Adam Pantanowitz — Adam Pantanowitz is a fanatical technologist, who enjoys solving seemingly unsolvable problems, particularly with the help of cloud computing and machine learning.

at his time for what's involved. My special guest tonight, been looking forward to chatting to him. Well, since I was first introduced to the concept of him, it is Adam Pantanovich. Hello, Adam. - Thank you for having me, David. - It's a pleasure. I was thinking and I always do some research before the show and I do some research on my guests and anything, I was like, how am I gonna introduce Adam and what he does? Adam is amazing and he does a lot of stuff. Didn't seem to cut it. (laughing) You've accomplished so much, most importantly, and I think what we're gonna be leading to is the fact that, am I correct? You're gonna be speaking at the Singularity U Summit? - That's correct. - Right here in Jobig, that's happening on the 16th, 17th of October. - Yes. - We have interviewed one of the faculty members previously, John Sonnet. Hello John, hope you're listening to your mate on the wireless. It was fascinating. The concept of Singularity U, just explain that a little bit to me and then why are you talking there? - Well, thank you so much for your kind words. The concept of Singularity U is, it is a university, a collection of people, a think tank that's really created to look at how technology can better the lives of all humankind.

So it's really a positive organization centered around change, and at the summit, you have the opportunity to hear from all sorts of change makers in all sorts of fields of technology and how the future of technology is shaping our lives as humanity. - Okay, and your passion or speciality, I mean, you have been referred to as a fanatical technologist. - Absolutely, and you mentioned what is the reason I'll be speaking there. So the reason I'll be speaking there is I have been very involved in technology for as long as I can remember. I've pretty much been passionate about technology my whole life. And as part of that, I've done all sorts of things with and in technology in my career. I'll be speaking at the summit specifically though about kind of a fusion between my own personal life and technology. A lot of the thoughts that I've been having around how technology is changing us as human beings, how we are changing with technology, and how I really, in my own personal adventure, have gotten to this point. So I will be speaking about that component at the summit. And to date, I've had all sorts of adventures in technology. And I suppose I've been referred to as a fanatical technologist 'cause I try to kind of just play with any technology I can get my hands on, work with any technology I can, and I'm just absolutely fascinated by what we can do with it.

- Biotech is also one of your things, isn't it? - Absolutely, I studied biomedical engineering originally, and biotech is absolutely fascinating because we, as these organic beings, are becoming, moving ourselves into this era where we can be enhanced greatly and no longer is evolution outside of our control. We're starting to kind of put our own fingerprints, so to speak, into the mix of these technologies. And that is a completely fascinating and unprecedented time. So we're in one of the most exciting periods of history of humanity. - Referred to as the fourth industrial revolution, a lot of people are very excited. I speak to you, your face lights up, you get, and there's a lot of people who are like, oh, doom and gloom, it's the rise of Skynet, and we are now all gonna get taken over by the robots and they're gonna wipe off the face of the planet. I don't believe it is like that, but I do believe that there is some amazing things coming. The important bit, and what I got from chatting to you, is that you don't want it just to be for the elite. You want this to be changed as accessible to everybody. - Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, one of the most important things that technology does when given enough time is technology democratizes itself.

It allows all humanity to access it. And while we have technology in the hands of the few elites, I think we are running risk in society. So I definitely don't think that we can go forward into a future where technology becomes concentrated and is used for the wrong purposes. I definitely believe in using technology to forge forward in a better future for all of us. - Okay, so this moves me now onto, 'cause I did warn you, we go all over the place. It's whatever happens and whatever comes up is what we talk about. - Love it. - But you're now busy with your PhD. - Yes. - You've got published papers. Apparently you are contributing, or have contributed to three books this year. - That's correct. - It's only September, for sake. But the fascinating, one of the fascinating parts about this is your journey, and we find this with so many people when you get to talk to them and find out about it, because often we think that we, we're very isolated and we think we're the only ones that are, but you've had a heck of a journey. I mean, you had some serious medical issues growing up, which meant that a large chunk of your school career, you missed out on. And then you still decided you wanted to go and do this whole engineering thing.

