Inside CHIME: Digital Leader Don Tapscott on Internet’s ‘Second Era’ and HIT

Inside CHIME - header

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By Candace Stuart, Director of Communications & Public Relations, CHIME
Don Tapscott, CM, BA, BSc, MEd, LLD Co-founder, Blockchain Research Institute Co-author, Blockchain Revolution and Wikinomics

Don Tapscott, CM, BA, BSc, MEd, LLD Co-founder, Blockchain Research Institute, Co-author, Blockchain Revolution and Wikinomics

Two decades after ushering in the “digital economy,” thought leader and CHIME17 closing keynote speaker Don Tapscott has put his reputation behind blockchain. He shares how blockchain will transform business and improve healthcare in a Q&A.

 

You coined the term “digital economy” and predicted its impact on business and society more than two decades ago. Do you see blockchain as equally or more transformative, and if so, why?

In 1994 when I wrote The Digital Economy, the big development was the WEB. Cryptographers were trying to solve the “double spend” problem that blockchain represents but it wasn’t until almost a decade and a half later that Satoshi Nakamoto’s amazing paper made a breakthrough.

In 2013 I was asked to write some new material for the 20th anniversary edition of the book and I started researching what the most important technologies might be for the next 20 years. That drew me into the bitcoin and blockchain world. And in collaboration with my son Alex, we came to the conclusion that this technology represents the second era of the Internet. For decades we’ve had the Internet of information; now we are getting the Internet of value, where for the first time in human history people can exchange and manage value peer to peer. This second era it will be bigger than the first one because it deals with value and assets, the things at the heart of our economy and society.

 

You often talk about blockchain in the context of finances and business. How do you see it being applied to healthcare?

The healthcare system in many countries is under extreme strain, where every stakeholder, from healthcare providers to insurers, drug companies and most of all patients, all suffer as a result. Though there are many culprits, the root of the problem is our industrial-age thinking about delivering healthcare, where data is hoarded, patients are assumed to be ignorant, and where healthcare is only available when you’re in the system. This leads to costly and ineffective care.

Blockchain promises to change that. We can fix healthcare by basing it on a set of new principles — collaboration, openness, and integrity, and where the patient co-creates their own data with full transparency into it. This will all be centered on the portable identity, owned by citizens and which will contain their personal healthcare record.

Let me give you an example. Patients and frontline healthcare providers are separated by a labyrinth of relationships between jurisdictions, professional services, specialists and other providers. The digital processes used are really for the logistics of handling paper documents. There are several paper trails per doctor-patient or patient-provider interaction, and lots of data entry duplication. The process is the same as before anyone had ever heard about a computer, except the information moves into separate data silos much faster. So, a lot of time and effort goes into managing data between organizations.

Another way to put this is that we used to expend energy maintaining databases. Blockchain means we can move beyond the simple custodianship of a database and turn our energies to how we use and manipulate databases — less about maintaining a database, more about managing a system of record.

 

Cybersecurity and the risk of hacks are a major concern of CHIME members. You say that blockchain is more secure than computer-based systems. What makes it more secure?

Blockchain represents a global, distributed, highly secure platform, ledger or database where value could be stored and exchanged and we could all trust each other without powerful intermediaries. Collective self-interest, hard-coded into this new native digital medium for value, would ensure the safety, security and reliability of commerce online. Trust is programmed into the technology, which is why we call blockchain the Trust Protocol.

Blockchains are inherently more secure than traditional technologies, not just because they use the highest levels of cryptography, but because they are distributed. It’s really tough to hack millions of computers simultaneously. Something like bitcoin is highly processed. Think of a Chicken McNugget. Hacking bitcoin would be like turning a Chicken McNugget back into a chicken.

 

You noted that the digital economy posed risks such as the potential loss of privacy, and with time your concerns have proven to be founded. Do you see potential downsides with blockchain as well? If so, what are they?

Well actually, the protection of privacy is one of the biggest benefits of the blockchain. But there are lots of criticisms of blockchain. We discussed a lot of these in our book, Blockchain Revolution. They include this list:

  • The technology is not ready for prime time.
  • The energy consumed by some like bitcoin is unsustainable.
  • Powerful incumbents might usurp it as they did with the Internet of Information.
  • Blockchain could be a job killer.
  • Distributed autonomous agents will form Skynet.
  • Criminals will use it.

We came to the conclusions that these were not showstoppers but rather what we called “implementation challenges.”

 

Although our members are technologically savvy, the leadership in their hospitals and healthcare systems may be less so. How should they frame the concept of blockchain when they introduce it to their CEOs and boards?

This is the second era of the Internet and the most powerful technology for creating a new model of healthcare. It may sound self-serving, but the best source for awareness is our book, Blockchain Revolution. It’s the only best seller on the topic so far. Also, my second TED talk (the first on blockchain by TED) has over 2 million views and is the most viewed video on the topic.

 

As a futurist and influential thinker, you have inspired others to embrace change. Where do you look for inspiration? Has that source changed over the years?

In the mid-1990s I started studying these kids as a generation when I saw how my own children were effortlessly able to use all this sophisticated technology. And at first I thought, my children are prodigies. But then I noticed that all their friends were like them, and the theory that all their friends were prodigies was, you know, a bit of a stretch. I ended up writing a couple of books about this Net Generation. Still today my main inspiration comes from talking to young people, especially my own kids. When it comes to blockchain, every day I learn and am inspired by my son Alex. I tell people, listen to the children. In their experience and culture is the new workplace, the new customer, and the new citizen.

 

Editor’s note: Don Tapscott will provide the closing keynote address Nov. 3 at the CHIME17 Fall CIO Forum, which will be Oct. 31-Nov. 3 in San Antonio, Texas. More information about CHIME17 is available here. To register, go here.

More Inside CHIME Volume 2, No. 18: