India is emerging as a blockchain leader! Grass root awareness has already begun to sprout aspirations for a Web3 world. Add to that, India's problems being an ideal testing ground for real world use cases of Web3 solutions, this mix makes the Sub continent an optimal breeding ground for innovation. India Blockchain Alliance's president Raj Kapoor shares insights on why the Web3 bus will not be missed and why. If you're bullish on what India has to offer for the future of Web3, check this out!

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India Blockchain Alliance - Raj Kapoor

Participants:

• JP (CMO of AdLunam)

• Raj Kapoor (Founder & CEO at Indian Blockchain Alliance)

00:23

JP

All right. Great. Well, welcome to this episode of Diving into Crypto. Ladies and gentlemen, this is JP from AdLunam Inc. bringing you everything about web3. Thank you so much for being here. We have today a very special guest who wears multiple hats and has got a tremendous body of work in the space of Blockchain, AI and ML. We will welcome him onto the show. Before we begin, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to remind you that views expressed on this program belong to that of the speaker and is not to be construed as financial advice. Also, in case we get cut off, visit AdLunam Inc. For the link to get back into the room, get back onto the show as well. In the meantime, towards the end of the show, as usual, we have a question and answer round where you can send in your questions. You could also, in the meantime, send them directly to the speaker.

01:22

JP

We can get them answered for you, or you could send them into AdLunam Inc. And my team will pick that up to ask it during the QnA round. That being said, ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome Mr. Raj Kapoor to the show today. Raj, thank you so much for being here.

01:38

Raj

No, it's my pleasure completely. That's a pleasure. Thank you.

01:43

JP

Right, it's been actually, we've been trying to get you on the show for quite a while. I'm again, really pleased that you accepted our invitation.

01:52

Raj

Yeah, I've been traveling a lot, there's a lot of work happening, and I'm happy to be here now. Actually wanted to be part of the show, but I'm glad today is the right day. It's always the right time at the right place. I think today's the day.

02:08

JP

Superb. I'm glad to see that. Classic optimism from Raj Kapoor. And for those of you that don't know, Raj Kapoor is the name. Raj Kapoor is known across the Indian subcontinent for being a very famous actor. But our speaker over here today, if you've ever had the pleasure, just like I have, of meeting him in person, you will know that he bears the same stature, the same bearing, the same sort of energy that exudes from every pore that is from Raj Kapoor.

02:39

Raj

Sounds good. Thank you. It sounds good when somebody else says it. Yes. I'm going to tell my wife this as well.

02:47

JP

Well, Raj, I'm so glad that you made it here. I'm certain that the audience in the room is curious to find out a little about your background. I know you've got a tremendous body of work, but tell us a little about your background and what got you into this space today.

03:02

Raj

Okay, I'll keep it nice, short and sweet. But I'll just go back, what, 13 years? 13 years back, I actually stumbled upon blockchain and why I'm going 13 years back, because I'm really much older than most of you guys out here. But 13 years back was my first twist with not with destiny, but with blockchain. So my twist with blockchain started, and I started doing a lot of while I was tinkering around a little bit with a couple of friends, et cetera, they introduced me to mining. And my twist with the technology started with a little bit of speculation, a little bit of bitcoin mining, getting to know how does this work? How does one make money out of this technology? It was a little intriguing in the beginning, but that actually put me on the path of discovery, I would say, because I really felt if this is a technology, that all right, not only can I earn something out, of it.

03:56

Raj

04:46

Raj

05:18

JP

I'm glad you said that, Raj, because my next question was, there had to be a moment when the switch flipped for you right through this entire story arc. There had to be that moment. Can you describe for us what that moment was like when you thought, hey, web3 is the space to be for me?

05:34

Raj

Well, the eureka moment, so to speak, came when I actually put mine my first coin. Wow. Am I mining something? Am I earning money out of technology without even having to sell a product or sell a service? That was a turning point. And I said, wow, this is cool. And that was the first turning point. The next came when I actually started seeing the value of the coin going up. So it was speculative to start off with yes. Then the second point came when Ethereum started entering this space. And I would mention these two points because these are the two pivots of my life when Ethereum came in and I loved what they were doing. I loved the fact that blockchain actually can actually solve a lot of real world problems. Just solving a problem and trying to get rich by bitcoin or trying to speculate through bitcoin, that's fine.

06:23

Raj

07:14

Raj

And I think our financial system was broken, our supply chain systems are broken. In fact, most of our systems are broken. Now, here is a technology that's trying to fix it. I'm not saying blockchain is a silver bullet, but bottom line is it does much more than any other technology. And that's when I felt this is going to be a game changing technology. And, well, I think I've been proved right, or I'm in the process of being proved right. Anyways, we've got more than 90 projects by the government of India on blockchain. That's taking a lot for a country that initially had a lot of research and a pushback, especially because of the word crypto. And then India's got a blockchain strategy in place. It's going to have a policy in place. So there's never been for any other technology. So let's look ahead and look at the silver lining instead now.

08:08

Raj

So my moments came when I actually saw the change it made for corporate at the enterprise. And if it makes it the enterprise, governments follow soon.

08:17

JP

That's awesome. Raj, I've been telling everybody that we're going to hear a lot more about what regulations are expected to happen with the blockchain space, the education stuff, the education policies that may come up, but also more importantly at this point of time, a little about the IBA that was formed. It still is a beacon of hope for blockchain across India. Could you tell us a little about the IBA? Raj absolutely.

08:45

Raj

09:37

Raj

The idea being to spread the knowledge and understanding of blockchain at all levels. Not just blockchain, but we talk about the Metaverse, we talk about NFTs, which are all nothing but iterations of blockchain. We talk about DeFi, we talk about and everything which the blockchain has impacted now. Now, that happened, good, because we need to have any technology for mass adoption. We need resources. And where would the resources come from? They're not going to be born out of thin air. They would come from these universities. That's where the first building blocks of IBA began. Then went into advisory. We went into training at the corporate level. Today I do training with the KPMGs, the Ernst & Young, all the big boys, in fact, even the government of Dubai. So that's the second space went. Training, making existing employees understand, well, that's blockchain, and that's how it's going to impact your lives, guys, in every aspect of your life.

10:32

Raj

That's another thing. Then, of course, I did it personally. I did a lot of work on a personal basis. Also, everybody would ask me for advice. So I do a lot of advisory. So now I'm on more than 50 odd advisory boards in the web3 space globally. That was something. And IBS supports me as my body for doing that, right? From funding to market research, to actually go to market strategies different, exploring new markets, integrating products, everything in that space. And then, of course, we do a lot of work along with the government, on giving a government a lot of inputs and what the policy should be, what the framework should be. Should they be blockchain standards? Yes, they should be. And how should they be approached? Because we come from an inside out perspective, from a tech to policy perspective. Instead of going policy to tech, which is what people do right now, they talk policy but have no idea about the technology.

11:25

Raj

So we have a good team which understands the space, and then that's what we're doing right now, and that's really doing well. We've submitted about 17 suggestions to the government, and recently I spoke at the G20, where you'll be happy to know I represented India and 10 rep out of the 14 recommendations we gave, ten of them were accepted at the G20 summit. So that's something. We are moving in that direction. So the IBA is doing its bit now, and I'm sure everybody around is rallying around us to contribute in their own way and give us feedback, because Rome wasn't built in a day, that's one, and nobody built it alone. So the team works hard, and we all look forward to all of us around here to give us suggestions anytime. More than happy to incorporate if we can.

12:14

JP

Raj, that's absolutely fantastic, because we need champions of the cause, and the IBA is really up there when it comes to it. It's not easy having to work with any government body. Some of them work faster, some of them work slower, of course, but everyone will work slower than technology, including the education space. Right. But I know that the IBA is doing something in that space, too. Tell us a little about what we're doing with education to build up more mass adoption for blockchain, which will, of course, at some point later, translate also to a deeper understanding of crypto.

12:52

Raj

Absolutely. Crypto is a great you can't do without crypto, but you need a better understanding than just to take it as a speculative tool, nothing else. Now, so what we are doing, as I told you, we work with a lot of universities. There are three things we do there. We work with young students who want to understand the technology. We work with university officials to integrate blockchain as part of the curriculum. Recently, many of our courses have been selected by NASCOM to be their default blockchain courses for the community. That has been a big plus. The similar thing happened with CII and also very happy to say that a lot of them have gone even international. In fact, some of them are now being actually run by Canadian universities and some by Australian universities as well. And that content has come from India. That's us, that I've been very proud about.

13:39

Raj

We have our flags flying everywhere. That's one capacity building is done exactly in the same way. In all these 200, we set up what is known as a center of excellence, where we have these youngsters not only get certified and trained in the blockchain technologies, but also they get their internships, they get hands on training, on real life projects, because that's where you're going to get your hands dirty, guys. Real life projects. It's great talking about stuff, but doing stuff, that's the real deal. Then a lot of them feel also we need a job. We help them actually create a pathway, a learning pathway for a job. Nobody can get a job just like we got that, but you need to have a pathway. Sure, we create that pathway for them. Those that want to get into the startup space have their own ideas, their own startups.