Tell me about that. - Okay, that's absolutely true. And I went through a lot of difficulty growing up from a medical perspective. The difficulties that I faced were a result of some surgeries that I had to have in order to correct my walking. I got to a point because of a neuropathy that I have too, where I was unable to walk. And I was required to have surgery, but unfortunately the surgery itself didn't go so well. And I was kind of taken out of society for, I mean, initially for six months where I was completely bedridden and then needed to regain my ability to walk. I really learned the age of 14 years old, how to walk again. - Again. - And I lost a lot of time and contact through the following subsequent years, where I was going through a variety of different things from a chronic pain condition. - Let's stop and just talk about this very quickly. 'Cause you glossed over it. You said surgeries and then you said neuropathy. What is neuropathy? - Neuropathy is a condition that affects the nerves of the body, potentially in the extremities of the body. So that means hands and feet. That's how it is in my case. - Well, if you're very lucky, it might decide to travel up your legs. It could manifest anywhere else.

But I mean, basically when you say nerves, what actually, the nerves die off or do they just misfire? - It depends. I think there are a variety of different conditions which creates neuropathy. In many cases, there's misfiring. In other conditions, the nerves are dying off. Sometimes there's a combination of the two at play in terms of the pathology that results in neuropathy. And it causes pain and discomfort. It causes an incorrect firing of muscles. And so it can create a lot of complexity. But it's a pain, we talked about this briefly over here. And the reason I'm asking you is like, when I probed, and I did. I mean, you weren't very forthcoming about this. And that's fine because it's your own journey. But I got the same thing. I got mine as a result of diabetes. But people look at me and they go, "Neuropathy, number one, they don't understand it." Number two, they don't understand the level of pain. Explain to me because the fact that you've missed out on all this and you managed to study, get into engineering, and that's not only, you did like a parallel stream, didn't you? - I actually did, yes, two pieces of engineering. First biomedical and then electrical engineering, which is a great option at Witz University.

And totally, I mean, I'm really, you know, I'm really sorry to hear about what you're going. And what you've struggled with. I completely get that. I feel that for me, this is, and has been a very, very challenging condition in my life. And it's given me great awareness that other people go through all sorts of unimaginable things that none of us even can fathom. In a moment in meeting someone, there are all of these hidden dimensions in that person's life that this person is bringing along. And we needed to have therefore great empathy for each other around what we are carrying. So I'm back to my adventure. I went through to the university. I had no clue what I wanted to do. I was looking to become a BA or a BSC, because I had no direction. I had missed out on basically, I would say 60 to 80% of my five years of high school, which got extended to six years, 'cause I had to do metric over two years because of all the school I'd missed. I continued to miss during metric. And when I got to university, I basically kind of begged them to let me into engineering when I heard about it through persistence. - You're like, okay, that's on, yeah, that's me. - Exactly. In that moment, it was me.

It was what I had been doing naturally at home. Instead of being at school, it was what I was doing, tinkering with technology, breaking my computer, installing viruses on it, then trying to get back into it. So I was playing with technology naturally. And getting into engineering was about a continuation of this adventure of tech. And I just realized this thing sounds amazing. It also said on the website, this is one of the hardest courses that that VITA to offer. And that intrigued me so much and excited me. At the same time, made me very fearful of the adventure that I would have ahead in terms of those few years of university, because I didn't even have basic math skills at that point. I had kind of just gotten through school and- - And they're kind of one math skills for engineering. - Kind of one math skills. Definitely math is an important one. I was able in my first year to catch up on the maths that I'd missed. And from then on, engineering just clicked with me and I had an unbelievable time in undergrad. I was just completely excited by this potential world and what it could bring. And I was still really struggling with my condition through those days. - I wanted to ask you that because when somebody meets you or they meet me, for example, they're like, yeah, okay, nothing upwardly wrong with you.

I mean, you know, you got all your limbs and everything and everything sort of seems to be where it should be. So what are you whinging about? But I mean, explain to me being able to study through that level of pain. - So it was really challenging. I mean, I would get home from university and I would crash for two or three hours in the evening. - I know that feeling. - I would just, yeah. - You just can't, you cannot anymore. - Just absolutely crash. I would wake up again and then have something to eat, maybe be on the computer a little bit and then do some work into the night, into the early hours of the night. And funnily enough, I remember all sorts of things like, I was fortunate enough to have a car at the time and I used to have a disabled sticker that was given to me through the university, but I used to hide this from all my peers. No one really knew about this thing that I was going through and I was extremely cautious and private about it. In fact, if someone noticed something about the way I walked, I was actually almost adversarial when I heard someone asking me questions about this. And I've obviously completely changed my view on that in the last period of my life. But at the time, really, really struggled to move through the campus.

