How Smart Contracts Will Change the World | Olga Mack | TEDxSanFrancisco

[Music] when I was six growing up in Siberia I told my mother that I would like to become an artist she said wonderful to be clear it wasn't like how was your day at the carnival wonderful but more like I spilled my coffee and white shirt wonderful you see in my kindergarten the artworks were arranged from best to last and I was always second to the bottom and so before my mother agreed to spend on my art education she wanted to know why do I want to be an artist and so without missing a beat and looking her straight in the eye I said I want to make the world a more beautiful place of course and that is how I spent seven years getting to know the universal language of visual arts and as I was getting better seven years later we emigrated to the United States I was 13 I did not speak English and you remember 13 right very few things are more traumatic that a combination of puberty and high school but at least everybody else had a chance to discuss how traumatic it was I could not say a word and instead I was lost in my studies and discovered another universal language of math and science and so I had a second career conversation with my mother where I told her that I would like to become an engineer my mother asked me why and without missing a beat I looked her straight in the eye and I said to make a world a more functional place of course now you have to understand - my parents were both engineers this was music to their ears my dad walked a little taller and he was already a very tall guy and my mom smiled she finally did something right but that didn't last I learned English I developed opinions I developed a sense of justice and I wanted to make sure that I make an impact I really earned to make a difference so I had a third conversation with my mother where I told her that I would like to become a lawyer she didn't even ask why and the conversation very quickly escalated from mom to dad so my dad sat me down and he said Olga I got used to the idea of you making the world I'm a beautiful place and then you had this idea of making the world I'm a functional place and I thought that was a terrific idea it sounds like you gave up on both but that was different I actually wanted to ask Oh took the bar exam became a check or so take that dad I'm kidding my dad has always been supportive this is not the story I'm gonna tell him but he never stopped wondering how two engineers managed to raise one lawyer now fast forward to today and I think I finally have discovered that thing that will make a world I'm a beautiful and functional place smart contracts and before I go tell you what they are and give you examples of their applications let me talk a little bit about blockchain the underlying technology now you may be wondering what on earth is blockchain and if you think about it for a minute you may even imagine a movie starring somebody like the Dwayne the rock Johnson you know blockchain the unfortunate name aside it is really an immutable distributed ledger immutable means that if you put something on blockchain it's really hard to change it is pretty much there forever distributed means that no one computer can't decide it's a network of computers around the world sharing that decision and ledger is just a table like an Excel table that contains a lot of information now what makes this technology work is cryptology which is a magic ingredient when you mix it a lot that's what makes work sharing work now this technology is no joke it's a lot of math but at the core I think of blockchain as a history of all transactions now using blockchain and technology platform like a serial you can build decentralized applications or adapts and at the core of the apps are smart contracts so that brings me to smart contracts let's talk about smart contracts I hate to disappoint you those smart contracts also have a misguiding name they're not really smart as in this little girl is very smart and they're not really contracts as in pages of pages of legalese where you sign at the our mandate not that kind of contract there are really pieces of code that codify business logic and at the core they facilitate three functions one they store rules two they verify rules and three they self executables I tend to think of them as very secure vending machines so for example every vending machine stores a rule that if you insert a dollar you may get a snack of choice and then when you go and insert in fact a dollar it verifies the correct amount and after verification voila a happy moment you get a snack of choice that is kind of how smart contracts works and because they are blockchain application there is no intermediary there is no broker there is no escrow agent there is no government corporation not even a lawyer it executes automatically so to summarize smart contracts are pieces of code they're very secure and they self execute that's very exciting and the world of business is in the process of embracing smart contracts we'll see numerous applications in IOT financial sector supply chain and numerous others but the reason I get up in the morning and get really excited about smart contracts is because of their potential to solve problems that have never been solved before now I'm gonna go through four applications and I will treat them separate but in reality anyone's smart contracts can combine more than one application I want to make sure that you really get a breadth and depth of what's possible so application one smart contracts are very good at storing data so for example there is an American startup that is rethinking census and they're building a decentralized protocol using smart contracts census is a very powerful tool in the United States and many other nations census is how we determine how to distribute billions of federal dollars every year's census is how we determine where we build bridges schools roads