IBM Blockchain Leader for CEE on trends, pitfalls and hopes for 2019

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IBM Blockchain Leader for CEE on trends, pitfalls and hopes for 2019 101
Source: IBM

Instead of focusing on blockchain as technology, people should focus more on solving real business problems, believes Maciek Jędrzejczyk, Blockchain leader for Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) to the technology giant IBM. Also, to expect blockchain to solve all the problems that arise is a common trap in the industry: "You have to be aware of the limits of technology and you have to let your customers know," he explains.

IBM opened a blockchain innovation research center in Singapore in July 2016. Since then, they have helped develop new technology-based projects, including small computers, Walmart distribution chain giant and stablecoins. They are opening up a myriad of technology-related positions, including 1,800 places in France in the space of two years. IBM also boasts numerous partnerships and has been a major driving force behind the Hyperledger project, the general open source blockchain project and related tools launched by the Linux Foundation.

Cryptonews.com he spoke with Jędrzejczyk about his business at IBM, about how the blockchain is changing the world and how it is from their point of view.

Cryptonews.com: You announced a series of improvements to your blockchain platform. How will this help your customers?

Maciek Jędrzejczyk: We recently announced that we are expanding an offering of blockchain IBM, which is our standard blockchain as a service offering, beyond the IBM cloud. Right now, if you're interested in simplifying your IBM, or basically blockchain deployment, you do not have to do it exclusively through the IBM cloud, you can run it locally, run it on your favorite cloud provider's infrastructure, basically you have the freedom of choice in terms of blockchain topology and the exact position of the different nodes participating in the network.
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Overall, I think that at this moment the IBM cloud services are definitely ready for any type of workload because we have a solid infrastructure below, we have all the non-functional conditions necessary for security and now we allow the implementation of any type of blockchain topology and managed by our customers.

What do you consider the most important experience that IBM has had in blockchain until now? What helped you grow more? What lessons did you learn?

One of the main lessons we have learned, and this is now our biggest advantage, is that we have not limited our consideration on pure technological game blockchain. Blockchain is a fascinating subject alone, but there is no technology that will dominate the business.

It is the company that decides whether a particular technology will solve a problem. Blockchain solves some serious problems related to the notion of trust. <...> If you take the blockchain in that consideration and start analyzing with your customers how the blockchain can help maintain confidence in the ecosystem of relationships in which the customer is operating in business terms, you will see that c & # 39 is a series of completely new opportunities that until now were impossible to achieve due to the costs and lack of trust between the different actors. They did not know how to act one another without third parties.

Now with the blockchain, they can interact directly, easily execute multiparty processes, deliver new services and products together and can do it on a reliable platform. This is the greatest lesson we have learned. Blockchain does not deal exclusively with technology, but to solve real business problems.

IBM Blockchain Leader for CEE on trends, pitfalls and hopes for 2019 102
Maciek Jędrzejczyk. Source: the Fintech Inn conference

What are the most common job traps with blockchain?

There are some pitfalls. I see them coming in and out. One of the main pitfalls is basically to focus too much on technology. Customers do not understand it and do not have time to understand it. They leave it to you. They want their problems to be solved. Focusing too much on technology will not take you far in terms of scalable platform, product or service. It's a bit too complex sometimes. However, it is only necessary to follow this procedure to inform the customer about the benefits and limitations. Blockchain will not solve all problems at the same time.

The second pitfall is the governance of the platform. Once you have a group of organizations that want to try and use the blockchain to establish trust with each other, then it is very important to make sure that they are understanding the stakes and accepting the entity of the mail. If you have dominant parts in networks and do not allow others to do anything, then you are simply transferring the normal conditions of traditional relationships that could discourage some of the partners from acting in such a network of blockchains.

The third is a very traditional problem. Blockchain will not solve all the problems so it is not a solution suitable for all use cases. You must be aware of the limits of technology and you must inform your customers, especially in terms of transactional limitations, preserving privacy and confidentiality, using personal information and private data on the chain and trying to manage GDPR at the same time.

What is your growth forecast for 2019? How do you compare with 2018?

2018 was the year the technology matured to the extent that it was able to address most business issues related to privacy and privacy, which was previously not possible . It also grows in terms of scalability and ability to host an unlimited number of participants.

Technologically speaking, we are now ready to build huge decentralized networks. Personally I call them network of networks. This is what I will look for in 2019: to take all the existing decentralized networks and start connecting them together. Bring a critical mass of participation beyond a certain level. We are ready to do it. This will completely change the business landscape. You will not be able to ignore the existence of decentralized networks made up of 10 large EU banks, 5 major insurance companies, major retailers. Either you join the platform, you build your own, or you will maintain the status quo and see what will happen.

What other changes do you expect the 2019 to bring?

I can not give you a definitive answer. There is no killer app on the blockchain that every citizen is suddenly using. Blockchain does not solve problems at the end user level. It can be compared to the plumbing. You do not see how water comes to your tap at home, but you're waiting for hot water whenever you need it. This is the goal of the blockchain. Be behind the scenes, improve existing business processes, establish new ones in an efficient and economically sustainable way. The end users, the citizens, will not really see it. The social effect will be gradual. There will not be a "big bang" in 2019, a revolution or something. It is going to be more of a progressive change. You will not see the naked eye every day. It will take some time.

In which areas do you see your fastest blockchain solution grow?

It all started with financial services. It is now followed by participants in the supply chain. Producers, producers, transport companies, other active participants in the supply chain process. Next I think about what will happen in 2019 and we will see more and more cases of use in the health sector, as well as in the manufacturing industries.

Will the public sector change significantly through the use of blockchains?

Yes sure. It already happens. The fact that regulators connect to existing corporate networks and have full control over all events and transactions that occur in a specific sector under their supervision. It's already a big problem. Two major concerns of the government or public administration must be able to fulfill their obligations arising from their mission, and to do so with limited human resources they have.
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They welcome the blockchain, not as a solution that will get rid of them, but as a tool that will give them a complete view of what happens in specific sectors or business processes that they supervise on a daily basis.

Is there a difference between the way the EEC and the rest of the world interact with the blockchain?

One of the main peculiarities of the EEC is the common heritage and the history that we share. This translates into the technological advancement phase in which we are all-in. Most of our countries started its modern part of history 25-27 years ago without any technical background, which means that we do not have to face in terms of business processes with some pre-existing logical or physical constructs that were built 100-200 Years ago. This is a huge advantage as it has given us the opportunity to build something from scratch and jump into a specific technological phase compared to some counterparts in Western Europe or North America. As a result, many of the traditional blockchain use cases that many people talk about, which are perhaps applicable in Western Europe or the United States, are not applicable in the EEC for one simple reason – we have solved these problems with other means and technologies a long time ago.

Now we are focusing on other issues that are not known in Western European countries, so we are creating solutions to the problems that Western European countries will not have to face, however in the near future. We have a huge advantage here, because whatever we build here and we are more dynamic in terms of creating really interesting solutions, we will be able to use them as exportable products and be the leaders for blockchain in corporate adoption.

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