I would hide my disabled sticker, drive park in the disabled bay and kind of like get to the next lecture. And it was really, really challenging to get through. But the funny thing is that by the end of it, I realized that I was able to put my body through stresses that perhaps my peers were not. I was able to pull all nighters. I had actually found that I'd gotten some sort of resilience from this condition that even though I was really, really, really combat, I was combating it on a daily basis trying to fight it. And it was hindering me in many ways. It became a great enabler. First of all, greatly enabled me in what I do in my career. It was, I would say the very thing that has created this amazing career for me. - And I think that is important. It's not so much what happens to you, but it's how you deal with what happens to you. And I'm glad you're talking about, and this is probably one of the first times I've really spoken about it as well, because it is something you almost feel bad if you've got this neuropathy condition, because there's people that are, at least in my mind, there's been people way worse than me. And you don't really talk about it. And then suddenly you start to hear about these other people in the world.

And there's many, many people that have neuropathy. And they go through their daily lives with this incredible pain all the time. It's relentless, it's unceasing. And just to be able to function is an absolute mission. I think you can attest to the time days getting out of bed is a problem. - I can absolutely attest to that now. Through those years, I absolutely had this daily struggle and the impact on my life was absolutely massive. It's so hard to describe to someone, and you spoke about appearing to be fine. So there are all sorts of hidden disabilities. So I spoke to you a little bit about how people come with all these dimensions of their own complexities, things that they go through. One of those things are hidden disabilities. There are people out there who appear to be totally normal to the outside world, but would use a parking bay and then be stigmatized for it. And they have a totally legitimate reason to use a disabled parking bay. - And I think this is the important thing. And I'm gonna bring the conversation back now to biotech into this fourth industrial revolution. But part of that is enhancing our humanity, I believe, becoming more human, more empathetic and understanding people.

Would you not say that? - There's no doubt about it. Now, people talk about, and it's such an insightful point you raise because people talk about this idea that we can, what are we gonna do for self-actualization if in the future there is less work? - Yeah. - And one of the amazing things that we can do is explore anything about our humanity that we want to. I believe brain computer interfaces can bring about, for instance, a wave of empathy for our fellow human beings. And if that is our frontier, that is a worthwhile frontier. We definitely, and certainly singularity is narrative. Singularity used narrative is a lot about this. It's a lot about saying, how can we better explore humanity, become better humans? - Yeah, get technology to take care of the mundane day-to-day stuff and let us become more human. - Absolutely. Love it. My special guest in studio, Adam Pantanovich this evening, referred to as a fanatical technologist. The sum of the stuff he's done is just phenomenal. We're gonna talk about that when we come back. It is what's involved on Monday night. My special guest in studio with me, and I can now, I had to just double check my facts. Faculty member of Singularity, you, Adam Pantanovich.

You've overcome amazing obstacles you've used, and I think this is important for anybody that's listening tonight, is you've taken what a lot of people would have gone, yep, it's a disability, okay? So let's not expect too much from the boy, okay? And yet you've turned it into this, and it's motivated you to do a whole lot of stuff in the biotech area, and it amazes me that you're part of Singularity. You were talking about this fourth industrial revolution, and yet you're a tech, self-confessed tech junkie, but yet you seem to have become more human and more aware of the human condition through this process. So what are you working on now? - It's an amazing summary. I've never heard it put quite like that. I'm quite spellbound by that summary that you gave. - Thanks. Well, I won't remember in about 30 seconds from now. It's a good thing we're recording. - So it's absolutely true that this process has shaped me into what I am professionally, and that this condition was something that was a huge barrier and obstacle for me, and has been both the very best thing and the very worst thing that has happened to me. My parents, funnily enough, I do recall when I was trying to get through my trick, a conversation that they were having about what's gonna happen to Adam?

