Internet of Things: a digitized economy for a fairer future

In a thought-provoking talk about cryptocurrencies and how the banking system works, Danese Cooper walks us through the way many immigrants in the US are receiving their payments and how this system can be improved. “Currencies are geopolitical”, she says. That means that each currency is tied to sovereignty of some political power. On the other hand, poverty is local. It’s a really old problem, one that many have attempted to fix.

The innovations that are happening in technology are opening completely new doors. These innovations shift business models much more quickly that we have ever seen before. Banking is 4,000 years old. A lot of the rules that we have about banking are more like 150 years old. Online banking is about 15 years old. Bitcoin is just 5 years old; that means it’s still going through its infancy. There are some interesting ideas there and what’s more interesting is that everybody has a phone now; that opens much more possibilities.