Speaking at Singapore’s SWITCH: Transparency in resources and decentralizing production of atoms and energy with Maryam Ayati

January 14, 2021
John Koetsier
events

I had the opportunity in December to speak (remotely) at Singapore’s SWITCH conference, interviewing Maryam Ayati, the CEO and co-founder at NEO, a company that exists for “Landing Moonshots that integrate Planet, People and Profit.” Our conversation was about using blockchain to understand where all our goods, services, energy, water, and everything else comes from … and how we’re decentralizing all of this.

The video is finally available:

Here are the questions I had for Maryam:

  1. We live in a pretty disconnected world. I mean … even prior to COVID … and not just from people. 
    1. Food arrives from Doordash. 
    2. Products arrive from Amazon. 
    3. Water comes out of the wall. Energy flows from a plug. 
    4. And mostly, we have no clue where it all originates … where it came from … what processes, transformations, and work was put into it. Who made. Whose it was before. How it came to us. 
    5. You’re building something to change that, right?
  2. How?
  3. Talking technically about how something can happen is not the same as how politically or bureaucratically or economically it will happen, right? What about those other dimensions?
  4. Why does this matter? 
    1. Why is it important for us to know where our energy, our atoms, our products come from?
    2. What problems have arisen from us NOT knowing?
    3. How will knowing change our behavior?
  5. We think about equity for people and for nations, and that’s critical. You’re also building something that provides equity for companies, correct?
    1. Why?
    2. Who is disadvantaged right now? Smaller companies? Non-tech companies?
    3. How does that filter down to people/nations/regions?
  6. We’ve seen increased globalization … supply chain … labor … resources … you name it. 
    1. How do you see that evolving in the 2020s? 
    2. And how do you see our knowledge of where everything is sourced from impacting that?
  7. Fast forward 5-10 years. You’ve been tremendously successful. What does the future look like …
    1. Energy
    2. Atoms
    3. Products & production
    4. Environment
    5. Equity
  8. What are the first steps?