for marketing is a smart choice that many young filmmakers fail to make. Adding to this, she also believes in focussing on the story and screening it on the most appropriate platform. This, according to her, makes a huge difference in marking the success of the creation.

“It is a very important thing to calculate the budget for the marketing campaign right away. And then, we have to have honesty. Is this an Oscar film or a more niche film? Where is it going to win? I mean, when we made The Butterfly’s Dream, we knew that this film could run for an Oscar. So, of course, the campaign was all geared towards that way”, she insists.

Despite being an admirer of films and arts, especially in the theatrical arena, Valentina appreciates the facility that digitised platforms offer, even in difficult times like the pandemic. However, she insists that the filmmakers believe in the story and let it guide the platform to screen it.

“You have a story to tell, where it’s going to go depends on how this story is told. I mean, imagine if Charlie Chaplin was dealing and dwelling on marketing changing and dwelling from ‘Oh, the movies are not silent anymore and stuff’, he had a story to tell with the tools of the moment, and he told the story.” She emphasises that if a story is good, it will create its own market by resonating appropriately with the audience.

Among the top influencers, Dinis is sensitive about creativity and arts making a powerful impact on society. He continues this custom to understand the impact films and creativity make on society as a whole. Valentina beautifully describes the role of digital tools in enhancing the humanitarian touch of creativity and arts. “We cry at the movie theatres, not because of a special effect, but because we feel an emotion that is close to us. Because we recognise a moment, a momentum, an emotion, a state of being”, she clearly explains.

Finally, concluding a marvellous session where the experts discuss everything from politics to leadership, arts, and creativity, Valentina says, “I would like to encourage people to think in a broader way instead of getting entangled with politics and blockages. With Politics and blockages, we don’t create, there is very little we can do. But, with spirit, with courage, with narrative, with creativity, there are millions of ways that can be expressed, created, found, you know, without being irrational.”

More Interviews

James Zhang, CEO The Concept Art House – Games, Art And NFTs

Adam Hollander, Serial Entrepreneur, Pack Leader at Hungry Wolves – NFT, Gamification

Interview with Rishi Kapoor, Founder & CEO of paus.tv – The Revolutionary Streaming Platform For Independent Creators

Interview Kireet Khurana, Filmmaker & Creator Of Animation Film “Toonpur Ka Superhero” – Homelessness In India: The “Invisible Visible”

Pedro Gadanho – Architecture, Arts, Cities & Society – Former MoMA & MAAT Curator, Architect

Susan Oh, Future of AI, Blockchain; Blockchain For Impact Global Summit @ UN HQ, Top 10 Frontier Women in Digital

Creating Quinn Studios Entertainment

Valentina created Quinn Studios Entertainment in 2012 in the loving memory of her husband, Francesco Quinn, son of Oscar-winning actor, Anthony Quinn. The company was created to establish the Quinn legacy in the field of arts, entertainment, and world peace. ‘Life on a Bike’ was the first documentary series filmed for television. It was based on an Italian pro cycling tour, Giro D’Italia, as an ode to his cyclist husband.

A special film, close to her heart, Valentina filmed this masterpiece after her husband, Francesco Quinn’s untimely death in August 2011. Sharing her filming experience, she says, “It was kind of insane. Being there and doing it that way taught me everything as a producer to just break the barrier of thinking. Find another way, think differently, and get out of the box. So, it was a great conquest, and definitely, it did heal me, and the kids, and it was an inspiring moment in understanding that the power of our imagination is way bigger than the power of pain.”

The production house has some very special names to its credit- ‘The Butterfly’s Dream’ (a candidate for Academy Award and Golden Globe 2014, as Best Foreign Movie. Also winner of 13 International Awards), ‘The Square’ (documentary on the Egyptian conflict, winner of Directors Guild Award 2014, Sundance Film Festival 2014, Berlin Film Festival, Dubai Film Festival), ‘One Rock Three Religions’ (Documentary film about Peace in the Middle East, winner of HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD, The US Congress Award Recognition for the film efforts to create dialogue among Countries, Religions, and Ethnicities, the Jury Grand Prix at the Siena International Film Festival, The People Festival in NY as Best Documentary, The Impact DOCS Award), Augie (on the extraordinary life of Augie Nieto, the Steve Jobs of the Fitness Industry), and ‘Wonderful Losers’ (2019 Academy Awards Candidate Best Foreign Film and winners of 11 International Awards).