14:26

Raj

We guide them on their entrepreneur journey. That's what we do with universities. Besides that, we do a lot of work in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, where we have a lot of free programs for anybody who wants to understand blockchain as a technology and then guide them onto how they need to do. My personal Telegram group in tier 2, tier 3, is about 32,000 students, and I do a lot of work in that space. I do a lot of Telegram classes, for that matter, in the blockchain space. And that is completely pro bono. So that's something which we do. We want adoption. We want people to understand the beauty of this technology, not just the crypto aspect and therefore understanding crypto. Understanding blockchain is a real heady combination. It's not going anywhere. It's right here to stay, guys, all of us have to know or should know blockchain going forward from here.

15:17

JP

Awesome. Okay, Raj, I think you've hit on a very interesting note here. The heart of India is, of course, in the Tier 2 and the Tier 3, because the face of India is in the metros, right? When it comes to tier 2 and 3 or 3 locations, one of the biggest challenges that they have is access, of course, to education. But they're motivated a lot by heart. They're motivated a lot by what they see. How do you reach out to them or get them involved to be part of the community?

15:49

Raj

Right, that's a good question, because that's something which has been the biggest challenge. Now, a lot of people in Tier 2, Tier 3, don't like online classes, especially self paced learning, because they just drop out after the first 5,10 sessions, maybe, or not even that. The dropout rate used to be about just 21% used to complete the program. That's a pathetic number. Now we have a lot of volunteers and we do a lot of train the trainer programs in Tier 2, Tier 3, where we are training. My team goes there, trains these guys, and they can then take it to the next level, tier 2 and Tier 3, and we keep on giving them updated curriculum. We go ourselves at least twice, if not more, two or three times in a year, personally, to see that things are happening in the right direction. We have a good, dedicated team in Tier 2 and Tier 3, because I always have believed, as you said correctly, the face of India is Tier 2, Tier 3.

16:44

Raj

It's not Tier 1 guys, all spoiled guys, including us. We are spoiled for choice. We got a lot of things happening for us. All right, I can get this, I can get that, I can pay for this, get for that. But tier 2, tier 3, I see they're aspirational. And because they're aspirational, who's going to give them what they want, we give them. And that's we give them by having a lot of volunteers who go and reach out to tier 2, tier 3, and take the message across to the masses. In fact, we have a target now to train in the next two years. 50,000 people, all from tier 2 and tier 350 thousand resources from tier 2 and tier 3. And that's just the beginning. We're planning more. More volunteers come in, the number will increase. But that's what we're doing. We're reaching out directly.

17:30

Raj

18:21

JP

Wow, that's spectacular. Raj having to build a community from the ground up, it does take a lot of work, a lot of energy, and I think you've really hit the nail on the head when it comes to reaching out to the heart of India if you want adoption. Right. The tier 3 story is aspirational. When they're aspirational for them, the physical presence is a lot stronger than having to use an online method because they weren't born generationally into the Internet age, right? Absolutely. In so many ways, having to be on the ground is one of the key things. I suppose, in that case, then, when you want to build that community, that's kind of where you have to be at the same time. How do they take to technology? How do they take to the learning of, say, for example, that they have an aspirational idea for having to be an engineer or to be in the blockchain AI ML space?

What is the track for them? I'm just curious to get an understanding of their mind.

19:30

Raj

All right. First of all, they take to technology like fish takes to water. That I've seen. I never believed it first until I actually saw that. That's 1st. 2nd, They look at it as a ticket to move from tier 2 , tier 3 to tier 1, if not outside the country. They look at that as a ticket. They also look at as a ticket to take care of their families and lift them out of the penury or poverty or even the menial existences they have in tier 2 and tier 3. They look at it as a ticket to something, to success. So I think they look at that. That's their aspirational class. They want to be out. If he's in tier 2, he wants to get a tier 1. If he's in tier 1, he probably wants to get out. If he's in tier 3, he wants to move up to tier 2 and 1.

20:15

Raj

So I think they look at it as a ticket to freedom, to money, to success, and of course, probably a good career, which is what they want. They also look at it indirectly. They also look at it that if I know this very well, I will get a good girl and I won't really have to hunt around too much.

20:32

JP

Right? Yeah. It's one of those things that just comes with the package, right?

20:43

Raj

Yeah.

20:44

JP

Getting married is one of the reasons you get educated.

20:46

Raj

Yeah, absolutely. It is a package dealer. You're right.

20:52

JP

Super. Okay, so let's pivot a little here. Raj, I'm looking to find out what are some of the thoughts where it comes to blockchain being spread across the Indian subcontinent. You're in a fantastic position to having worked shoulder to shoulder with so many state governments. Also with the central government, there are organizations that are formed to propagate it more. Paint us a picture of what it's looking like now and what it's going to look like a few years from now.

21:26

Raj

I lost you for a little bit, JP in the middle. Somebody gave me a call. So when I was getting the call, I lost you. So you may just have to repeat it. I'm sorry. You have to repeat yourself.

21:36

JP

No trouble. Okay, so in terms of where the government stands when it comes to the proposition of blockchain, AI ML, since you're working shoulder to shoulder with multiple state governments as well as the central one as well, what do you see at the moment is the landscape. And five years from now, what do you expect that landscape to look like?

21:59

Raj

22:43

Raj

Now there are a lot of state governments which are now individually or as states, taking a lot more efforts, encouraging the blockchain and web three technologies to be part of their it policy or their it strategy going forward. Now, I think we discussed last, when we met, we talked about the Goa government doing its bit. I won't get into that in the details, but the bottom line is that's a major step. Now, likewise, we are doing similar things in six different states at the state level. We are doing it in Uttarakhand, we are doing it in Assam. We were already talking in Karnataka. Then we took a little backseat because of the elections. So there are many states which are now looking at and saying, listen guys, we need good technology. Whether it's blockchain, whether there's AI. Technology needs to make an impact, and the blockchain, they realize, makes an impact.

23:33

Raj

So now, slowly but steadily, there has been an effort towards making people aware, setting up a good ecosystem to give them what they want. And blockchain needs a great ecosystem. It's basically a community software. It's all about community. Sometime back, you would know java is a community driven initiative. So in the beginning, everybody said it's going to drop, it's going to fail. But look at it today. The same thing is going to happen with blockchain. It may have a slow exception to start with, but it's going to be big. Even now, the NITI Aayog is doing some work in the awareness space. The CII and other bodies are doing a lot of work in that space. Now, that's necessary. We need a concentrated effort rather than working in different silos. Right now, it's all in silos. We need a focused, concentrated, national level awareness campaign awareness strategy, and the roadmap ahead.

24:29

Raj

Okay, what if I learn blockchain? What's next? What do I get? Do I get a job or do I just learn something? There is no roadmap. So a lot of people don't know, why am I doing this? If he's failed at crypto, he says, all right, blockchain is bad. If he's failed, he can't figure out what is NFTs, what am I doing? It's not NFTs, it's not crypto. The great use cases, guys, the blockchain is the technology is much more vast, and it's major. So awareness is the first thing. Second thing is taking positive, affirmative steps to work towards the policy that will give everybody a comfort zone. Otherwise, we got a lot of our guys going to Dubai, to Singapore. Nothing wrong with that, perfectly okay, but why should we have our we had our engineers and doctors flying out, and it guys flying out to the USA.

25:18

Raj

And outside, years back, we had a brain drain. One, we don't need a brain drain. Two, we definitely don't need that, guys. We've got the brains right here in India. I'm Indian. You're Indian. A lot of you're Indian. India has that. It has the potential. What it needs is a proper will, the government will to take it to the next level. We missed the web1 bus. We missed the web2 bus. But we actually can grab web3 by the horns and take that and be market leaders in web3. We have that potential. All we need now is a concentrated effort rather than people and bodies working in silos. The silos have to go, and a huge landscape has to be created with a focus on what's at the end of it. For me, we need that. The governments are a little slow on the uptick here, sometimes, very little sporadic.

26:13

Raj

I'm sure they have good intention, but it needs to be more focused. We had G20. Now we have a good opportunity to set a stamp here because that's one of the areas of focus. So I hope we get a crypto policy in place that actually will make will give it a real Philip. People will understand. All right, now we've got some rules, regulations, and frameworks. Let's see how best we can work in that. And I personally hope we don't have a brain drain. Well, we are working in our own way to reverse that brain drain, but more of that at some other time.

26:45

JP

Excellent. Okay, so it looks like we have the blocks in place. We just have to get the chain together.

26:50

Raj

Absolutely. You got it. You hit it, right.

26:52

JP

Perfect. Okay, fair enough. I think one of the things that you've said resonates very strongly with the Indian subcontinent, and that one is the fact that you have the power of the youth. You have the power of the quantum of developers that could exist over here that are working with web three. Right. But again, are we looking at the India brand primarily just for developers? Is that what's focused happening? Because you also have a worldview, Raj.

27:28

JP

You have a worldview of seeing. Okay. Some places like Dubai are the VC hubs. Some places like India become the developer, know the consumption hubs could be Southeast Asia and some parts of Western Europe. How do you see these pieces moving together?

