Blockchain Innovators - Conor Svensson and Dr. Naseem Naqvi

Hi, it's Conor Svensson here, founder and CEO  of Web3 Labs. This is a conversation I had   with Dr. Naseem Naqvi, President of the British  Blockchain Association. Naseem is a medical doctor   by training who created the British Blockchain  Association to promote evidence-based adoption   of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies.  In our conversation we discuss how we went from   being a medical doctor to creating the British  Blockchain Association and very importantly why   evidence-based decision-making is so important  and how one can apply this thinking to blockchain   initiatives. Many significant breakthroughs  have come from the combining of ideas from   multiple fields and given Naseem's medical  routes, I'm sure you'll find his perspective   fascinating here. So, Dr. Naseem Naqvi,  it's great to have you here on the podcast.   Yeah, thank you Conor, thanks for inviting me.  So, I've spoken to a lot of doctors of philosophy   previously, people with PHDs, but this is the  first time I've actually had a real doctor here!   So for our listeners, your background from what  I could see on the LinkedIn file is that you're   a Senior Consultant, specializing in Hyper-Acute  Stroke and Stroke Thrombolysis. For those of you   who are outside of the UK, consultant is obviously  a senior doctor, well it's more than a senior   doctor, it's someone who's very well established  within the trade. So I have to ask, how was it   that you went from being a doctor to getting  involved in blockchain and then the British   Blockchain Association because it's kind of  crazy, right? Yeah. So it's kind of interesting.   I think it was in the mid '16, I received a  WhatsApp message from a friend about Bitcoin and   he said 'Look, look at this! This is interesting!  This is a kind of a new new money!' and   I didn't get it! I remember I kept  asking him 'What company is it and   if it's money, which government is printing this  money?' And he went like 'No, no, there is no   company. There's no government. This is a fair  based money', and I had to spend quite some time   getting my head around what this was all about!  I remember a few weeks later, I was invited to   this crypto ICO type meetup in Manchester and  there was this guy talking about blockchain. So   that was the first time I heard about blockchain  and two things immediately struck me. One was this   complete lack of evidence that the claims that  he was making - so many millions of users and   revolutionized this and that - I'm not new to  technology, there's always a technology thread   running through what I did. I was involved  in setting up a cardiac diagnostic service,   first of its kind, in the north of Scotland. I was  also a part of the team that set up the first tele   health stroke search for patients in the northwest  of England so I was not new to technologies. We   have had regular encounters with the med tech  representatives and pitching all sorts of   stuff and devices and technology solutions to us.  We have a framework that we go through - What's   the evidence? Is it peer reviewed? Do you have  phase 4 data, real world data? - and so on.   So I have a very balanced view about them. That  was the kind of thing that really struck me.   So the biggest challenge I thought at that time is  to how to implement these technologies in a kind   of evidence-based way and the second thing  I remember, he was mentioning about some   association in Canada. When I searched I couldn't  find any blockchain association and a national   blockchain association in the UK so that's when  I decided to do something with the blockchain. So   having come from a medical background as well, I  can see the analytical approach that is embedded   in that and having gone through years and years  of training to actually be qualified no doubt   that brought a certain amount of discipline and a  scientific approach really to how you looked upon   the space. Yes, at one level there was all of the  noise being made about ICOs, we've got all these   millions of users and everyone's gonna have these  crazy returns from investing in this but you came   at it with your more scientific mindset. I think  certainly what's fascinating as well is that   when people combine sort of multidisciplinary  approaches together, the end result can often   be some quite significant jumps forward and so  clearly that's what's happened there with the BBA.   You saw that there wasn't a British group but  you went one step further and you said 'okay   well if there's not one created then I'm going  to get one off the ground'. So was that a solo   effort? Did you find collaborators to do it? How  did you actually get to that point of having the   British Blockchain Association up and running?  So yeah, when I did some some research about   blockchain and also in particular the blockchain  landscape in the UK back in 2016, the one thing   I could find was this Mark Walport report on  distributed ledger technology. Mark Walport was   the government's Chief Scientific Officer then  and he published report on distributed ledgers   and one of the recommendations was that  blockchain applications should be research-backed   and peer-reviewed. Another recommendation  was this formation of a neutral think tank   to advance distributed ledgers technologies  in the UK by working with all stakeholders.   