BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY AND THE SEARCH FOR TRUST

A study was done a few years ago which showed that the economies in which there was most trust the cost of doing business was lower allowing them to grow consistently or at least harness the dynamism of their citizens better.

I think that same study showed that almost all of the US output was determinant on trust. It makes sense there has to be trust to do business or to live together for that matter. Doing business takes trust and its businesses that create jobs and the wealth of economies.

Imagine trying to carry out a transaction, say buy sugar in an environment of little or no trust. You will not only have to go to the shop with your own trusted weighing scale but also you chemistry set and a machine to test for counterfeit notes. The shopkeeper will be operating behind burglar proofing or maybe through a small kamoli in his door.

"On a more advanced level it is the reason why one is unable to cash a check over the bank counter. An inconvenience which also has financial implications...

It’s clear that less trust only increases the costs of doing business. Efficiently functioning economies have overcome most of the trust issues through identification and technology. So for instance in more advanced economies credit is easily accessible not only because the financial system is deeper but also which is result of the trust built by identification systems and the ability to continuously track credit histories.

With improving technology getting credit has become quicker – one friend was boasting the other day that he rarely steps into the banks and from his mobile phone can access up to £25,000 (Sh120m) because his bank all the data they need to make the transaction remotely.

Interestingly they are moving to develop more and more trust within their communities to improve even further the ease off doing business.

Enter BlockChain technology.

According to Wikipedia, “A blockchain is a decentralized, distributed and public digital ledger that is used to record transactions across many computers so that any involved record cannot be altered retroactively, without the alteration of all subsequent blocks.”

"The value of this is immense and is key to taking trust to the next level. That transactions done in different geographies can be reflected in real time across a network in a secure system trusted by the parties to that transaction or anyone else looking in.

Key to the technology too, is the fact that this record cannot be altered by any of the parties to the deal leaving it as a permanent record of the transaction.

Blockchain is the technology that under pins the cryptocurrencies. And while the trouble with cryptocurrencies have been myriad they area poor reflection on the capabilities and potential of blockchain technologies.

Think about it the current land issues in Uganda with multiple land titles to a piece of land, alterations done by unauthorized people or even questions about the sequencing of some of these land transactions would be cured if blockchain technology was employed.

Because any transaction would have to be done by the bona fide parties to the deal, any changes to the record once approved would be reflected across the chain and any transaction would be instantaneous saving hours of bureaucratic process and a lot of money.

The same can be said for payments of any kind, validation of academic and other personal documents by anyone around the world and any number of issues in which credibility is key, which if you think about is everything.

The government recently inaugurated Fourth Industrial Revolution task force, which will be underpinned by such technologies as blockchain technologies. The taskforce’s job is to better appreciate these and see how to adopt them and if need be emerge on the cutting edge of this new era.

"This is critical because it is possible that a failure or reluctance to integrate these technologies will set us further back in world development than we already are. The speed with which this widening of the gap would happen would not even allow us to catch our breaths....

The Africa Blockchain Conference will be hosted in Kampala, July 3^rd  – 4^th  and should help keep us a abreast of the latest trends and how our neighbours are adopting.

The bottom line is that anything that increase the level of trust should be something we jump onto, given our history which set the economy back decades. Anything that can help us recover and thrive faster should always be welcome.