I recently sat down with blockchain aficionado Ricardo Garcia to gain some insights into the Berlin blockchain space. We dove into an hour-long Q&A session with three main objectives:
- To learn how Ricardo found himself in the blockchain world after working at a strategy consulting firm
- To gain insights on potential focus areas for blockchain in supply chain
- To discuss one of the most active blockchain ecosystems: Berlin
Objective 1 – To learn how Ricardo found himself in blockchain after working at a strategy consulting firm
Having completed CEMS, an international master in management degree, with many of its alumni entering the realm of consulting, how did you find yourself in blockchain, and what was it that intrigued you to start participating in this space?
While completing my management degree, I worked in strategy consulting like you did. And it was here that I learned that I wanted to be on the execution side rather than on the consulting side, and also that I wanted to work in a startup rather than an established corporate structure.
Initially, I wanted to work in the FinTech Space because I gained exposure into financial services while at EY, so I thought it was the perfect next step. But I also started to learn about blockchain in that context as it was a very relevant topic. About 2.5 years ago my touchpoints with blockchain increased, for example, while writing my master degree thesis on “Possible Applications on Health Data and Health Insurance” I interviewed someone in the health space that was working on a blockchain project for his health data startup. I had no idea that blockchain could be applied in the health space. At the time I only associated it with cryptocurrency and banking. And so I had a moment while listening to the recording of that interview that I realized the many industries it could participate in outside of finance, it also showed up in energy and even healthcare. In my eyes, the potential was immense and that’s exactly when I went down the rabbit hole of learning as much as possible.
It really started to intrigue me because it’s at the intersection of economics and technology with an unexpected ideological motivation. The movement itself was started by a group of people that felt that what happened during the global financial crisis in 2008 was highly problematic and wanted to change the current establishment. It wasn’t a pure tech innovation, there was social motivation behind it as well.
Luckily, I managed to find an entry point into blockchain at a startup in Berlin. And that’s when I decided to move from Zurich to Berlin.
So I now know what got you started, but what is it that keeps you there?
There are many reasons, but the most prominent are that:
- It’s a high pace, and high growth environment. Even though a lot has already been said about the topic, the technology is still relatively new since its only been around for 10 years. There’s still a lot of opportunity to grow and shape the space.
- I have a little nerdy side in me. Blockchain is a complicated topic, and the complexity fascinates me. I enjoy exploring something complicated and figuring it out.
- I find it fascinating what type of people it attracts. It’s an ideological space. You meet all types of crazy interesting people. In Berlin, for example, there’s so many crypto millionaires who invested at the right time, who could easily stop working and enjoy their lives somewhere on an island. But they don’t because they love the movement and what it represents, so they stay and they keep running their companies.
- I have developed a vast network in Blockchain especially in Berlin. I don’t want to give that up.
Tell me about what company you currently work for and what you do there
I head partnerships and blockchain advisory for ScanTrust, a startup focusing on secure digitalization for product authentication, supply chain transparency, and consumer engagement. We have invented the world’s first secure QR code that allows you to take any type of product and place an almost impossible to copy and unique QR code that helps you track the product. By giving it this digital identity, you can check if the product is real or fake, find out where it came from, what happened throughout the production process, and you can show this information to the end user.
So, it sounds like ScanTrust isn’t a blockchain company. Will you help explain why blockchain is relevant for ScanTrust?
No, ScanTrust isn’t a blockchain company. ScanTrust started in the anti-counterfeit space but is now considered a company for secure digitalization of physical products in supply chains. As you know, blockchain is a technology that is used a lot in supply chains to track and trace physical goods. So if you’re trying to track the whole lifecycle of a good, you’ll need to have a unique way of tagging and identifying the good, right? So for example, a luxury watch, you want to be sure that the watch has really come from where it claims it had, and you may also want to track other factors like, when it was produced, if it made it across various borders, etc. Our code is a very simple and cost effective way to uniquely and securely tag a product, and this is something that any traceability project needs. And so we started to get a lot of inbound requests from blockchain companies, which is why ScanTrust started to strategically bet on blockchain as a technology.