27:46

Raj

Okay, I see this one. I have a perfect take on this. You see, Polygon was an Indian company. It was found by Indians. Right, okay. But they're not here anymore. They're in Dubai. They settle this. I can name plenty of them who are either in Dubai, UK, Estonia or Singapore or God knows where. And there are a lot of Indian companies. I think India has the power to take poll position as far as leadership is concerned. We have the right people, we have the right technology, we have the right resources. But what we don't have is a policy. And that's why everybody is scattered. Everything is scattered. We are again, as I said, we missed the Web1 bus. We missed the web2 bus. If we get policy and frameworks in place, we will not miss the Web3 bus. Also, we need to have a lot of gender diversity inside this.

28:35

Raj

And we have that. I've seen a lot of we do a lot of work with girls. We have another smaller unit called the Global Blockchain Women Alliance, where we do a lot of work with women. We need to have a lot of gender diversity within this. We don't have to talk about, and we need to have blockchain, which gives you a solution. We have that all here because we have all the problems in India, so we can find all the solutions and we don't sit back and relax. We struggle for every little bit of work. We got to do everything. So why do we need we don't need to copy the west as far as policy is concerned or anything. They have different challenges. We have different challenges. We have just 5% people paying taxes out here. They have everybody paying taxes. So the challenges are never going to be the same.

29:19

Raj

So if somebody's going to say, oh, Micah set up a great template, well, it says put a framework, not the template. Guys, you can use it as a template, but you got to have address the local challenges. As I said, McDonald's is the only it's an American company. But India, India, alutiki burger, they make guys, we need to make alutiki burger. And we have the people to do that. We've been working for years. The right people are there. The right resources are there. We can even have the right as an organization. We're trying to give some direction to it as well. It's a tough task uphill climb, but we are doing it. We're not giving up. And there's a huge movement we've seen in the last three years as far as direction is concerned. Now, we are not going to be seen as a developer economy.

30:00

Raj

No, I don't want it to be another PPO type of a boom and only a back office. I don't want us to be a sweatshop. That's my personal wish. I don't want India to be a sweatshop because we are way beyond the sweatshop. We have lots of things. I understand the challenges Indian companies have. If they decide to start doing a little bit more than that, maybe they lose contracts, et cetera. So they just back off a little bit. But no, let's not do it. Let's be the Web3 nation of the world. And I'm not saying that just out of it sounds great. No, it is great. We have everything. Just get it all together. It's like bailpuri. You got to put all the things together to make it tasty. And we've got everything in the place. Let's put it together now. And we need everybody's contribution in that.

30:42

Raj

Everybody. I think India doesn't need to be a back office. India needs to lead from the front. And the G20 presidency is a great opportunity to actually show the world that we can actually do that. Now, political will is important. All of us are behind. Indeed.

30:58

JP

Indeed. I think, Raj, you've hit the nail once again on the head when it comes to us having the Aspiration by missing this one framework right, of Web3, because India has started developing itself as a great innovation space. And I'm sad to say, in many places that when you see Indian innovators, you primarily see them in environments that are outside India having the kind of innovation that the world.

31:32

Raj

Could be.

31:33

JP

That could be, of course, one of the key reasons why the leadership, when it comes to a nation being a leader in a Web3 space, we've got development is fine, and the model maybe still be looking at some of the well known Indian companies like TCS, like Infosys and Wipro. And these are the spaces where a lot of the development happens, but not necessarily the innovation that occurs.

32:01

Raj

That's right. We need to have innovation. We need to change it by listen, first of all, let the TCS and the Infosys do what they're doing best. They're bringing a lot of foreign currency. We need it. They're not going to change. The strategy is not going to change for several years. I don't see it changing. If it had, they would have that many number of patents in the blockchain space, et cetera, et cetera. Now, I personally do a lot of consulting work with Tata Alexi, where we do a lot of work. Now, we are putting up what is known as a center of excellent or an idea lab. An idea lab to develop projects within the space. Now, we are doing the same thing with at least 18 different sectors. We have an idea lab for the broadcasting community. We have an idea lab for the manufacturing.

32:44

Raj

We have an idea lab for logistics. So we are putting up 18 such industry specific idea labs. These are going to create solutions and products which we are going to patent. I personally hold 22 patents in the blockchain space. Now, that's me. I don't want to hold it as an individual. I want India to hold the maximum number of patents, not China. So that's my take, is that we have now, if not the government, at a private level. We are taking it ahead, and we are doing it with not the largest companies in the world, in India, like Wipro and the Infosys. We won't do it with them because for them to change strategy is like a giant getting out of his lumber. Those are big giants established who's going to take away the business from them. They're handling a lot of things. For them, the change of strategy is like saying, all right, now what?