How's he gonna stand? How's he gonna kinda do any job? And they were so worried about how it was gonna function out there in the world, and now looking back and I'm so absolutely inspired by technology that it's just greatly enabled my life. And I believe it will enable the lives of countless other people in remarkable ways. So you asked about what I'm working on right now. I would say, right now I'm doing a lot of research with Fitts University. We're creating some awesome things in the medical technology space. Some recent advancements that we had is we were able to pass through a computer message, a string, through the human brain to put a brain into a computer network. And the idea there is to help people to-- - Yes, my face is lit up if you could see it now. - To utilize their environments in a different way. So disabled people who can look around in an environment and control that environment. So we were doing some fundamental research in that space and we were able to not just figure out that a person was looking at a specific light source, but use the light to encode a message and connect people up to within a computer network. So human being within the network. We've created eye-controlled wheelchairs, surgery automation system, and a variety of other innovations in the meditech or health tech space.

And it's been an unbelievable journey with Fitts University. And I'm just so grateful to be affiliated with such a great institution that's also on the forefront of societal change and is doing so much good for society. And then in addition to that, I'm speaking a lot with Singularity University. I'm having the most fantastic time sharing with people stories about this brain technology, where the future of brain technology is going, robotics, machine learning, speaking about AI. And I guess all of these things in the fourth industrial revolution, which are going to greatly impact our lives. So I've traveled quite a bit with Singularity U, speaking about these topics. And I'm now starting to do a little bit more around my personal life with Singularity U. - Good for you. - So this topic that we're speaking about tonight, I hope to bring it into the summit on the 16th and 17th of October. It's something I'm really looking forward to because I'm gonna be able to get on stage and really share some of this personal story. And then I'm working on this business with some of my co-founders called Aura, which is a security aggregation platform. And there we're trying to democratize access to security tech within South Africa.

- Okay, you need to use big words, make them little for me. So what does that mean to me? - In terms of Aura? - Yes. - What Aura means is that you can have access to an armed response service if you ever need it. And my hope is that we don't need it. It's one of those businesses that in many ways I wish we weren't in a society where we had such prevalence of poverty and such prevalence of crime. But as a response to the conditions in which we find ourselves, we've created the system to help people to get access to armed response when they need it, as fast as possible because we use technology to auto dispatch the very nearest responder, kind of the way Uber works. And we get an armed response person to that site where they are needed in record time. And we're saving a lot of people. We're saving a lot of lives and we're really proud of the work we're doing there. - Armed response, medical response as well? - We don't do medical response for now. I mean, at the moment we've purely focused on a good armed response service and trying to really change the way that armed response is accessed in the country. - Okay, I'm sure I'm speaking on behalf of a whole bunch of people here. Could you please look at the medical response side as well, please, just because if you've ever tried to get a provincial ambulance to come to you, forget it.

- I really appreciate what you're saying, especially in light of our conversation. Medical is so important and we'll definitely take that on board. - Fantastic. Listen, my special guest in studio is, we can't call you a doctor yet. Are you a prof... No, Professor, no, like, what are you? A member of the VITS faculty? - Yes, for sure. - And part of singularity to you, Adam Bentenevitz. Listen, if you would like to have a chat, find out anything that you wanna know about the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We're gonna talk a little bit about singularity, you about that conference that's coming up, the summit. You can SMS us, the SMS line, 41348. SMS is charged at 150. Otherwise, WhatsApp us, 0848220938. He says, looking across to make sure he got that right. 0848220938. Got some voicemail saying, what else? Dear Mr. What? I love it when people say Mr. What. David's fine. Thank you for your absolutely amazing show. Every Monday night, your host's own inspiration. So there we go. We've got a very interesting question in. Adam, listen to this one. I think, if I can find the right mouse to use, you're gonna like this. Listen closely. He says... - In the talk tonight, I'd like to know your guys' opinion on how close we are to backing up human memories and human sort of emotions onto computers.

I'd love to hear your guys' opinions on that. - Well, there we go. - So backing up human memories and human emotions. - I would love to do that, 'cause sometimes my head feels full. I'd love to just plug in an external hard drive, or maybe the stuff I don't like, just download that. This human computer interface, how close are we? - It's a great question now. I often get asked a question along these lines that is a challenging question. And I often start off by saying, hey, you know what? We're already kind of doing this. We are doing it because we have these repositories of our memories, photographs. We have reference systems like a system like Todoist, which might store your daily tasks or things. If you use a getting things done productivity system like myself. So we are already outsourcing large pieces of our memory of our brains to an application, and not just an application, but an entire network. So we are already somewhat augmented through these networks. And I don't know, David, if you ever have this experience where you're about to fall asleep, and your mind wakes you up to say, hey, you forgot to buy cat food or something. You didn't do during the day. So those moments, if you have a trusted repository where your brain knows it will later look, your brain can let go of those moments, and suddenly you no longer woken by those moments, because your brain has this trusted repository.

