Ian Khan is a futurist who expects that blockchain, synthetic intelligence and the Web of Issues will merge collectively to create a completely new sort of world.
He’s the inventor of the Future Readiness Rating, the writer of eight books and the chairperson of the Cash 20/20 fintech convention.
His first movie, Blockchain Metropolis, is far from an underground manufacturing. The 42-minute movie, which is accessible on Youtube and Amazon Prime, is a businessy, optimistic and considerably sanitized tackle the business. It focuses decisively on piercing the nebulous idea of “blockchain expertise” whereas largely dodging the typically controversial phenomenon of cryptocurrency, selling blockchain as an environment friendly monitoring mechanism furthering the pursuits of “the institution.”
Khan’s positioning within the business is due to this fact very a lot in distinction to the cypherpunk motion — the outdated guard of the blockchain revolution.
These unique torchbearers of the business weren’t desperate to see the expertise used to enhance governance methods however to avoid and successfully overthrow them by turning their outdated methods and processes in opposition to them. Such an imagined technological overthrow is, nevertheless, unlikely to succeed with the likes of Khan advising governments on the right way to stop disruption by means of future readiness.
At a basic stage, Khan considers blockchain-based methods as “a approach to do issues in a greater method.” The principle causes for this are the effectivity advantages derived from a community that confirms its personal accuracy, and the belief that no unauthorized person has been in a position to manipulate information.
Notably, he doesn’t give central reward to generally lauded themes like decentralization [away from governments] or the perceived advantages of on-line anonymity. As a substitute, he emphasizes how blockchains can be utilized by governments to higher safe personal data and forestall issues like identification theft.
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— ACI Studying (@ACI_Learning) August 8, 2021
In the case of “the final 100 years off, how we’ve been doing enterprise,” for Khan, blockchain is “one thing that does issues higher in 1,000 alternative ways.” On the a part of enhancing authorities processes, “the effectivity half will come up on account of the trade of knowledge between authorities entities — unbelievable authorities companies will occur on account of that.”
Again to the Futuracy
This discuss of effectivity and the long run doesn’t come from a vacuum, as Khan runs a Toronto-based firm future-readiness enterprise referred to as Futuracy, which he describes as “an rising expertise educator” that has labored with companies and governments all over the world. The prolific writer can also be a key determine within the Dubai GITEX expertise convention — such a key determine, that he was serving because the stage supervisor as I arrived to ship a keynote on the historical past of the blockchain motion on the occasion in mid-October. Whereas I used to be trying to the previous, his head was (and is) firmly sooner or later.

The agency creates a Future Readiness Technique for every consumer. These methods are tailor-made based mostly on the solutions to 200 questions put to the shoppers that are designed to disclose weak methods and processes which can be disrupted by advancing expertise. Relying on the size of the group, minor weaknesses can have outsize impacts.
“If there’s an inefficiency in authorities, widespread folks will undergo,” he explains, noting the necessity for future-readiness evaluation in stopping disruptions to essential features resembling medical care and schooling — each of which have been impacted by the pandemic.
Khan can also be taking a look at different phenomena that guarantees to form the way forward for his shoppers, specifically the Future of Work and Artificial Intelligence The Next Frontier, each of them additionally titles of his two upcoming movies. For him, concepts resembling digitization, the Web of Issues, blockchain and synthetic intelligence usually are not standalone improvements. As a substitute, they’re linked and it’s only a matter of time till they mix and combine to type a completely new tomorrow for the best way governments, firms and establishments operate.
“It’s very straightforward to color the image the place we will discuss concerning the world that’s powered by AI that has blockchain in it,” Khan mentions casually as if the thought is by no means terrifying. It’s about effectivity, as AI-blockchain integration will probably be “saving plenty of time, vitality and energy,” and data will probably be much less more likely to be stolen, based on Khan.
Ideas from the long run
A lot of Khan’s current work has been in Dubai, a metropolis he says “is at all times attempting to do issues differently.” An early patron of the blockchain motion, “Dubai was one of many first nations with a blockchain technique on the authorities stage,” Khan says.
Khan believes that one of the best ways for governments, massive firms and establishments to ease into the blockchain age is for them to offer all workers with an understanding of the expertise “whether or not they’re determination makers or not,” as a result of if a company is to outlive in a altering setting, it has to “change into a studying entity.”
My tackle The previous 12 months and Future Readiness. #futurereadiness #future #change #win #success #strategy pic.twitter.com/JpZs7bixYk
— Ian Khan Futurist (@IanKhanFuturist) August 23, 2021
The efficient approach to find out about new paradigm-shifting applied sciences like blockchain, based on Khan, is to begin with examples of profitable technical implementation with the objective to “massively simplify the understanding of those large big buzzwords, so that individuals can relate” to what the expertise is definitely able to and helpful for. In follow, this might imply investing in schooling programs — maybe starting with watching his movie.
Regardless of his emphasis on studying the fundamentals, Khan concedes there isn’t any want for everybody to have greater than a surface-level data. In any case, blockchains are horribly complicated, however the best way we work together with them could possibly be made lots less complicated. Simply as not all automotive customers want to grasp precisely how a combustion or electrical engine works, sooner or later will probably be the “blockchain that’s taking good care of issues beneath the hood,” he says.
“Everyone must be on the fundamental minimal stage of understanding of expertise — it doesn’t matter in the event that they don’t work in the identical division. I feel schooling of fundamental expertise ideas and the worth it creates is essential.”
One other method wherein organizations, particularly governments, can harness the advantages of blockchain is to open up the ideation course of by giving as a lot inventive freedom to their folks as doable, so as “to provide you with concepts that may actually change the best way they do issues.”
On this advantage, Khan offers particular reward to Estonia, a small European nation of just one.3 million, the place he says “there’s plenty of freedom to specific” one’s concepts to the best ranges of determination making. As a small nation with an enormous emphasis on expertise, as evidenced by the eResidency program making it straightforward for digital nomads to function companies from the nation, Estonia has cast a popularity as a digital hub.
The third method, Khan says, is for organizations to constantly run small experiments and pilot initiatives “that show a degree,” even when there isn’t any apparent short-term profit or return on funding. As a first-rate instance, Khan brings up Zug, a Swiss metropolis of 30,000 which in 2016, adopted Bitcoin as an possibility for paying metropolis permits. Because of the success of the experiment, Zug quickly became generally known as “crypto valley” as blockchain firms from all over the world opened workplaces there.