33:33

Raj

Three years, five years? It may take time, slow moving. We got to be very agile. And agility comes with young companies, mid-sized companies, where we can set up these excellence centers and work with them to create real world solutions, which we actually can then replicate across the globe. And that's where we are going to get success. We've already seen a lot of success. There are about half a dozen projects we're doing right now in the last month, one and a half months, which are all India specific. Yes, but going to be taken global. And that's a good start in different sectors, in media, broadcasting, excellent work. In fact, we've been doing some work with Netflix. Now even Google is very keen on actually investing in those projects. Now, that is something we don't want the investment, because we want it to be bootstrapped till we can actually raise it to the next level.

34:19

Raj

And we're also looking at Indian investors all the time. BeIndia. FundsIndia. Let's enjoy this space, guys. We've got the right people. It's the mindset change which is going to be required. And that's not going to come from the bigger boys. It'll come from the young, agile companies and a lot of startups. A lot of startups. Agnostic to how many years you've been in this space. An idea is an idea. An innovation is innovation. It's not the end. And that's what we need. We need young guys, old guys, everybody, just like a cricket team. You have the youngsters and you have the experienced cricketers. Everybody pays together to win the game. It's got to be that. And then I'm sure even the Tatas and other bigger boys, the TCS and all, will think and say, hey, why not us? Let's join the race. Or let's again assume pole position in a different niche and there'll be a lot of takeovers, buyouts, et cetera.

35:08

Raj

Maybe in the beginning, but at least there'll be things moving in a direction which they're supposed to move. We are not going to be slaves anymore. We should be leaders. We should not have that mentality. And I've seen that in the youngsters. I'm working with so many of them. Their mentality is changing. The only problem, again, let's have a framework. Let's have some law in place. Let's have a policy in place.

35:33

JP

Okay? All right, so I want to pick your brain on this one, Raj. When you say the way we are missing, of course, a framework off the top of your head, top three things that should come out very strongly. To drive the engine of blockchain in the Indian subcontinent, as I told you.

35:52

Raj

The framework being the first, you need to have something in place. People know what is their playground. We need to know a playground. How much can we should know the rules. You can't have a football match without rules. It's the same thing in crypto, in blockchain, you need to have the rules. Am I going to give a penalized for this? Am I going to go I'm going to get goal, when do I score a goal, et cetera. You got to have the rules in place. That's the first thing, right? Second thing we need, as I said, bringing about a focused awareness of technology and not just blockchain. Blockchain doesn't work in isolation. Blockchain works with AI, blockchain works with IoT, blockchain works with cybersecurity cloud computing. You've got to make people understand that blockchain or any of the no technology works in isolation. A lot of us feel when you talk about blockchain, how about Blockchain and AI?

36:37

Raj

We do a lot of work in that space. I'm doing about 20,25 projects in blockchain and AI. Why is it that people think, oh, blockchain is different and AI is different. Everything is different. But listen, guys, your wife and you are different as well. But you get married, right? That's the way the same thing in technology. We got to get married technology. So that's another thing we need to make them understand. Blockchain doesn't work in isolation. No other technology will work in isolation. You've got to befriend all technologies. Then the third thing you need to do is have real people who know real blockchain to talk about blockchain. I see a whole crapload of people talking blockchain. Where do these guys come from? Amen, you're right. Amen. I have actually had this experience when somebody who says he's a Web3 expert could not even tell what is a Web3 stack.

37:28

Raj

That is pathetic. Now, when we have those guys speaking at forums, et cetera, et cetera, I cringe. I cringe because the blockchain, the future of India and Nagoro should not be in the hands of pseudo blockchain experts. Sorry. So I think we need to have some sort of a way of figuring out how to get the right experts in. Otherwise, a lot of people still for example, the metaverse space I've seen somebody told me that, oh, this is a great metaverse I've created. It is just an AR VR experience. It's just actually not addressing the right we're not pointing in the right direction. We have too many people pointing in all directions. And it's like the blind men and the elephant. Everybody sees blockchain or technology as their own point of view. You are having people writing policy. People write policy without having ever worked on a blockchain.

38:21

Raj

Is that really possible? How will you validate? So people write policy without having blockchain experience. They know blockchain. I'm not saying they don't know blockchain. Everybody knows blockchain. You can read about it. But have you worked on a blockchain? Do you know the loopholes in the technology which can be exploited by people? No. We need to have tech guys also in policy. We don't have it. We have absolutely I don't want to name people but on my LinkedIn profile, I had a lot of guys who are crypto experts three years back, all of them have become Web3 evangelists now. Seriously, you really move fast, guys. It's taken us 13 years to do exactly the work we done, but all of a sudden, boom, you're the same guy's. Profile has changed, his picture has changed, and his profile has changed. That's it. But where the hell did you get educated in Web3 all of a sudden?