Your brain references that and knows that you've outsourced a component of itself. So because of that fact, I say, we're already very much connected and hooked into our technology. And that's just not the way that we are constantly checking out social media, although that is a big part of it. It's just that we're doing this through our thumbs. We're doing this in quite a rudimentary way through our fingertips and through our thumbs. And that is the computer interaction or the human computer interface that we see today in the world. In the future though, like our listener has asked, there will be much more seamless neural interfaces. So I do believe we're going to a place where we'll be able to store parts of ourselves, our organic selves in some form in the network, whether that be the internet or another, we can debate and get into some of the merits of that. But no doubt in my mind, we are going towards a world where this is going to be true. And how long are we away from it? I don't think we're as long as we think. We are perhaps, and I would guess about the future or extrapolate into the future, somewhere about five years away from having these types of rudimentary systems, maybe even sooner, tested on human beings, are probably sooner.

I mean, there are claims by neural link of two years for human trials, but in terms of that type of interaction that's being described, I think we're still away away. But it's, whilst it is exceptionally fast, I mean, if you talk to somebody who's in their 70s or 80s today, this technology thing has gone unbelievably, it's exploded over the last while. For us who are living it, you're like, yeah, it's not that much. I mean, I always used to go, I'm a technophobe, I don't do technology. I was, when I used to do the DJing thing, when they brought out CDs, this was the stuff, this was what magic is this rubbish? And then I went on to CDs, okay? - Yes. - Then suddenly they started to talk about MP3s. I will never touch that stuff. Once again, the work of Satan. Now I walk into a gig and I've got two memory sticks. - 100%. - Whereas I used to like boxes and boxes. I used to fill up, I mentioned this earlier, I used to fill up, I love writing stuff. I love that, it's very visceral to me. But I used to fill up notebooks and notebooks and notebooks and notebooks. And then being as organized as I am, I would lose notebooks and notebooks. Now I've got something, excuse me, something called a rocket book, which is a never ending notebook.

- 100%. - I get to write, which is beautiful. But then it's a little quick scan and off it goes to, and you were mentioning some of these offline repositories, the mind goes to Evernote. Evernote remembers everything. - Yeah, absolutely. - So we are doing it. - We are doing it. And the funny thing about technology is that it is deceptively slow until it is no longer deceptively slow. And suddenly it is everywhere. It is proliferant, it is impacting our lives and changing it in dramatic ways. And we, even though we've seen such amazing change, I think we're still at the foot of this unbelievable, unbelievable advancement that we face as a species in terms of what technology can do and create for us. We're at the beginning of those changes. And, you know, you mentioned those two flash disks that you walk into a gig with and it makes me think we're in a space now where anywhere you go, so long as you have your phone, which is not just a phone, of course, it has just about every feature. - Well, you think 30 years ago, if somebody said to you, you're gonna have this device which you're gonna be able to carry around. It's got no cords, no connections and make phone calls. You would have gone, "Mm-mm." And now look at what it can do.

- Access to all music. - Yeah. Music, movies, information. - Access to all music. - Information. - Oh. - It's unbelievable. - No, listen, it's a rabbit hole. And I should not be allowed. I actually have now had to limit myself with YouTube because I will go to YouTube with something in mind and suddenly there's shiny objects and I can disappear down a rabbit hole for like hours and hours. Oh, another message just came in. It says, "Thanks for the fantastic answer, Adam. "Sci-fi approaching reality." - Awesome. - So there we go. I think it is. I don't think it's a bad thing. - I don't think it is either. It brings to mind so many thoughts. The one is that sci-fi imbues in us this imprint of a future and we go about building that future. So it's so funny how, you know, because we visualized it through what a portrayal has done through Hollywood, we've got this visualization and we actually as humanity go out and build that very future. So if we wanna build a different future from the one sci-fi is showing us, we need to reimagine the future we wanna build together. And you know, one of the things that you said. Sorry, I was just wondering. Sorry, I wondered there. Did you see me wondering?

