Henry Ma, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer of WeBank recently shared his thoughts with us on the unveiling of its financial blockchain platform, FISCO BCOS, as an ‘innovation playfield’ to technology students and academics in Singapore. The move is aimed at advancing blockchain use within the academic community and encouraging them to pioneer innovations that can shape the future of different industries. This is the second part of our interview with Henry Ma.

Now with the pandemic, US-CHINA trade wars and supply chain disruptions, how can technology like this help companies in the future?

Proper application of technologies can increase efficiency, optimize production, reduce cost, etc. In the financial industry, we strongly believe that the use of technologies can reduce the frictions involved in delivering financial services to those in need, thereby making financial services more inclusive. Friction also exists in other areas and brings us major challenges, especially in the situation of multi-lateral cooperation.

For instance, in the global fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, one can observe the gap in the current information infrastructure leading to many situations of misinformation and disinformation. The conflicts around global trade is another example of market forces not being able to function efficiently and the failure to achieve equilibrium due to various kinds of frictions, like the lack of transparency, high level of overhead, insufficient automation, etc.

We opine that technology like FISCO BCOS will play a key role, acting as the lubricating agent to reduce the frictions encountered in tackling these world-class challenges. The Covid-19 pandemic has brought enormous attention on the topic of globalization, many even say that we are approaching the end of globalization.

While there was certainly shortcoming the way globalization has been implemented over the years, the disruption in supply-chain during the pandemic being a good example, we don’t necessarily agree that globalization is coming to a dead-end.

Instead, collaboration may manifest itself in multiple forms simultaneously – in some domains globalized, others take on a regional feel or even localized in some instances. We envision a new form of business model, the so-called collaborative business model, empowered by leading-edge technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing and big data (the ABCD of fintech), will prevail and lead to more collaborations among different industries and organizations, offering better quality and highly diversified products and services, with streamlined user experiences to the market.

When it comes to academia and industries working hand in hand to figure out solutions, how does this partnership in this regard help WeBank and OpenNodes?

Building blockchain-based solutions that create real values requires top-notch talents. All these years, WeBank has invested a lot of efforts to establish a training network to build up the talent base in support of the ever-growing requirement in the market. So far, we have worked with more than 25 universities globally on blockchain education. Our partnership with OpenNodes for this FISCO BCOS venture will lead us to deeper engagement with the student community in Singapore. Ultimately, this partnership will help to develop more blockchain talents for the market and facilitate the sustainable development of a healthy open-source ecosystem.

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About the author

Anil Prabha

Editor In Chief

Anil started his career in journalism all the way back in 2003. After traversing the sphere of editorial, corporate communications and advertising, he has now come full circle and is back in the world of journalism. He believes in the power of the written word, and its ability to enthrall, delight and inform the reader.