So that was the thing that really set this up, the  Mark Walport's report and then you're absolutely   right, the evidence-based practice as a science  has been around for more than four decades.   It started in medicine by a guy called Archibald  Cochrane, he was Scottish and what he observed was   that patients were dying because of the treatment  that was offered to them which was not based on   scientific evidence. Then it very  quickly spread across all nature of scientific disciplines from medicine, to  nursing, to cyber security. There is a   center for evidence-based cyber security in the  USA and many other disciplines so this was kind of   the starting point for us. We felt that we  should go ahead and set up this world's first   center for evidence-based blockchain advancing  evidence-based adoption of distributed ledgers,   peer reviewed science backed. So that's how it  began. And so we're free to touch a little bit   more on evidence-based blockchain as you said,  with the evidence-based initiatives in medicine,   you're ultimately about ensuring that patients  are getting the best quality of care that they   can and that they're minimizing the chances of  something going wrong with treatments. What's   the downside or the protection of what you're  trying to achieve with evidence-based blockchain? Yeah, so that's a great question. Evidence-based  blockchain is essentially - What's the problem   that you are trying to solve? What is the  evidence for the problem? So, not just what   the problem is but how big is it? Who else has  solved the problem? What were the outcomes?   And, what are the other interventions that  have been tried before to solve this problem?   What are the expected outcomes and how are you  going to show that your solution, your project,   your idea is working? How would you define  success? And it can be can be many things.   So this is in a nutshell - What it is and how  I would like to describe is the PCIO approach   so problem comparison intervention and outcome  - What is the problem that you are trying to   solve? What is your intervention? Who are  the competitors? What has been done before?   What were the outcomes of those interventions?  And what is new about your solution?   How is it different from your competitors? How is  it going to be better from your contemporaries?   And what are the outcomes  that you are interested in?   How you go about it is that you look for  evidence for all these four questions so   what is the problem, where is the evidence for  the problem, is this an evidence published in   scientific literature, do we have large studies/  systematic reviews/ problems highlighted national   reports/ in consortium reports or is it  just based on some blog or something?   Then you apply all these principles of searching  for the best available scientific evidence.   So we published a study last year looking at  the state of play in blockchain and crypto   assets and what we found is about one half of the  all enterprises and corporations we looked at (we   looked at over 500 companies) around 50 percent  of them were able to clearly define the problem,   less than one third of them were able to cite  the comparison intervention analysis and just   under two percent publish the evidence of  outcomes in terms of the results 'what impact   they have achieved' and so on. So I think it's  very important that if you have undertaken an   experiment you publish your outcomes, you describe  your outcomes and even if you have not so positive   results, you should still go ahead and publish  it because this is how to learn as an industry,   as an ecosystem. This is what evidence-based  blockchain is, it tries to streamline,   define, describe very clearly a pictured certain  way of what you are doing, how you are trying   to solve a problem and how is it going to  benefit the community, benefit the society. So, thinking about it, compared with the more,  I guess, traditional business-centric approaches   to finding new market opportunities and actually  executing on those, I think you can kind of argue   that the evidence-based approach is underpinned  by a scientific approach whereas a lot of   business approaches can often feel  quite ad hoc in comparison. So   for people who are thinking about this  from a business centric perspective, who   work in large organizations or organizations that  are trying to drive change with the technology,   what's the right level of engagement  or adoption or awareness that they   should embrace for this evidence-based approach  versus the current frameworks that they might   be doing that have prescribed by say their  organization or perhaps somewhat looser and   more just being driven by political initiatives in  comparison? Yeah that's right, I mean this is what   I've been advocating for the last many years. It's  