39:12

Raj

Because now there's not a model, the Crypto Winter. There's a crypto. Winter. So you're not a crypto expert, you're a Web3 expert. I see a lot of guys writing a lot of stuff, paying money to get into magazines and newspapers. That's rubbish. We need to really sift the wheat from the shaft. I think that's the three things which we really need. The last part, I'm very vocal on that, but I said, Listen guys, you just work on a blockchain, just program it and show me a lot of them can't do it. I'll take that with a pinch of salt. But that's what we need. We need policy, we need the good people inside, and we need concentrated awareness programs. All 365 days. It should be a 365 days effort, not an effort. Two days, one seminar here, one conference here that doesn't work. Everybody goes to network.

39:59

Raj

They're the same people moving in the same circles. I'm personally pretty bored of it, but that's the way it is. I understand it's a nascent stage, but anyways, I think we need a little direction. We're missing direction out here.

40:12

JP

Indeed, having had a very short, of course, view of the entire landscape. That's of course one of the things that hurts. But when I say that it hurts, here's what I mean. So you have these conferences, these movements, to show that, hey, something is happening in the space.

But that's just all it is.

40:36

JP

It's just on the surface, right? What you're saying, you need people who are on the ground, people who've been there, people who've done it, people who are really working in it, to work at all these levels from policy making to actually innovating. And that, of course, will create that shift.

40:55

Raj

I was speaking at a G20 about a month back, and were talking about policy, et cetera. I said in all, there was a roundtable conference, and I said, there are about 25 of us sitting there. How many of us have actually worked on a blockchain?

41:08

JP

Right?

41:08

Raj

No one. I was the only one probably there, but nobody else. That's not how I wanted to be. I want more people involved in it. So I said that, I explained, and I tell him, whatever policy you make, whatever frameworks you make, I can actually find a loophole in it anyways. But anyway, I'm glad that people are listening. And then they said yes, and that's one of the suggestions which has been taken in the G 20 to make policy, get some techies inside. There was a movie, Catch Me If You Can, Leonardo DiCaprio, if you remember, he was a counterfeiter, right, and know how to scam the banks. And he was recruited by the FBI to be the guy to actually find the crooks because he knew their mindset, he knew what they would do. That's very important. The FBI failed, but he succeeded in catching the same people which the FBI had failed the same thing.

41:58

Raj

Our policy writers get the right people inside so they can tell you where the loopholes are. That is really much needed. Now, I'm glad that's one of the suggestions being taken up by the way.

42:07

JP

awesome. Okay, Raj, we're coming close to the actually, we've crossed a little bit of time, but I do have two questions. One is coming from our audience. So the first one is, we've heard all the fantastic stuff that you're doing, all the stuff that you're saying, and kudos to you and the IBA and the associations that you're involved in. But really, this takes a tremendous amount of energy, and I reckon it takes almost the same amount of energy that the blockchain does, right?

42:44

Raj

Yes.

42:44

JP

Where do you get that from? What keeps you so passionate?

42:48

Raj

Well, it's a love for the technology. It's a love for what you do. And I tell you guys, it's only passion. And that's one part of it. The other thing is, I want to see a change. I am a very true blood Indian. I am a true blue Indian. I love my country. I want to see the nation be a national leader. When I started IBA, I wanted it to become the Nalanda of blockchain. That passion hasn't died. It's been five years. And I'm enjoying every moment of it. Because not only do I do things that have an impact, we also learn every day, because there is something to learn every day in this space. It doesn't let you get old. Blockchain doesn't let you get old. It keeps young. And that's where the energy comes from. The energy, the passion, everything comes from deep inside.

43:33

Raj

It's got to be inside out, not outside in, as you said. As I said, you can't just be a bullshit influencer. You've got to really try and influence from inside out.

43:42

JP

Amazing. Okay, Raj, the next question, of course, then, the one from the audience, right? So what is your message for all our listeners today and, of course, the ones that are going to be listening to the show later?

43:54

Raj

My message is simple. Whether it is blockchain or any other technology, if you got to follow it with passion, follow it with 100% dedication. Otherwise, don't dabble with anything. Because one thing I'll tell you guys, morning, day and night, there will be an impact of this technology in the near future. Even if it's not already. For example, you get up in the morning, you brush your teeth. It's just a matter of time because all these supply chains will supply the toothpaste, the soaps, the toothbrushes will be on blockchain. You take an Uber that's being decentralized. Now, there are so many new ways of now coming up where everything will be decentralized. You take a car, a lot of cars have a lot of their software is on blockchain. You can see how many miles you actually clocked, the chassis number, everything. Toyota is doing it, Hondas are doing it, and the Scores are doing it.