Objective 2 – To gain insights on potential focus areas for blockchain in supply chain
Kevin Anderson (another contributor to this blog) looked at this topic briefly and here we will dive in deeper.
Tell me a bit about the potential focus areas for blockchain in supply chain
Blockchain is used to share information amongst parties that don’t necessarily trust each other. This lack of trust is a scenario you see a lot in supply chains. Let’s take a product, a banana, as an example. There are many intermediaries that you, as the end consumer, don’t necessarily see. All you see is the banana at the store. Similarly, these intermediaries don’t necessarily have a lot to do with one another: a farm, exporter, shipment company, distributor, retailer, don’t share information with each other. On one hand because they don’t do it digitally and on the other hand because they don’t necessarily have to. Blockchain is a technology that can facilitate that very easily for them to enable the required trust base for these intermediaries to exchange information with each other.
Cool, that makes sense. So what do you see are the biggest use cases for blockchain in supply chain?
At ScanTrust, we mainly focus on food traceability, when looking at blockchain use cases. In that space, there are two main use cases that I see:
- Brands get to gain consumer trust, loyalty and establish a proof of claim. Many companies are willing to invest a lot of money these days on labels such as Organic, Free Range, or Ethically sourced. Yet consumers are quick to doubt claims like this because they have seen so many scandals in the past. Blockchain would help companies gain consumer trust and loyalty if for example the user could track if a particular product, such as a premium steak, actually came from an organic farm in Argentina. So, the consumer can verify the claim that the brand is making about the product.
- Product recalls. Many companies are seeing the value in this, because it helps mitigate potential failures. If there is a contamination of a sort, for example in salmon, a company will have no idea from which fish farm it came from or which retailers it has gone to, and they will undergo incredibly large fees if a recall is necessary. If for example someone gets sick in region X, thanks to blockchain, you can check from which shipment, from which country, from which farm, and which retailers this was pulled from. And then you can contact these retailers and request them to pull back the orders. You can save a bunch of time and cost.
I’m happy to be interviewing you today, because sometimes I see blockchain getting criticized in the media. You seem to be pointing out its many benefits. Given that it’s an expensive technology to integrate, can you give me an example of a company that has used blockchain in their supply chain and has seen a positive ROI?
Yes, sure. Carrefour uses blockchain to track their chickens today. They recently announced that the integration of blockchain has helped them generate more sales. Sales of chickens where blockchain was used for tracking made Carrefour more money than sales of chickens which did not use blockchain for traceability. They have also been able to see some spillover effect, claiming that there is more trust with Carrefour’s other products.
Sounds like a win-win solution to me – more sales and more trust! Speaking of chicken, I have seen a trend, especially amongst our generation, that there is a lot of concern over animal agriculture due to its effects on climate change. So I think if more companies gave their consumers this type of transparency, they would see more loyalty. They definitely would from me. Do you see conversations of this sort happening within the space?
Yeah, so at ScanTrust this sort of conversation has been coming up a lot recently. The conversation at ScanTrust is that consumers are becoming more responsible and aware but they still want to, for example, have a good Argentinian beef once in a while. And if you show them where it’s coming from and what impact it has had, they can become more aware of their actions which is positive. The challenge is, this is not in the interests of the brand because they are focused on sales and don’t want to scare away their consumers. But there is also opportunity. If you show consumers where their product is coming from and what they’re doing to the environment by making a purchase, it isn’t encouraging to them, however, you come across as an honest and good brand. If you do this, and also give consumers the options to donate to plant trees or contribute to water saving mechanisms to reduce their footprint, this would allow them to make their purchase neutral and also entice them to make a purchase in the first place.
Objective 3 – To discuss one of the most active blockchain ecosystems in the world, Berlin
Let’s loop back to where we started. You are currently working at ScanTrust and apart from that you are based in Berlin – a blockchain hot spot. To conclude, will you tell me a bit about the blockchain hub in Berlin?