not a huge difference in terms of how you approach   it in a traditional way versus an evidence based,  it's very, very simple, straightforward. Anybody   can do it, everybody should do it from from  c-suite executives to founders, owners, workers,   team members. It's a simple, straightforward  approach - What are we doing? What are we   trying to achieve? What is the evidence for  that? How are we going to show what we are   going to achieve? Is it going to be impactful? Is  it going to be used for the society? How are we   going to go about reporting the results? How are  we going to go about collecting the data? So the   evidence approach is not a huge difference from  what enterprises do. It's just a matter of doing   it in a more systematic way, in a more structured  way, in a more scientific way. Starting from the   what exactly is the problem that you're trying to  solve and then going about it. Everybody should be   doing it, I think. We've seen that it is sometimes  difficult because of the way, as you mentioned,   the political side of things, the organizational  culture. Sometimes people don't know what it is   and how it works. But I think what's important to  understand also is that, for example, funding...   so if you look at European Commission Guidelines  and in the USA they looked at 10 programs,   community programs over the 10 years and what  they found was that nine of them were not based   on scientific evidence. When I say scientific  evidence it means what we call randomized control   studies. We look at multiple scientific evidences  and studies to look at how you solve a problem.   And they found that nine out of those ten  projects were not based on any scientific evidence   which led to a very major change. You may have  heard of this Evidence-based Policy Making Act   in the USA in 2019, so a big law in the United  States, and they found out that they were losing   around nine billion per project for  nine projects it's over 80 billion   dollars they wasted because they realized  that the programs were not working and they   weren't effective because they were not based on  scientific evidence. So I would really recommend   everyone to go and read this Evidence-based  Policy Making Act which became a law in the   United States. Evidence-based practices, as  I said, are spread across disciplines now.   If you look at the European Commission Report from  last year, they are talking about decision makers   to have an evidence-based approach to problem  solving, this is the report on blockchain.   IBM blockchain for enterprise book, the  very first page, I remember it's a have   a very clear understanding of what the problem  is and have an evidence-based perspective of it.   More than two dozen papers have been published  now on the subject of evidence-based blockchain.   There was one published last year on the  PCIO framework, that I just mentioned,   on the use of that framework in agri-farming  industry, it was featured by the BBC. So I think   people are getting to know about  it but it's that some people have   not got a very clear understanding of the  fundamental principles of evidence-based   blockchain. This is where we have been  working a lot in raising awareness of this.   Presumably when you have blockchain being  applied to industries that already use a   more evidence-based approach, there's going  to be quite a natural synergy there but   where there's going to be more of a challenge  will be in those industries which perhaps aren't.   You talk a lot about evidence but if someone  is undertaking a project, what are the   resources that you'd want people to go to if  they're following an evidence-based approach?   I think a lot of the time people look at things  like news sites and so on to learn more about   press releases of work that companies have done  that might be related to their industry but when   you talk about evidence, what is the golden source  of evidence that you want you'd encourage people   to be looking for here? Okay, so the gold  standard for all scientific disciplines is systematic reviews and meta-analysis. Let me  explain to you what that means. When you conduct   a scientific project looking at whatever problem  that you're trying to solve, you've got some data,   you put up a hypothesis, you work on a project,  you did a case study, you've got some results,   you've got some data and you publish your  findings in a scientific peer review journal so   it's been looked at. Maybe you have some  contemporaries, they conducted their own   research and now you have over a period of time a  collection of multiple scientific research studies   all looking at the same or similar problem. So  over time you have this collection of research   studies peer-reviewed research studies and now  what we have is this very, very valuable data set   and if we were to combine the results of  those studies in a scientific way and there   are different ways you could do that, that  combination of scientific studies it's what   we call meta-analysis. You may have seen that  pyramid-looking structure that I keep on sharing   on social media, the top of that is a systematic  review of meta-analysis, basically a systematic   review of all the published research  studies on a particular topic and   combining the results of those studies to come  to a conclusion what works, what doesn't work   and what we should do now because blockchain is  relatively new scientific discipline. When I say   relatively new it means been around for a decade  or two decades or so but there are scientific   disciplines that have been around for centuries.  