About citiesabc.com
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About openbusinesscouncil.org
https://www.openbusinesscouncil.org/

4IR: AI Blockchain Fintech IoT Reinventing a Nation by Dinis Guarda and Rais Hussin (4irbook.com)

Dinis Guarda citiesabc openbusinesscouncil Series is also available on

Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music and top podcast directories.

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post Dinis Guarda Interviews Valentina Castellani, President And Chairman Of Quinn Studios Entertainment And An Award-Winning Film Producer appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

“I’m a great believer in being heads-on. That’s probably the best way to be educated.”

Or Lenchner had a passion for developing software products since his early years. During his initial years, he founded and managed several internet-based products and businesses. After developing digital assets and online marketing programs himself, he joined Bright Data in 2015 as the Head of Product Development.

“I’m a product guy, that’s what I love to do also today. Even acting as a CEO, I’m still enjoying most of the time touching, building, and working with our own products”, he proudly says.

It is this ideology, he believes, that makes Bright Data successful in its ongoing drive to innovate. He further describes to Dinis the challenges that internet-based data is facing these days – lack of web transparency.

“The World Wide Web was designed to be the largest public database in the world – it should be open to anyone to use but in reality, it isn’t. This is the major challenge that we see. Though, the software that we develop overcomes this challenge and is able to collect this public data. This is why our products are so valuable to our customers. But, as a whole it’s not okay to block access to public data, it belongs to the public. This is why it is called public data”, he shares his concern.

On being prompted by Dinis about the ethical practices of web data extraction that the company follows, Lenchner explains that trusting the data starts with trusting the data partner or vendor. This is what forms a reliable basis for web data collection and ensures that it is used in an ethical manner.

“It’s a very strong culture in our company DNA to be accountable. We’ve taken unprecedented steps to ensure that our products and infrastructure address the highest industry standards. In 2021, we rejected over 830 cases of potential customers for simply not practising the use cases we support, even though everything is legal, everything is okay, but we don’t perceive it as ethical or they weren’t transparent enough when they came talking to us and went through our KYC process”, he indicates sincerely about the ethical and responsible culture at Bright Data.

More Interviews

James Zhang, CEO The Concept Art House – Games, Art And NFTs

Adam Hollander, Serial Entrepreneur, Pack Leader at Hungry Wolves – NFT, Gamification

Interview with Rishi Kapoor, Founder & CEO of paus.tv – The Revolutionary Streaming Platform For Independent Creators

Interview Kireet Khurana, Filmmaker & Creator Of Animation Film “Toonpur Ka Superhero” – Homelessness In India: The “Invisible Visible”

Pedro Gadanho – Architecture, Arts, Cities & Society – Former MoMA & MAAT Curator, Architect

Susan Oh, Future of AI, Blockchain; Blockchain For Impact Global Summit @ UN HQ, Top 10 Frontier Women in Digital

About Bright Data

A leading web platform, Bright Data, provides tools and products to extract, manage and utilise public web data. These could be used by any form and size of business, institutions, or even the public sector to research, monitor, or analyse the data and consequently make better and more informed decisions. Used worldwide by more than 15,000 customers, Lenchner states that the data is gathered in the most efficient, reliable, and flexible way.

“We build software for one purpose- to help our customers collect publicly available web data. So, if the internet today is probably the largest database in the history of mankind, it means that you can probably do a lot with that resource as a company, no matter what you are doing- selling stuff online, or developing medicine. This is a major resource you should take into consideration. We build the tools that allow you to collect the public web data you need, which is not an easy task”, explaining the power of data in the current world scenario.

Making public web data accessible to all keeps the markets open and in healthy competition. Major eCommerce companies and sites, finance, NGOs, research universities, public sector organisations, security operators, and travel sites are among the thousands of clients of this growing platform… With a strong customer base, Bright Data crossed the hundred-million-dollar revenue mark last year.

About The Bright Initiative

The Bright Initiative is a global program that uses public web data with the aim of driving positive change. This provides pro-bono access to leading web data technology for various public bodies, NGOs, Not-For-Profit Organisations, academic institutions, and others. What started as an exercise to help researchers during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in early March 2020, turned into an exciting venture for the company.

