The year 2020 has been conditioned by the pandemic, which has turned everything upside down, especially face-to-face events. Blockchain Summit UY reinvented itself as Blockchain Summit Global in its third edition with great force, an incredible line-up of speakers and a truly unconventional audience.
Like a live TV show, the third edition of Blockchain Summit Global was launched with a truly cosmopolitan audience, reaching over 3. Here’s the list: Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Belarus, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Finland, Germany, Guatemala, India, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, etc…..
Event details
Duration: 2 days – 3 and 4 September
Over 3,000 participants
10 panels on different topics
84 leading speakers
6 workshops with 200 registered participants
1 Virtual Network Room in charge of IBM
22 hours of broadcasting
Blockchain Summit Global activities
Between conferences, forums and a packed agenda, the two-day event was held from a television studio in Montevideo, live to the world, with Blockchain technology as the trigger and also covering the new technologies converging in what is being called Revolution 4.0.
The experts analysed the current situation and prospects for the financial system and blockchain technology in Latin America.
All the most important topics taking place today in the world of blockchain were presented. If there’s one conference that covers every topic and caters for every profile, it’s the Blockchain Summit Global.
High-level speakers from 15 different countries took part, all leaders in their field.
Blockchain, cryptocurrencies, decentralised finance, platforms, use cases, tools, smart, applications, communication – everything was brought together by the world’s leaders.
Over the two days, 6 workshops were organised, attracting great interest, with 200 people taking part. IBM led one of the workshops on a highly topical subject: “How to create an electronic voting system using the IBM Blockchain platform”, and challenged those who completed it to a special prize.
Companies and brands
IOVLabs, Hyperledger, Microsoft, IBM, ConsenSys, FedEx, Amazon Web Services (AWS), IECISA El Corte Inglés – Gfi Group, Decred, Novablock, Kleros, AAVE and Grant Thorton, among others, were present at the event, which was born in Uruguay and has already consolidated with a truly global reach.
A number of leading figures from the world of technology and finance gave their views at the Blockchain Summit Global. There were also speakers from the sphere of government, such as the President of the Central Bank of Uruguay, the Executive Director of Uruguay XXI and the President of UTE, Uruguay’s energy company.
During the first day, Jaime Miller, Executive Director of Uruguay XXI, gave the opening speech where he described how the country is planted to offer a broad perspective in terms of industrial and commercial development and also the implementation of Blockchain, both legally and technologically. He stated that Uruguay is a perfect testing ground for the development of this technology and the clear national plan is to become a technological and commercial centre, particularly for growth that points towards e-government.
He highlighted the presence of Jerry Cuomo, IBM Fellow, and Vice President of Blockchain Technologies at IBM: “Being an IBM Fellow is being in a ‘superstar’ type category. Cuomo doesn’t usually give talks, so it was a real honour to have him participate”, as Ignacio Varèse, founder and co-organiser of the event, explained.
Another presentation, which attracted a great deal of interest, focused on the possibility of transparently tracing the production stages of an ethical and ecologically sustainable clothing line. Pablo Benitez, from Blockfashion, explained that guaranteeing and validating the correct information about industrial products is a commitment that the industry can offer the consumer, thanks to the power of process information validation that Blockchain possesses.
Cecilia Chapiro, from UNICEF, explained how this technology could validate the identity of refugee minors who, due to their own condition, have lost the means to prove their nationality. UNICEF supports humanitarian companies that can improve the quality of life of children through Blockchain-based procedures.
Representatives from UNICEF and Fedex also discussed their experiences.
In terms of supply chain control, Dale Chrystie, Blockchain Strategist at Fedex, explained how the shipping giant has started to implement Blockchain-based procedures in its business model to report the status of shipments on time and provide accurate information about their services to the end customer.
The challenges presented by cryptocurrencies
The challenges were also discussed in a panel on exchanges and in another panel on the current state of cryptocurrency mining, moderated by Ken Tenzer, co-organising partner and with the participation of prominent entrepreneurs in the field such as Vincent Wong of Novablack.
The presentation of a ‘fireside chat’ was highly anticipated and applauded by Mariana Sanguinetti and Amiti Uttarwar, recognised as the first female Bitcoin Core developer. Among other exciting topics, they also concluded that there is still a long way to go in terms of having more women in the industry.
DeFI is one of the most important topics in the blockchain world, and it was one of the most important topics of the first day.
With the participation of Alberto Gómez Toribio from Spain who gave an excellent introduction, followed by a panel with experts from different DeFi companies. Perhaps the most anticipated talk was from Stani Kulechov, CEO of AAVE, on how a blockchain is leading the decentralised finance movement.
DeFi is providing funding opportunities to sectors that have historically not had access to the benefits of traditional banking by investing in cryptocurrencies. The large-cap company can not only issue secured loans, but also arbitrage services, a useful function to enable the flow of international trade for faster payment transactions.
Another important topic discussed was the governance of blockchain. After all, who keeps order in a community that belongs to no one in particular? According to DECRED’s Elián Huesca, it is the active consensus of participating members that decides the direction of a blockchain; to do this, it is necessary to develop increasingly sophisticated consultation mechanisms to ensure representation.
At the start of the second day, Diego Labat, President of the Central Bank of Uruguay, opened his presentation by reflecting on the novelty of someone from the economic sector referring to a technological issue as a turning point in national finances. He did so in order to offer the audience the point of view and assimilation of this technology in his office, which intends to apply new and better practices in the pursuit of financial stability.
Labat explained that the monetary levelling of the financial sector begins by assessing the real contribution of technologies to the assimilation of a greater number of players into the economy. Uruguay’s leading financial institution is part of this observation process, seeking comparative advantages with the rest of the world.
Silvia Enaldi, President of UTE (Usinas y Tecnologías Eléctricas en Uruguay) spoke live to co-organiser Nicolás Ribeiro about the importance of certifying renewable energy contracts in the country, which faces the challenge of accounting for energy demand so that every electricity user has more information about their consumption.
With a transparent and unalterable system, a Blockchain-based process would grant more information to the user and would not allow third parties to modify the system to avoid deviations in the records.
Gabriel Kurman, Master Advocate at IOVLabs, gave an excellent presentation on bitcoin as the financial foundation of the future.
Legal and regulatory challenges were addressed by an outstanding legal panel, and another outstanding panel discussed the impact of Blockchain on the traditional financial system. We attended the now classic lecture by Dr Ian Gauci from Malta, who spoke about smart contracts in the legal field. There was also time to present the different education options with a panel of Blockchain education experts.