For those subjects we have got a a very, very, very, very rich data set of systematic  reviews/ meta-analysis. We don't have that   now in blockchain but I think it is coming.   So you start your your search from - Have I got  any systematic reviews or meta analysis on this   particular problem that I'm trying to solve? For  example, search for 'new blockchain for Spain',   you probably won't find any systematic reviewer  meta-analysis because I don't think anybody has   combined the results of multiple peer-reviewed  research studies on supply chain to come to   a data set which is a combination, a conclusion, a  summary of those research studies. So what we have   at present, there are very occasional systematic  reviews and meta-analysis. I think there are some   in the use of blockchain in healthcare if you  search. So your searching should start from,   yes you're right, not from news items but from  where these research studies are published so   things like the Directory of Open Access Journals,  you look at Google Scholar, you look at Microsoft   Academic, JBBA, other peer reviewed journals.  So if you want to do things properly, this is   this should be your starting point - What is the  problem that I'm trying to solve? Where can I find   the evidence? So the sources of evidence. You're  an enterprise, you're a CEO, C-suite Executive,   look for systematic reviews and meta-analysis  in scientific outlets such as Directory of Open   Access Journals and so on. Now, if you can't  find one then the next best available option is   a scientific peer-reviewed individual research  studies. There are many studies for example that   we've published in the JBBA on supply chain and  healthcare and genomics and and so on and use   of blockchain for voting and for government and  public services. So you have individual research   studies, ideally should be peer reviewed because  it adds some rigor that somebody has looked at it.   Then you have individual case studies  which are not peer reviewed and then you   go down in the evidence hierarchy ladder to  essays and analysis and opinion articles.   But I would suggest that if you want to  do it properly in an evidence-based way,   please do start higher up and then come down  from systematic reviews, national guidelines,   meta-analysis, individual research, peer review  research and then individual case studies,   non-peer review research articles, opinions  analysis and so on. Okay. So if we were just   to simplify in terms of one step for someone, so  instead of searching through news sites and so on,   should they say go to the Google Scholar and  search for the term 'systematic review' and   whatever the topic they're looking at? I'm just  thinking in terms of if someone's listening,   there's lots of different levels here but let's  think in terms of if there's one step that will   get someone at least going in the right  direction which would be better than where   they are now. Or would it be even going via the  Journal of the British Blockchain Association?   I think if we can give someone one takeaway that  we really want to emphasize here which will at   least get them on that path. Yeah, absolutely. So  one take away is Google Scholar is absolutely fine   but you have to be careful sometimes. Not all  research that is posted there is peer reviewed.   Peer reviews, like I said, are very,  very important. I shared recently in   one of the Australian guidelines that recently  published, they said they are not going to fund   some of the research if it's not a peer  reviewed. Research is, I think, is a very abused word in the blockchain space, everything  has been called research. What I like to call   proper research is research that is conducted  in a scientific way as it should be done by   having a very clear problem, your  hypothesis, your methodology, data   collection has to be very robust, your outcomes,  your conclusion, your limitations of the study,   your directions for future development and then  you have to publish your work in a peer-reviewed   outlet where it is looked by and reviewed  by other experts in the field. So start from   Google Scholar but please do make sure it's  not just a non-peer-reviewed, non-published   preprint. There are lots of pre-prints on  SSRN and Research Gate and other places,   so make sure. If you're not sure, you can always  go back to the author and ask which scientific   journal was this case study published in. So  start from Google Scholar, start from Directory   of Open Access Journal. I keep mentioning  Directory of Open Access Journal because   in order to be indexed in the DOAJ you have to  already fulfill at least 40-45 very stringent   criteria. So JBBA is indexed in DOAJ and you  can't just index your scientific journal in DOAJ,   you have to fulfill at least 40 plus a very  stringent criteria. For example, one of them is   that your research has to be permanently archived  somewhere. So all articles published are in the   JBBA repository which means that if tomorrow  JBBA was to disappear or go down as an outlet,   then all the research articles will still be  there on the portal. So this is just one of the   criteria you have to have, a peer review board.  