In episode 7 of The Outside Context, co-hosts Elise Soucie Watts and Jannah Patchay sit down with Richard Baker, a technologist and futurist with a background in telecommunications and financial services. Richard shares his journey from engineering to finance and discusses the rapid evolution of technology and its impact on society. Together, they explore smart cities, digital identity, the future of data ownership and the integration of a native money system into the internet.
Key Takeaways
- Richard’s career journey from telecommunications to finance
- The rapid adoption of new technologies and the implications for society
- Smart cities: What they are and how they’re evolving
- The role of AI, sensors, and data networks in modern urban environments
- Challenges around data privacy, identity and trust in the digital age
- The potential of self-sovereign identity and Web3 technologies
- The intersection of digital sustainable finance and smart infrastructure
- The future of money and how the internet will integrate financial systems
- A look ahead: What Richard hopes to see in his lifetime (and beyond!)
Notable Quotes:
- "We are already living in smart cities; the infrastructure is here, we just don’t always see it."
- "We have an unbelievable nexus moment happening with the convergence of AI, financial technology, and trust-based systems."
- "A truly embedded money system into the internet will change everything—it will create new economic models and job opportunities."
- "We need to think differently about data ownership; our identities should belong to us, not corporations."
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