To have everything our heart desires is a primitive drive in life. But our ecological footprint is problematic as it is already. Our environment cannot sustain ever increasing consumption. And that’s with an existing inequality in material possessions in the world right now. What happens when Southeast Asia and Africa go to western levels of consumption or above? We argue that the solution...
Natural ecosystems to inspire machine ecosystems
The Machine Economy track at the 2018 Blockchaingers Hackathon asks teams to build a machine-to-machine-ecosystem, that disrupts our current system, and that is beneficial to society. This is not an easy task and it can be hard knowing where to start. Maybe nature can provide some inspiration. Let’s look at how ecosystems are organized, and how nature is abundant towards all participants...
Emergence as a solution to overengineering
More is better. Our brains seem hardwired to it. Maybe it has to do with laziness, or perhaps just comfort. But we humans tend to overengineer everything, from our almost empty or often unused cars, to our ridiculously overpowered smartphones and laptops, which we use for Facebook and Candy Crush Saga. There are many examples, but the point is: a lot of our stuff is overspec’d and underutilized...
Nature as inspiration for the world’s largest Hackathon
In April 2018 the largest blockchain hackathon in the world will be organized in the Netherlands by Blockchaingers. On 8 February a Deep Dive was held in Amsterdam for the track Machine to Machine economy (M2M) to prepare and excite the teams and other interests parties. I was asked to inspire the participants with a few examples from nature. Machine2Machine Deep Dive All speakers at the Deep...