You have to have a very clear ethical policy   on scientific publishing. You have to  have very clear peer review policies   so you can't just index a journal in the Directory  of Open Access Journal unless it is very robust   and meets the highest standards in scientific  publishing. I would suggest that you start   with DOAJ, Google Scholar is also fine, JBBA is  fine, any peer reviewed journal but don't just   Google search it because you're  going to find a lot of, what I call,   unfiltered information which means that it's  not peer-reviewed and sometimes not credible.   That's where I would start. What I would also say  is that when you're trying to solve a problem,   collect evidence both for the problem and also  for the solution that has been proposed. So search   evidence for the problem - How big is the problem?  What's the evidence that the problem exists?   Who is talking about it? If you have a problem and  the United Nation is worried about that problem   then I would suggest that you probably look  into solving that problem before someone else   says that 'I think this is a problem but you have  got no evidence for that problem'. So search for   the problem as well as the solution when you  are searching for high quality information.   Some very good points there and certainly one  of the fascinating things about blockchain and   cryptocurrencies and all the projects and the  ecosystems around that is that white papers are   like a core tenant of that and of course a white  paper yes, certain things like say the Bitcoin   white paper and the Ethereum white paper, they've  become in effect reference like academic pieces of   work because they've been such a success, they've  been so influential. But by and large a white   paper is just put together by a team, it's not  peer-reviewed as such, it's reviewed by the team   who do it and is it possible for a white paper to  actually become peer-reviewed? Would it need to be   in a journal to do that or is there a way that  it could actually be shown to be peer-reviewed?   Okay, so there are three very very  important points here. First of all,   the Bitcoin white paper was not  peer reviewed in a scientific way   as you would call a peer review but I think  with the fact that the author or the authors,   they did not want to reveal their identity I think  it would have been very difficult. If I receive   a very anonymous submission to my journal with  no author identity and no institution identity,   I don't think any journal would be in a position  to review it. I've recently shared a post,   just yesterday, if you look at the references  that Satoshi cited in his white paper,   there are only eight references and five of them  are peer-reviewed scientific papers of which three   are conference proceedings from Scientific  Symposia. So I think Satoshi was an academic   because out of only eight references that he  cited, five were from peer-reviewed research   papers, so that's an exception. Having said that,  it was obviously quite extensively peer-reviewed,   not in a scientific peer-reviewed sense  but in the community. Now is it possible   for a white paper to be peer reviewed? Yes  of course. We have published many papers.   If you look at the paper that was presented  last year on genomics NFTs, non-fungible tokens,   privacy laws and genomics in the JBBA, it was  originally a white paper and it was presented as a   scientific research abstract at our International  Scientific Conference in Edinburgh. The author   came all the way from America to present his  work. It was peer reviewed at an abstract stage   so the abstract was peer reviewed. Then when he  presented his work, it was reviewed on the day   by the scholars and then he published his full  paper in the JBBA which was again peer-reviewed   in a double-blind fashion so the reviewers didn't  know the identity of the author, the author didn't   know the reviewer. The paper was assessed purely  on the basis of merit so yes, it was reviewed.   I would recommend anybody in the industry who  wants to do things properly to go and read that   on non-fungible tokens in the JBBA. That's  fascinating and this is great to hear how   really the connections between the white  papers that are going out there and how   they can become peer-reviewed content as long as  the authors... And what I would also like to add   Conor is that white paper is a business  document. So white paper talks about   sometimes token distribution and how are we  going to go about our business operations.   