“We realised that we do really well as a commercial company, but you can actually also use these powerful tools for contributing to society in various ways. So, we just launched our new webpage, offering researchers and organizations the chance to approach us, if they think they should get these tools for free”, Lenchner says excitedly.

With over 400 partners already, The Bright Initiative has been contributing humbly to quite amazing causes. From being used for research purposes by universities, combating sex and human trafficking, to identifying victims of intrafamilial abuse (and helping them before it is too late)- The Bright Initiative has an extensive number of cases that have made a positive impact on society- all based on publicly available web data.

“You just need tools to collect this public data and analyse it. So, we literally know lives are being saved just by using our tools effectively”.

“We support over 400 organisations like Universities, NGOs, and the UK government, for example, to help them make a positive social impact using the largest resource – Web Data.”

Relevance of data in Web 3.0

Being interested in Metaverse and Web 3.0 himself, Dinis poked Lenchner to explain the role of Big Data in the future of this space. Or explains that living in Web 3.0 does not just mean being in this world with AR VR sets. It just means a portion of one’s waking hours being spent inside the web itself. He insists on the beauty of mountain amounts of data being generated throughout the process of transition and while living in it.

“This will, for sure, push companies like Bright Data and others to build newer tools, more sophisticated tools, to be able to extract that data that will be added on that new layer of Web 3.0 or inside the Metaverse. We’re already there, we’re thinking this way, we’re innovating in this direction. It’s just going to be much bigger”, he exclaims.

Concluding an extremely knowledgeable session, Lenchner leaves a message for those who handle data (or are willing to enter data handling), “Start small, with a small data set, to validate your hypothesis, first. Then, scale up”.

About citiesabc.com
https://www.citiesabc.com/​​​​​​​​​​​
https://twitter.com/citiesabc__​​​​​​

About openbusinesscouncil.org
https://www.openbusinesscouncil.org/

4IR: AI Blockchain Fintech IoT Reinventing a Nation by Dinis Guarda and Rais Hussin (4irbook.com)

Dinis Guarda citiesabc openbusinesscouncil Series is also available as podcast on

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dinis-guarda-citiesabc-openbusinesscouncil-series/id1510330391

On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1vA8KaDaRpJ0mAfpNbfTSF?si=H_WngL4RSOyu1W7VAmM41w&dl_branch=1

Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xMDMyMzg4LnJzcw==

Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/953a5156-823c-4e86-baeb-4fda1128e44c/DINIS-GUARDA-CITIESABC-OPENBUSINESSCOUNCIL-SERIES

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post CEO Of Bright Data, Or Lenchner, Explains The Challenges That The Data Industry Is Facing In Today’s World appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

“Well, honestly, I really never thought I would be doing what I do today for a living, especially with global celebrities that I grew up watching as a kid. So, it’s kind of a crazy experience, a little surreal”.

Jeff started his career in software development in 1999, right at the beginning of Y2K and global outsourcing. For the next seventeen years, Jeff continued his journey into software, exploring various roles, and finally doing an IPO for GSS Infotech in India. Meanwhile, the changing paradigms in the market created a fascination for him towards the growing popularity of Bitcoin and (utility of) Smart Contracts by Ethereum.

Asked by Dinis Guarda in this latest episode of the citiesabc podcast, Jeff said that this became a turning point in his career and he started travelling to almost every corner of the world speaking about the practical applications of blockchain. He advocated the importance of tokenising projects and advised offerings during the next few years.  Completely caught up in this entire world of cryptocurrency and leveraging tokens as another capital source for projects, Jeff transitioned to equity and venture capital. The skills acquired during that time leveraged his knowledge to understand the fragmented nature of the crypto markets and this prompted him to create a thriving space for content creators.

“I took a different approach than most of my peers. We didn’t invest in technology first, we invested in legal. This was because if you’re familiar with the entertainment industry, every piece of IP or every celebrity or talent has a circle of agents, managers, and lawyers that just circle around their whole ecosystem. So, knowing that, because I had dabbled in entertainment already, I knew that we would have to go through a huge amount of red lines and contract negotiations to acquire IP”, he recalls fondly.