I was just wondering when. When are you science people gonna deliver the lightsaber? We have been waiting. - You know, we all have to. We all have to go and do that. - I want a lightsaber. It's all I want. - And I think that future that we wanna build, it's we all need to participate in building that lightsaber. Whatever that future is that we choose to build together. None of us are passengers on this technological journey. We all play and we all play a very important role and our future is dependent on our involvement in that. And one of the interesting things that you said was how you can go down this technological rabbit hole. And it made me think about all this information that's flying at us at the moment at any point in time. - Yeah, how do we do this? I mean, I've got so many questions. We're running out of time. Are Google spying on us? Is Facebook like from another diameter? What is happening? We've got so much information and then somebody says to me, 5G best thing ever, but it's gonna kill you. I don't know. We got so much stuff, help. - There is a fortune that is coming at us. And you know, one of the amazing quotes from that book, "Future Shock" by Alvin Tofflow is, there is, I'm paraphrasing, but countless amounts of information trying to penetrate into your nervous system at any point in time.

And we started off speaking about the nervous system. So I'm fascinated by this amazing nervous system that we have inside our bodies, this brain and nervous system that exists and allows us to do all these fascinating things and to create businesses or create what are really cybernetic organisms, which are your ideas from within your brain out there in the real world that you've created. So really extensions of your nervous system. And that's the amazing thing that we get to do in this world is create these amazing things with our nervous systems. So because there's so much information trying to seek entry into our nervous systems at any given time, we really feel that we've reached some sort of limits. We've, we hit with all this information. A lot of it is negative in the media and it's hard for us to navigate all of this information to really discern out what is correct. And I think that's such an important role in society of science is to actually help us to navigate what is correct. So you mentioned 5G. We don't have an offhand view on what it's gonna do to us as humans. And there's so much misinformation out there. We really need to go back to relying on good science to guide us in this complex world when we're trying to navigate it.

- 'Cause I think that's one place where we've given away our critical and rational thinking is like if it's on the internet, it must be true. And it's not. - 100% and I think the most fascinating, one of the most fascinating papers that I saw is about spread of information on Twitter. If it is both exciting and shocking, it spreads much more with much greater volatility. It's much more likely to spread. - We've got a very, very, very thin veneer of civilization over us because let me tell you sensationalism, blood and guts and violence, all of those things. Then we there, we are there. We love to watch it. I saw a video clip taken just down the road here in Midland this morning. A truck overturned, lost a load of eggs and the driver was trapped in it. - Wow. - Passes by, steal the eggs. - No. - Leave the driver. I'm like, what have we become? - Where is our humanity? - And that's the important thing. Listen, sure. - Somebody else has gone, somebody goes, Adman. Are you sometimes called Adman? - Yes, I am. Someone knows me. - Somebody knows you. - Hello. - They haven't given a name, but they-- - That was my nickname back on IRC days, Merck. Dating back to the early days of the internet.

I was Adman. - I was on IRC and then we used to send nukes to people. We used to nuke your mates. Remember that? - Yeah, absolutely. - My goodness, internet relay chat. - Such fun. - We were there. - Such fun. - With a dial-up modem. - That's what I grew up on. That's literally the lifeblood of me. That is it. - Oh, we used to send each other little viruses and everything, man. - Exactly, open each other's CD-ROMs so that you can play your CDs. - Yes, yes. I've got another one in here. It's a GIF that says the matrix is coming, which is, it's a little GIF, or GIF, the one with the red pull and the blue pull. - Yes. - So I often go, why, oh, why didn't I take the blue pull? - I try to say yes in my best morpheus because I think I failed hard. - I've been told that the status of blockchain tech is currently where the internet was in the early '90s, and it's about to explode. What are your thoughts on this, Adam? And what are its benefits going forward? I think we're gonna have to make that like kind of the last question this time around, but it has become clear we need to get you back. - Oh, I'd love to. Thank you for that. - Let's get you back. I think, let's make that commitment right now.