Scientific researchers are not interested  in that. What they're interested in is   how robust is the underlying technology that  you are using, your methodology, how did you   go about collecting the data for the problem  that you are solving, what is the solution. So   they are going to look at the technical side  of things and also the practicality - how are   you going to solve a particular problem and  the claims that you are making in your paper.   But white paper, most of it sometimes, is just the  token distribution and the future plans and so on.   If you have written a white paper it's great but  I would suggest that you also write a blue paper.   So the Ethereum paper is actually a blue. Ethereum  has two papers, the one written by Gavin Wood is a   blue paper which is the technical paper and then  there is another one which is the white paper.   So I think with Bitcoin, they say it's  Bitcoin white paper but actually it's   not a Bitcoin white paper, I think it's Bitcoin  blue paper because it's got a lot of technical   details of how this thing would work and much  less about the the token distribution. So,   when you're writing a white paper please do write  a blue paper at the same time, the technical paper   on demonstrating how you go about actually  the technology side of things rather than   just the token distribution model. This  is an important point to clarify. Yeah,   it's funny that the notion of blue papers doesn't  actually come up really at all in the community   because given the inherently technical nature of  blockchain and cryptocurrency in many projects,   a lot of these white papers are presented more  akin to a blue paper or a technical paper.   They're written using LaTeX or using a  scientific markup language in effect and   it's quite technical the depth you go into there.  Yeah, absolutely. There have been talks about,   you may have heard about it, talks about  auditing the code and those sorts of things. That's what it is, so it's essentially looking at  the technical side of things, the technicalities   of the product and not so much how many tokens  you're going to distribute over what period of   time. So I think if you look at the paper I'm  referring to, it's actually a blue paper which   was a white paper initially but then a blue paper  and then converted into a proper research paper.   So yes, it is possible, I think, with  some effort. I would really recommend the enterprises, and especially the startups,  to look into. Because, the thing with the peer   review is that some people do not have a very  clear understanding of what it is and I would   like to really emphasize the importance of  when you submit your work for peer review   there is no ... to it. So your work  gets reviewed in a double blind fashion,   now it can be single blind, it could be open  where you know the identity of the reviewer   and reviewer knows the identity of the author but  for JBBA, we have kept double blind so there is   no risk and there is no fee for a peer review.  Journals like the JBBA would only charge you   a small fee for the publication of the article,  processing charge only if your paper is accepted   for publication. So you could submit your work  to the JBBA, it will get reviewed for free and   your paper gets better, your paper almost  always gets better. We review papers and almost always they improve - the  text, the language, the structure.   Methodology obviously you can't change, once  you've got the results you've got the results,   but really it looks at it in a very, very  scientific way - in a constructively critical   way and it just improves your work. So you can  have your paper reviewed, there's no fee to pay   and then you can revise your paper and then  resubmit and it gets published. It happens all   the time so I would really recommend enterprise  and startups to write up a scientific paper,   submit it for peer review, it almost always gets  better after expert reviews, resubmit it and there   you have a published paper. Yeah and while we're  on the subject of peer review and blockchain,   one of the protocols that's really pushing for a  lot more academic rigor with their approach and   putting out a lot of peer-reviewed research is  Cardano. Has the work there sort of bubbled up   much into your world within the BBA? Because,  certainly of all of the protocols, I think   what Charles Hoskinson, one of the creators there,  is really keen on is this whole notion of applying   lots of academic rigor to it. He engaged a very  significant number of people from the academic   community to help build out their work so I'd  be interested to hear if that's come onto your   radar and what you think about it. Oh, not  at all, I have not heard much about them.   