Whatsapp commerce on the blockchain?

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Sep 14 2017

Whatsapp commerce on the blockchain?

#60: tech is fashion, blockchain is for community and we have meetups

Brought to you today by @youngarjeezy
Editors notes in , pls ignore.

State of Artificial Intelligence
The new Yves Saint Laurent ad features Stanford AI-researcher Alexandre Robicquet riding a motorcycle into his office, spending the day exasperated working on a problem (=fluffing his hair about), and then ending the evening in a full-on Steve Jobs style townhall keynote.

Why, Yves Saint Laurent, why? [video]

Blockchain bakar

First of all – to all of you who wrote in on the last newsletter’s story surprised that AI + Bitcoin payments were being used to catch sex traffickers:

1. You’re missing the point, it caught a sex trafficker!
2. Blockchain is an open, decentralised ledger. No, that does not mean it’s anonymous.



Let's get back to today – I have a good one for you:

A startup ran an experiment. They identified a Facebook Group of local mothers and gave them a cryptocurrency ("Hearts") to trade things "like recycled toys or singing lessons that until then had not been changed for money."

It turns out, there was "tons of potential commerce between these moms that wasn’t being expressed in dollars.

In two years, the mothers—about 25,000 participating—logged nearly a million transactions using the currency."
[Bancor's plans for local cryptocurrencies]

DAYUM!

Now that's a use case for India if I ever saw one. Here what you need to do:

Step 1: Go hang out in Whatsapp groups
Step 2: Build them a cryptocurrency
Step 3 (this is hard): Create real value by enabling trade of goods/services
Step 4: You call me, I fund you.
Step 5: Unicorn baby.
Step 6: We hang out on your private yacht sipping cocktails that have little straw hats in them.

Ah crypto,
easy come, easy go.

Visual interlude

This newsletter wasn't feeling visual enough today so here's a picture:

Personal security or SIM card?

Equifax, one of the three main companies that calculates US credit scores, leaked personal and financial data of 143 million individuals in a data breach.
This is going to affect millions of people for years to come.

The equifax breach exposes America's identity crisis

With forced adoption of Aadhaar on everything from bank accounts to SIM cards in India, it is important to consider once again the implications of relying heavily on a system which is clearly in its infancy.

Happenings at Investopad

We have a new intern in charge of events – and apparently emojis… I miss the days when they were just called "emoticons"
= emotions + icons, so sensible!

👉🏽 Over to @ManchandaRohit…

Hey 💃🏽🎉 party people🎉💃🏽, we have a busy event 🗓️calendar🗓️ lined up this month (join updates here) and here's what happening at the pad  in the next few days:



1. 💜Investors & Founders💜 Meetup

You got questions? 😧 Product? Market? Product/Market fit? Market/Product fit? 😮 Well 👊🏽 we got answers in the 🏠 Hit us up at the 💜Investors & Founders💜 meetup at Investopad SDA! 🙏🏽



2. Hands-on usability testing session

Designers are playing a decisive role in the growth of digital products - both web, and mobile; streamlining the way people use and connect with products.

With a passion for designing beautiful & easy to use products - Design Delhi and Product Tank are bringing you a hands-on-training session on Usability Testing.

Learn from the experts and interact with designers, leave with skills required to plan and run Usability Testing



👉🏽 Back to @youngarjeezy

Phew, don't know if he's going to last. We're still hiring though ;)

One of the many roles we're hiring for. This is a button but email me directly.

Now let me drop some knowledge…

"A crisis is looming. These monopoly platforms hoovering up our data have no competition: they’re too big to serve the public interest" – Nick Srnicek // The Guardian: We need to nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon. Here’s why

"What if the future of the car is not driverless? I’m exploring a future in which sensor technologies enhance the driver’s awareness. Instead of eliminating the human dimension, the driver is more fully integrated into the vehicle. The car becomes driverful." – Jonathon Keats // Nautilus: When Driver and Car Share the Same Brain

Kurt Wagner // Recode: WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton is leaving the company to start his own foundation

"Every ball is lathered with gratuitous action, spin for spin’s sake, spin as slapstick, luxuriantly massaging every shot as if to feel the racket head moving over the ball, string by string." – Peter de Jonge // New York Times: How Roger Federer upgraded his game

"Julius Caesar kept a cache of it in the government treasury and the Greeks even put it on their money. It was worth its weight in gold – but no one knows if it still exists." – Zaria Gorvett // BBC Future: The mystery of the lost Roman herb

"The woman was cowering in a neighbor’s bathroom while her husband brought a bamboo stick down on her, again and again." – Ellen Barry // New York Times: How to Get Away With Murder in Small-Town India