 Hello and welcome back to another university segment of Reimagine 2020. My name is Tyler Olson and I am the university program director at Mousebell. And joining me right now is Salman Tite. Salman, do you want to introduce yourself? I'm Salman Tite. I'm a student at Park College and I'm happy to be here with you. Yeah, happy to have you. You know, Prague College just recently got in touch with us and your professor is doing a lot of work to, you know, get blockchain education off the ground over there at Prague College and we've been really happy to be in communication with him and sort of help him out in that respect. But before you tell me a little bit about that and what's happening on your campus, maybe you can share some of your background. How did you get interested in the crypto space and more specifically, what about blockchain technology excites you? I started to be interested at blockchain at the age of I was around 20. Now I'm 25, so it's around five years ago. And it's because one of my family members, he actually works for a blockchain company. So I get to know a little bit about the background of blockchain and also about the cryptocurrency world. And since then I started to be very interested how the technology works behind the Bitcoin and how it actually can change the world. So I started like this. Yeah. What do you think are some of the most pressing issues that blockchain is a potential solution for? I think especially companies that have a lot of partnerships that need to interact with each other a lot. So we can take, for example, in supply chains where you have a tier one, two, three is all around the world and the blockchain can really provide a great solution for these companies. And in addition, I think also in the finance and banking area where blockchain can be integrated to assist to make transactions of course cheaper, faster and more secure. So therefore, I think in the banking area, it could be also a great tool for bank to use. How do things look in Prague? Are there banks? Are the banks in Prague interested in this? Are they even talking about it? How about the government? What's their stance on this? I think from 2017 when the currencies actually started to decline and the blockchain became a bit on the side, more or not in the front, less company actually are talking about blockchain at the moment. I think there needs a lot of education to be done to actually that company will be aware of the potential that blockchain has beyond being just a cryptocurrency as a Bitcoin, for example. Right. They have to actually become aware of how this might behoove them. Why would they even want to use something like a blockchain? And it seems that one of the big hurdles for banks and other kinds of financial institutions is this idea of having to give up the control or having to give up the power on something. They sort of think that it's just inherently a bad thing if you're not the one that has the centralized authority to do certain things. But I think in fact what people are going to start to see is that there's a lot of advantages to having working in the background, open permissionless networks that you can sort of build things on top of and you can circumscribe your own little space and sort of build your own little applications on that. You can still have a major distinction over your own little corner of the network and that respect. And so I think that it's only a matter of time before they start to see that things aren't really operating in the same paradigm that they're used to and they're going to have to learn to separate all of the sort of advantages and sort of pleasures that come with having control over the sort of networks that you're working with and operating within and actually having an open system that you can build things on top of. So yeah, I definitely agree that there's a lot of education that needs to take place before we see some big retail investors or banks integrating these types of systems. I think also actually the current crisis can actually stimulate the use of blockchain because many of these companies are seeking after a solution for the supply chain interruption that has been done by the virus. So I think that one of the alternatives will be actually the adoption of a blockchain to make the supply chain more effective and efficient. Right. Yeah. I mean, I definitely agree. This is a really opportune time for this technology to shine on and show us all what it's capable of doing. How about the general public in your area? Are people talking about cryptocurrencies? Do people use it? Are they skeptical? Well, I think that the reputation of the blockchain is sometimes in a negative way around the average person because they think directly about money laundering, about illegal activities that comes with the blockchain because it's, of course, an anonym as well if you can use it as a currency. So I think there should be much more to educate people about beyond, again, beyond that it can be used as also as a technology that supports cryptocurrencies, but it can also be used in a lot of other areas as in businesses in a private blockchain, for example, or in supply chain. So I think it's a lot about education. Yeah. How about on your campus? What's the state of blockchain education look like over there? In my university, we actually really learn a lot about blockchain and also our professor really tried to integrate the blockchain as a solution of one of the problems that occur at the moment in the world. If it's about FinTech, if it's about the COVID-19 pandemic that is happening, and if it's about to making the supply chain more efficient, and even if it's about banking. So many times in our assignments, we need to actually use the blockchain and to introduce it as one of the solution for the problem that is that's occurring now in the business environment. So it's actually integrated into the course material. This is a part of the curriculum. There's classes that people can take on this stuff. There is a class that is about FinTech and in the FinTech class, actually blockchain is also one of the topics. For example, when we need to write reports, many times we use the blockchain as a solution for one problem that we need to write about. I see. What are you all trying to do with your club? At the moment, we just started the club two weeks ago, one week ago. Our first project is from one girl that actually wants to put on the blockchain the Casava. Casava, it's a route that is going in a couple of areas around the world, but she's from Nigeria and she wants actually to put the farm or supply chain of Casava on the blockchain. Right. I remember Bruce was telling us about that. Are there any other projects that you or any of your colleagues are working on? At the moment, this is our main project or also the first one, but there are some other ideas. One of them is factoring, is to use the blockchain to found small businesses with the use of smart contracts, of selling their invoices to gain working capital and cash flow. This is probably will be the second project we will make. Awesome. Well, we're starting to run out of time here, so I want to just sort of leave you with this one last question. It's been an interesting year so far. We're not even six months into 2020. A lot of people have been losing their jobs. A lot of people have been getting sick, having to make a lot of adjustments on the fly. How do you see things going forward after all of this? What does the future look like to you? How do you want to reimagine 2020? I think that, I mean, since January when the pandemic started, it actually helped for people and for businesses understand how blockchain can be used for their business for their business model. If it's in supply chains, so I think this pandemic gave it kind of a boost and accelerated. I mean, especially the knowledge about it and the use about it. I'm sure that businesses will adopt it because of the pandemic and because they face problems that that's actually happened because of the pandemic. So for blockchain, I think it will be a great year. I definitely agree. Well, Solomon, thank you again for taking some time out of your day. It's a hop on a quick chat with me. I hope that you have a good rest of 2020. I wish the club at Prague College a lot of success in your education endeavors and feel free to reach out to us anytime you want. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. All right, man. Have a good day. Thanks.