Okay, he spoke with Lex Friedman on the podcast  recently. It provided some useful context because   it was quite eye-opening to me because as someone  who's coming at it more from the traditional   technology and business angle, they spoke a lot  about, as you have here, the notion of why having   that review is so powerful and how it creates  better quality work. So I think in terms of the   crossovers, it's certainly relevant. So, moving  on from the evidence-based approach there, I   think people clearly will have an idea of how they  can actually move forward and especially with the   Directory of Open Access Journals as well there,  it sounds like a great starting point. Recently,   the BBA actually published the UK's National  Blockchain Roadmap in collaboration with the UK's   All-party Parliamentary Group on blockchain. There  are some really good takeaways there. I mean,   some of the things that popped up on my radar were  things like evidence-based policy making, that the   UK can become Center of Excellence with DLT but  also collaborate a lot with other countries, help   embrace the United Nations Sustainable Development  Goals as well which ensure that we build out the   right cyber infrastructure here and it's clearly  a very impactful piece of work that you've done.   Would you be able to just tell us a bit more about  it and why it's so important? Yeah, sure. So,   this is an Excellence Standards Framework. I  think less than a dozen, fewer than a dozen   countries in the world actually have a national  blockchain roadmap, the UK is now one of them.   The framework is an excellence standards framework  set of recommendations to exactly position the UK   at the forefront of our DLT leadership and making  the UK a Center of Excellence in Distributed   Ledger Technologies. It took us a few months.  We had various consultations with stakeholders   over the past months to put together  this document, a very futuristic - what   the vision 2030 would look like for blockchain  in the UK and beyond. So the need for that was   when Mark Walport's report was published in  2016, we didn't have that much discussion on DAOs   or NFTs or DeFi and lightning network and others,  there are many, many other emerging modalities,   so there was a need to kind of come up with a very  forward-looking futuristic plan. So we have some   really key recommendations in the report. One  is the formation of subspecialty groups and one   entire subspecialty group has been dedicated to  emerging tech like NFTs, DeFi, lightning network.   Then there is allied disciplines, there's a lot of  convergence, as you know, AI and IoT and others. Another important recommendation is quadruple  helix ecosystem which is essentially working with   all stakeholders, government, academia, industry  and society and why is it important - we have   seen recently with the infrastructure bill in the  US that there seemed to be a disconnect between   policy makers in the industry. If you look  at, for example, the bitcoin mining issue, the   industry is saying that bitcoin mining is green  and 70 percent is green and renewable resources.   Then we have sociologists, anthropologists saying  it is harmful for the society and so on. So   every now and then we have some disparities  and disconnect in various stakeholders in   the ecosystem. It is very important that we  work together. It was highlighted in previous   reports also societal impact are important. It is  important that we now measure the societal impact   of blockchain applications, what we are doing  - is it making an impact? You mentioned about   international collaboration. Yes, so that's a  nation's collective wisdom supporting each other   and learning from each other and this is part of  work that we're doing at the BBA. The Blockchain   Associations Forum which has 48 countries now  is growing, we meet up regularly to discuss   issues that are faced by the technology of  global nature. Sustainable development goals,   I think, is a very important topic. Recently  we published a research in the JBBA looking at   how industrial symbols networks can help and  advance the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.   So industrial symbiosis  network is essentially using   the waste products of one industry as a raw  material for another and just the IS sense,   if used on a blockchain, could generate about  1.3 trillion revenue over the next few years,   this is just one example. So sustainable  development is very important.   Workforce planning, we have to make sure that  UK remains a very attractive hub for talent and there are many others. Yeah, so this is kind  of in a nutshell what we will be working on with   all stakeholders and I would like to invite all  associations stakeholders in the UK and also   globally to come and join these sub specialty  groups and work with us. We are planning to   publish the first report sometime end of next  year and we will be publishing reports regularly   over the next decade. But the plan is to work  on these recommendations and come up with some   concrete outputs. And the way in which the people  achieve that, if they want to get involved,   would that be by joining the BBA or would  it be through some other industry groups?   No, joining the BBA. All our members are  already a part of it and all BBA members   would be invited to contribute to it. So  if you are interested in joining a group,   what I suggest to enterprises and  organizations. Because if you look at   the social impact recommendation and also the  sub specialty group, it's quite broad, it's very   multi-stakeholder from governance, academia,  emerging tech, public services, social impact,   healthcare and life sciences.  So specify the domain   that you are working on or you wish to contribute,  drop us an email and we will have a chat with you,   discuss with you, how you can make a meaningful  contribution and then we take it from there. Awesome! And so one of the things as well  that you mentioned was having a public   repository of successfully implemented use  cases. Where would such a repository exist   because it sounds like an incredibly useful thing  to have out there especially when you combine that   with being underpinned by an evidence-based  approach as well. What would be the way that   you'd think that would be presented? Would  it be like a web portal? I'm curious to hear!   Yeah, that's right. So a web portal. What  we don't know yet, we know that we have a   successful use case. We've got  some. We know through the JBBA   and some other resources but what we  need is a database collection of all the   use cases of blockchain and cryptos that have  been successful. Success depends how you define   it in terms of revenue generation, impacting  the society and there are many others but   have a database for the UK so that we can go  to, you can learn from it and others can learn   from it. Yeah, so it would be entirely like  a web repository and we said that it will be   managed by one of the specialty, subspecialty  groups. First of all, the first thing I think   is data protection, so if you are interested, or  if anyone is interested in collecting that data we   will be very happy to have a chat with you because  I don't think any such depository exists. So, it   would be good to have like a national repository  of all the successful cases, A web repository   where we can add those cases which have  demonstrated success, tangible impactful   outcomes, it's research backed, peer reviewed  and there is no such repository that exists,   at least not to my knowledge. So I think it's  important to have that and this is something   that we will be working on. So if anyone, if your  listeners to this podcast would like to contribute   or help us in building that repository,  I'll be very happy to have a chat with them. Awesome! So I think this is a great place to start  to wrap up our conversation. As you've said there,   for people who want to get involved with the  actual National Blockchain Roadmap, no doubt   joining the BBA is a great  place to start. But also,   it's not just a, although the name is the British  Blockchain Association, you certainly cater for   very much so an international community of  academics, companies, members and so on.   I presume although there are some local  initiatives there, it's the broader academic   blockchain and applying the right rigor that is  the key underlying agenda that you have here?   That's right, yeah. So it's open to all as I  said, you don't necessarily have to be in the   UK to join the National Blockchain Roadway because  it's a very global technology and without borders.   You could be anywhere and still contribute to  the Roadmap and you will be featured in the next   report. In fact, all organizations who contribute  to the report whether it's through sub-specialty   groups, through building a depository or  measuring the societal impact of use cases,   we will make sure that you will get featured  in the next report and you can be anywhere.   So the best way is to just drop us an email,  specify the domain, your area that you would   like to contribute to and we'll be very happy  to have a chat with you. Yes, it's open to all. Wonderful! So other than getting involved in  the BBA and people going to the BBA's website,   are there other places where people can  find you if they want to reach out? Do   you need to use LinkedIn or Twitter? What's  the best way for people to engage with you?   So yeah, if you want to engage with me directly  you can reach out on LinkedIn, connect with me   on LinkedIn. I'm also on Twitter, I don't  have a rich following. LinkedIn, I do have,   so I think the best thing is LinkedIn if you want  to get in touch with me. We also host monthly   BBA forums which are open access, there is no  fee to register or attend and you can meet me   and our advisory board there. So the next meetup  is in September. It's usually held on the last   Sunday of every month. So you could connect and  attend those meetups there and you can meet me,   'emeet' me, LinkedIn, BBA website and we are proactive on all social media  channels and Facebook and Medium also.   Yeah, so if you want to get involved  just send an email to me on LinkedIn.   Awesome! Well Naseem, it's been an absolute  pleasure to host you and also from a personal   perspective, I'm a big fan of the work of the BBA  as well. I think that the evidence-based approach   and following a more scientific approach  to many different businesses initiatives   would pay big dividends for people in the long  run. So it's been great to host you here and   have a chat today. Thank you very  much Conor. Thank you for inviting me.