- Awesome, it's such a fun chat. - So blockchain, because I've heard blockchain can do all sorts of amazing things. Number one, it can get rid of some of the big banking institutions that make such a lot of money. But I mean, that's what the marketing says. What do you think of blockchain? - Right, so I became so fascinated with blockchain in the last few years. I took a deep dive into financial blockchains. There's a great faculty speaker, Tanya Knowles, on South African faculty who works in blockchain full time. And she's just a very interesting person to chat to about blockchain. And she actually speaks about this topic. So from what I know about blockchain, I would say, blockchain is an unbelievable consensus system for financial transactions and for storing value and moving it around on the internet. And I have heard that same idea that we are at the beginning of this massive change. I think I'd like to say that this change is not just localized within blockchain, but it is repeated in a variety of other technologies which are coming online, so to speak. Technologies that were in the infancy for a very long time and are starting to really snowball and become greatly impactful for our lives.

And I think blockchain is one of those technologies that is particularly exciting. It has gone through a bit of cycles. There was a boom and then a bust. And the financial cryptocurrencies have had all sorts of things happen to them. - But there's implication way beyond the finance side of things as I understand it for blockchain technology. It's a secure way of transferring information essentially. - And there's a lot of debate about where blockchain is going and will it be so impactful in all of these spaces. My view is absolutely we have, it's not necessarily a perfect technology, but it's a great deal better than a lot of the technologies that we adopt and use for things like governance and voting and consensus and preventing fraud. So it is a great technology that's gonna advance us in a variety of ways then. That's not to say that it is a flawless technology. For instance, there's double spending potential in certain cryptocurrencies. There's all sorts of quirks and complexities. There are attacks that you can do a 51% attack as it's called where you are able to gain control of the financial blockchain if you mine it enough, if you commit enough resource to it. But there are also natural resiliences in resiliences in these systems that allow for them to perform these functions.

So I do think there's a really exciting future and I don't think that we can discount that it's like the early days of the internet. If blockchain does come off the way that it should and already it's so amazing. I mean, my friend and I send some Bitcoin cash to each other in a second between here and Cape Town. Before he was able to, I heard the beep on the phone that he had received the Bitcoin cash before it was even sent from my side. It was just unbelievable to see. - So just financially, it's unbelievable in and of itself. - All right, by the way, the mystery person said, told me who they were, Grant V. - Grant V, hello Grant V. - So there we go, Grant V is listening. Adam, in summary and to wrap up.

You're gonna be speaking at the upcoming Singularity U South Africa Summit in Joburg. It's on the 16th and 17th of October. Are people able to attend that? I've been fortunate enough, I've received an invite. But can Mr. Joe Public go and attend this and see what's happening? - Absolutely, now the summit is up and coming and I'm just so excited for me to just be able to learn from all these other people who are gonna be attending. They are some unbelievable thought leaders. So you can attend. It is moving towards the late mover tickets. So the tickets are running out quickly and unfortunately you can only fit so many people into such a big venue, but there will be, there are tickets available, people can purchase tickets online and Singularity, once the summit is sold out, there won't be the opportunity to attend. But there are all sorts of things that the Singularity U South Africa team, Mick and Shane Mann are doing at the moment to bring a community together around this type of thinking. And one of the examples of that is the chapter events. And I was just in Cape Town in Joburg to speak at the chapter events on robotics and AI. And there are other events that people can attend if they're unable to make it to the summit, but I really hope to see everyone at the summit.

- Just say to them with the technology we have, film this thing, let me buy an online pass. - I'll tell the guys. - Tell them that's what we wanna do. Thank you, mate, thank you, thank you so much. I wish you all the best. I hope to see you at the summit. It's the Singularity U South Africa Summit. Just look it up on the internet. It's on the 16th and 17th of October. We didn't even finish talking about all of this info coming into our systems. Are we being infected or not? You have to come back. - I'd love to. - Thank you so much. - Thank you so much. - My special guest, Adam Pantanovich, fanatical technologist and one of the speakers at this year's Singularity U South Africa Summit. We're gonna be looking forward to that. When we come back, we're going to be chatting. It's been a while to our resident internet marketing guru. We're going to be chatting to Andy Brocklehurst. And I thought tonight we'd find out, number one, how Andy's doing, what they're up to. I've noticed over the last while he's been doing a lot of stuff on Amazon, more specifically on Kindle. And I want to find out if you and I can get onto Kindle. So we'll do that when we come back.