Yeah so apart from working at ScanTrust I’m very active in the Berlin blockchain community. So much so that I’m actively trying to promote the ecosystem with an association called BerChain that I, along with a number of other Berlin blockchain community members, started last year. BerChain aims to connect and promote the Berlin blockchain scene.
I would say Berlin’s blockchain hub is very unique. It is in my opinion one of the most active and vibrant ecosystems in the world for a variety of reasons. First of all, it’s an excellence startup location, it’s cheap to live here and the tech talent is abundant. Second of all, blockchain was started out of some ideological motivations to change the establishment and the world, and Berlin has this artistic, rebellious vibe that matches the motivations quite well. I think that’s why a lot of blockchain pioneers came to Berlin initially to start their companies. For example, Parity was started by Etherium’s CTO in Berlin, because he just really likes Berlin as a spot. That very organically pulled many more blockchain companies to Berlin.
How would you describe the Berlin Blockchain ecosystem?
It’s very strongly tech and ideologically focused.
Tech focused because there’s a lot of development activity on site. If you compare it to Switzerland for example, who has a very active blockchain ecosystem, you will find that Berlin is much more attractive as a startup location. Companies have their headquarters in Switzerland and there are business representatives in Switzerland, but the actual development and activity happens elsewhere – for example in Eastern Europe. So, if you go to a meetup in Zurich, you will experience that many people attending are not necessarily directly actually working on blockchain solutions. Meanwhile when you go to meetups in Berlin, you get a very vivid description of what’s going on, because you meet the people that actually are getting their hands dirty. It’s very useful because you get to hear and ask very detailed questions.
Ideologically focused because a big part of the Ethereum community is based in Berlin. And as you know, the Ethereum community has a distinct mentality to move past the big tech companies: Facebook, Google, Twitter or Linkedin who are monitoring you at all times, in an effort to create a new web that gives the user full control over its data.
How about the communities within the ecosystem?
There are many communities: Ethereum, blockchain for IOT, blockchain for FinTech, blockchain for the enterprise. And all of the communities coexist with each other, but are of course a bit fragmented due to their focus. Our focus with BerChain is to connect all the communities together. Our goal is to promote the ecosystem as a whole, bring more blockchain companies to Berlin and to help Berlin blockchain companies thrive.
I like that. So, when is the next possibility for Berlin blockchain companies to come together?
Good question! Berlin blockchain week is happening from August 18th to August 25th! I highly suggest you check it out, the number of events that are being set up for the week is absolutely insane. Every major city has their blockchain week about now… New York and SF very recently had theirs and now it’s Berlin’s turn. And honestly, no blockchain week has been as crowded or enthusiastic as we are seeing here.
Sounds like a sight to see! Can you point me to a quick exec summary for the week? If for example I’m interested to learn more about blockchain X sustainability or blockchain X VC’s, how can I find the relevant information without asking a hundred people?
The organisers of blockchain week will be tracking events and also this is a service BerChain will be able to provide you. We created a calendar view on our website where we will be continuously tracking and adding events that we hear of, and we will also be providing a physical brochure at each venue where you get an intuitive overview of all events happening.
Are people welcoming in the community?
Yes! Overall very much welcoming. Very open, very inclusive, very Berlin.
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If you want to learn more about Ricardo’s blockchain path, potential focus areas for blockchain in supply chain, more about Berlin’s blockchain ecosystem, or BerChain, you can add Ricardo on LinkedIn here. He has agreed to connect with readers of this blog post if you tell him you’re coming from Aneta’s instalment of Tom’s Blog.
In the next installment, I will give you an overview of Berlin’s Blockchain week.
Aneta Kosinska is a Polish – Canadian, MSc + CEMS MIM alumni. With management consulting, analytics and startup/entrepreneurial experience, she aspires to contribute to the knowledge sharing economy.
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