hospitals so census is very important this startup collects questions from the people then it collects answers from the people and then it securely stores at all on blockchain and anonymously so this way our legislators can really get a representative representation of who we are as people and what it is that we want smart contracts are very good at facilitating trust so for example another startup now a little bit more international it includes people from Australia Canada and Germany is connecting urban farmers landowners and consumers it allows putting small lease agreements on blockchain using smaller contracts and facilitate renting of small plots of land and small plots of land add up to a big field so for example if I owned a house in San Francisco and I don't have time or interest to garden I can rent my backyard or if I have a flat roof even a roof for somebody to cultivate this now the benefits of urban farming are huge it allows to decrease our carbon footprint it allows us to build tighter community it's an opportunity to explain to our children where food comes from and most importantly urban farming is beautiful and delicious now number three smart contracts can function as software libraries and I know that sounds a little dry talking about software libraries is a little bit like me inviting you to watch the paint dry or watch the grass grow it's a little boring I get it but it actually has life-saving applications so for example in the United States over a hundred thousand people are waiting for kidney transplant transplant every year and on average it takes three to five years and in some states it takes up to ten and the real bomber is is that the longer you wait the less likely the transplant is successful there is of course a solution to this many hospitals allow somebody in the patient's network to donate a kidney like a friend a family member a co-worker or just a giant stranger but the challenge is is that the donor is not always a match there is a solution to that as well hospitals allow a swap so for example if a donor a is not a match with a patient a and a donor B is not a match with a patient B they can swap the challenge is this solution is highly geographically limited so two women from Germany Germany and France are creating a protocol that allows to match paired donations real-time and across geographies so not only does it solve the problem of time it also allows for successful transplant operations application for smart contracts are really good at authenticating so for example since 2015 a start-up in Finland has been working with the government to give a prepaid card to every refugee and displaced person who enters that country that card stores identity on blockchain a refugee can now go into the bank and open a bank account no passport no ID is required they can then quickly get government benefits so they can survive but it gets even more interesting than this using smart contracts they can borrow from their network so not only can they survive they actually can build credit and have a chance to thrive what if we extend this solution to 70 million refugees who on average stay in their host country for over ten years you know when we think of a better world we don't usually think about blockchain we don't think about smart contract and it's partially because these technologies are not well understood of course funny names very complicated technology and lots of maths are not helpful either but I am convinced that once we realize that we can use smart contracts to solve long-standing problems we will attract talent from all over the world and we'll be able to leverage the creativity and knowledge let me give you an example there is a social network as a decentralized social network in New York for artists no words just pictures and the amazing part is to watch those artists play with it explore make mistakes collaborate and ultimately make beautiful art yes there is this part where they use the smart contracts to make sure that they paid fairly and that is absolutely important but you know what is more interesting a hundred fifty thousand artists 50 countries creativity unleashed new artworks that never been seen before collaboration creativity completely Unleashed imagine if we could channel that creativity that intelligence to other disciplines to solving world problems I am convinced that the progress we've made from the beginnings of times up until information age would pale in comparison with what we can do with this technology you see when I was six and wanted to make a world a more beautiful place I never heard of smart contracts and when I was sixteen and wanted to make a world a more functional place I've never heard of smart contract either and even when I went to law school and I wanted to make a world a more just place never heard of smart contracts but today I am convinced that smart contracts have joint Arts and Sciences to make a difference and sold the world's biggest problems imagine a world where a trust is given imagine a world where we can unleash creativity of this planet imagine a world where a census represents who we are where urban farms are thriving where kidney donations are seamless and refugees get part to be to be part of our world wouldn't that be a beautiful and functional world thank you [Applause] [Music]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 225,655

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Technology, Bitcoin, Business, Law

Id: pA6CGuXEKtQ

Length: 17min 37sec (1057 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 06 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/crypto_phantom]

I really this talk on smart contracts. The vending machine analogy is brilliant to help explain it to people that are unfamiliar with the concept.

[u/Suicidal-duck]

Smart contracts put into simple terms, great for beginners.

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