44:46

Raj

Everybody's doing it. So whichever way you look at it, when you go to office, there will be blockchain enabled systems out there. If you're going to college, your degrees would be on the blockchain. Your certifications will be on blockchain. There would be NFTs, proving the documentation, authentication. It's almost everywhere. It's all prevailing and it's omnipresent. So whether you like it or not, understand blockchain, it'll help you in your personal careers, in your life, and in your startups or your business, whatever you're doing, it's just you've got to start understanding and embracing it. And not just blockchain. Enjoy AI, enjoy other technologies. See where you can actually bring them together to create some remarkable differences. Real world solutions, guys. That's what we need. We don't need hype. We need real world solutions. Is it solving hunger? Is it solving poverty? Yes. If it can bring those solutions inside, be passionate about them, that's where we're going to get success.

45:39

Raj

Because we have lots of problems. And even though we don't have a silver bullet, we have the tools. It's up to us now whether we can make them work or we use the tools the wrong way.

45:51

JP

Fantastic, Raj. Thank you for that. I'm going to go to one question that's coming from the audience, this question's coming from Andrina the question is, there's a lot of talk and okay, I'll paraphrase what she's asking. So there's obviously certain areas that blockchain is making a lot of waves in. One of them is, of course, carbon credits. And it's also working towards sustainability, which is the prime vertical you see that India will lead over the next couple of years.

46:27

Raj

Well, I'll tell you, it'll be BNet zero. I call a BNZ strategy BNet zero, because we are going to have a lot of three digit stuff like ESG. That's going to be the next way of evaluating. So I see a lot of projects going that way. I'm doing personally a lot of work in renewable energy, sustainability, carbon credits, et cetera. But all these will have to merge into a single blockchain. Basically, I see that. I see sustainability as one of the largest spaces of growth in the space. And I see Indians today, in fact, today morning I had a meeting with somebody who was in rewards doing a lot of work, and were doing work together in renewable energy. Yesterday I had an electric motor vehicles, so I'm seeing that on a daily basis. A lot of young startups coming and a lot of established companies coming up and putting a lot of work in this space.

47:14

Raj

I see this as the future. I see sustainability environment because if you don't have an environment, if you don't have a good climate and world to live in, what's blockchain? What's any other technology? In fact, I'm doing a great project called Sea Earth. Sea Earth. I think I encourage everybody to have a look at it because in twelve years our oceans will die. And this is the largest world citizen science project and capturing data from everybody's mobile without them having to do anything free of charge and giving them rewards by tokens as well later on and locking it on the blockchain so people have reliable data to do predictive analysis using artificial intelligence as well. And artificial intelligence you should use only correct data and then it gives predictive models and that mitigates climate change of the future. That is something which Blockchain is also doing.

48:05

Raj

So let's enjoy and it's doing along with AI and analytics. So enjoy the space guys. It's a three layered cake, it's not just a one layered cake. So enjoy that. That's the space where the world is going to move and India is definitely going to move in that direction.

48:21

JP

Awesome. Raj, thank you so much for accepting our invitation, for sharing your thoughts, your insights and of course your journey on the show. I'm certain that not just the passion with which you spoke, but the areas that you've shared are real. Those are ones that everyone in this room can follow. All of our listeners can pick up as part of their journeys as well. So thank you for sharing that, Raj.

48:46

Raj

My pleasure, JP. It was a pleasure being here and I'm sorry for the little glitch when I dropped it. Just couldn't get inside. But then I guess waiting is good sometimes.

48:57

JP

Yeah, well, Salabi, that sometimes does happen with this aspect of tech and hopefully we can build the future with a better one.

49:04

Raj

Absolutely. Thanks for having me JP.

49:06

JP

Well, it's a pleasure Raj. Always a pleasure catching up with you. So, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for being here. We will be back next week at the same time at the same place with a new guest on Diving into Crypto. In the meantime, I'd like to remind you that our co-founder Jason is in Singapore. He just spoke at the World Fintech summit. And on the 1st and 2nd June we'll be at the Web3 live from Tech Circus in London. You'll be in the UK. So those of you that are there, please feel to drop us a message so that we can set up a meeting. If you'd like to catch up or give us a shout out if you're there at that space. Thank you once again, ladies and gentlemen. Have a great day. Cheers.

49:49

Raj

Cheers. Bye bye.