Kashmir to Canada
As a substitute of being a blockchain native, Khan is future-native. “I simply love studying this stuff and understanding them and serving to others perceive them,” he proclaims.
He was born on the Indian aspect of Kashmir, a area whose different half lies in Pakistan. There, Khan remembers that he turned inquisitive about rising expertise on the age of six when he noticed a pc at college. “It was a BBC Micro hooked on to a black and white display that had Pac Man on, and my thoughts was utterly blown,” he remembers.
He studied engineering at Kuvempu College in southern India between 1995 and 1999, acquiring a diploma in software program on the identical time. Quickly after commencement, he moved to Bahrain the place he labored in a gross sales and advertising and marketing function within the vitality business, whereas additionally working in direction of a diploma in journalism from the London College of Journalism which he obtained in 2003. In 2007, Khan moved to Canada, the place he lives at present.
In Canada, Khan tried his hand at numerous aspect hustles, upon which he based Agnitio Options. He tried his hand at quite a few initiatives and startups over 4 years, till “I received into the publishing business and began a healthcare journal,” he remembers. In his free time, he continued to check, incomes a venture administration skilled certificates from Humber Faculty in 2009 and a certificates in public relations from the College of Toronto the next 12 months.
Blockchain documentary
Khan had the thought to make a documentary concerning the blockchain revolution in 2018, across the time that he attended the primary Future Blockchain Summit in Dubai, a part of the bigger GITEX expertise conference for which Khan serves as Good Cities Convention Chair. He noticed that, along with blockchain being extremely complicated to most individuals, “there’s plenty of hype round it and there’s plenty of misinformation round it,” he notes.
“The story must be informed that clarifies issues, brings some mild to the state of affairs and helps enterprise determination makers, governments leaders and people perceive this expertise higher”
Blockchain Metropolis – The Way forward for Cities Pushed by Blockchain tells a “story of cities all over the world and their shift in direction of being technologically powered by Blockchain.” Within the 2019 movie, he interviews representatives of assorted governments who converse on the wonders of blockchain expertise and the alternatives it holds for making societal features extra environment friendly.

Consistent with his mantra of educating from real-life circumstances, blockchain use circumstances that have been introduced up embrace stopping over-fishing and baby trafficking. These examples of the subsequent stage of the digitization of governance infrastructure can assist international establishments “be a part of palms and take the subsequent steps collectively.”
Whereas Blockchain Cities largely avoids cryptocurrency, he has made a separate documentary titled The Bitcoin Dilemma on that topic. It’s technologically agnostic and impartial of any politics or ideology, which is thought to permeate the cryptocurrency business.
I lately spoke to the BBC concerning the Worldwide Financial Funds (IMF) upcoming World Monetary stability report and its suggestions on Crypto. Additionally mentioned was my new documentary movie “Bitcoin Dilemma”, El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption, and the ou…https://t.co/lBCKK5e6vV
— Ian Khan Futurist (@IanKhanFuturist) October 1, 2021