After layering enough IPs with names like Mike Tyson, Dennis Rodman, Wesley Snipes, The Joe Frasier Estate, Odell Beckham Jr, Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, The Wright Brothers, MetaCurio (under Jeff’s leadership), started launching NFTs over the concrete foundations at MetaCurio.

More Interviews

James Zhang, CEO The Concept Art House – Games, Art And NFTs

Adam Hollander, Serial Entrepreneur, Pack Leader at Hungry Wolves – NFT, Gamification

Interview with Rishi Kapoor, Founder & CEO of paus.tv – The Revolutionary Streaming Platform For Independent Creators

Interview Kireet Khurana, Filmmaker & Creator Of Animation Film “Toonpur Ka Superhero” – Homelessness In India: The “Invisible Visible”

Pedro Gadanho – Architecture, Arts, Cities & Society – Former MoMA & MAAT Curator, Architect

Susan Oh, Future of AI, Blockchain; Blockchain For Impact Global Summit @ UN HQ, Top 10 Frontier Women in Digital

Making MetaCurio a Heavyweight in the NFT and Web3 Space

MetaCurio is a full-service Web 3 strategy company that works with global brands and talents looking to enter the Web 3.0 space for profitable returns. Metacurio is a next-generation creative studio leading brands and talent into the Metaverse. With a vision to create long-term impact over the blockchain and build a true community, MetaCurio helps creators with various solutions like- NFT drops and digital asset development, and epic activations.

Under Jeff’s leadership, the company launched the ‘Mike Tyson Cory Van Lew collaboration’ in August 2021, taking a bold never-before artistic approach for the NFT collection of the celebrity boxer. Within its very first few minutes, the collection was sold out, profiting the company by a million dollars. What was more interesting was that it earned over $15 million in the secondary markets.

“I think it was the mix of the right time, right place. But I also feel like I had a very specific opinion and stuck to it. I think, sometimes, in business, you have to be willing to just do that. You know, having spent a decade in crypto and considering myself part of this community, I really focussed on bringing Mike into this space and kind of in the most organic and authentic way possible”, he explains.

Successful NFT launches and future plans

The impact these NFT sales and creations made on the community as a whole encouraged Jeff to carry on with them. Mike’s next drop- ‘The Laser eyes Derivative’ was sold out in mere twenty-three minutes of its launch, generating another million dollars. Metacurio is currently at the fourth NFT drop for Mike Tyson, a trading card game on Solana ‘Iron Pigeons’; and another one on Binance.

Other clients like Paradigm Sports, Reactor Motors (sold almost 9000 NFTs in the first four days of launch), Terry O’Neill (authentic band group), and Dennis Rodman. Some of the community acts also include a charity drop recently for Ukraine with artists Vladimir Klitschko and Wisby. Considering the nascent appearance of the company over the space (established in 2021), MetaCurio is currently at its tenth drop.

“Now that we’ve established some credibility and some case studies, we’re working to push Web 3.0 forward in the most authentic way possible to expand the community and to help bring brands and talent into the space in a way that doesn’t punish or hurt collectors. That’s my biggest fear”.

With the dream of creating a space that leverages its participants equally, Jeff and his team at Metacurio are dedicated to creating an integrated space developed with the power of smart contracts.

Motivating the young and micro-level creators, he says, “The future of creation in the Web 3.0 economy is the lower-level creators. It’s enabling the people with fewer followers on various platforms to be able to monetise their fanbase in a way that adds value to the total economy”.

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4IR: AI Blockchain Fintech IoT Reinventing a Nation by Dinis Guarda and Rais Hussin (4irbook.com)

Dinis Guarda citiesabc openbusinesscouncil Series is also available as podcast on

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dinis-guarda-citiesabc-openbusinesscouncil-series/id1510330391

On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1vA8KaDaRpJ0mAfpNbfTSF?si=H_WngL4RSOyu1W7VAmM41w&dl_branch=1

Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xMDMyMzg4LnJzcw==

Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/953a5156-823c-4e86-baeb-4fda1128e44c/DINIS-GUARDA-CITIESABC-OPENBUSINESSCOUNCIL-SERIES

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post Citiesabc Podcast: Metacurio CEO Jeff Hood Talks About Creating A Mutually Benefitting Ecosystem Over The Web 3.0 Space appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.