Blockchain, Big Data & IoT: The keys to a decentralized future With Ved Raj

The two biggest threats of a technology-powered world are those of centralization taking away transparency & right to information, and automation taking away human employability. Experts are debating left and right to find a panacea to these apparent threats for a long time now.

Some say that a large portion of human capital will be rendered useless once technologies such as AI, machine learning and IoT take our jobs. There is another group of people who claim that if anything, emerging technologies will only make our lives better than ever before.

I, for one, believe in the latter group of people. Technology isn’t making us useless, but rather making it easier for us to invest our time and effort on something more valuable then what we’re doing today.

Three emerging technologies- Blockchain, IoT and Big Data hold the key to making the above-mentioned statement a reality.

Why do we need a decentralized future?

Let me start with the simple and popular example of Google Assistant. The assistant is a virtual assistant feature offered by Google on mobile devices and comes pre-installed on most Android devices sold across the world.

As with nearly all Google services, the assistant collects a lot, a lot of data. Your speech, your search history, web history, location data; it basically knows more about you than anyone in your life, perhaps even more than you.

But the problem isn’t that. The main problem with services such as these is that they’re centralized. Google has access to all your information and it’s in their complete control. That doesn’t change even if Google provides you the option to control your data. The point is that they can control it too, and they do so relentlessly by using it to serve you ads.

You cannot blame Google for what they do, for advertising is perhaps the only way they can keep the machine running. However, it doesn’t change the fact that the control of our data at the hands of centralized authority is something to be anxious about in 2019.

In the wake of so many threats to individual data and privacy, we can no longer afford to not own our digital identity by keeping it in the hands of centralized authorities. The scammy practices of the banking system have been exposed to the world a long time ago, we can no longer have financial systems centralized.

Another major reason why we need a decentralized future is that we already have most of the things required to build so.

Ingredients to make a decentralized future: Blockchain, IoT and Big Data

About Blockchain

Let’s start with Blockchain, as it is what essentially led to the initial talk about decentralization in the first place. The term blockchain and the concept of this technology became popular since the introduction of the bitcoin cryptocurrency in 2009. The blockchain technology is what runs the bitcoin cryptocurrency, and is also behind other altcoins such as ETH, litecoin among others.

A blockchain is a peer-to-peer network wherein the participants (the nodes) run the network and make transactions that are cryptographically secured and therefore are immutable. Since its a peer-to-peer network, there’s no centralized authority involved and all control is accessible to the nodes running the network.

Think of it this way- In a traditional website on the internet, a domain is hosted on a centralized server to whom you pay for the service. What runs a blockchain network isn’t a centralized server, but the computer systems of the network participants themselves, who could “mine” cryptocurrencies from those making the transactions on the network for keeping the network alive.

In a blockchain, every single transaction forms a single block, and each of them is linked with each other cryptographically. This means that changing one block would require one to change the entire set of blocks in a blockchain network. Doing so is rendered practically impossible due to the presence of algorithms such as proof-of-stake and proof of work.

As mentioned before, a blockchain network is decentralized and it’s the participants or the nodes that run the network. But a blockchain network is also distributed, i.e., at any one given point, all participants in the network have access to the same sets of data as each other. This can be related to google docs, wherein you can have multiple users access a single document at a given time, and all users would be able to see the changes in the document in real-time.

About IoT

IoT or the Internet of things refers to the inter-connected nature of electronic devices working synchronously to perform an activity. Philips Hue bulls that synchronize with your phone to help your remotely adjust your room lighting or fitness trackers that share your fitness data to smartphone apps are basic examples of IoT. At higher levels, IoT sensors can help a user control an entire set of activities right from a single controller device, such as a smartphone.

An extension of IoT called the Industrial IoT or IIoT refers to the applications of IoT in industrial use cases. This consists of IoT devices fitted with sensors that collect loads of data about the functionality of devices they’re attached to. For example, an IoT sensor fitted on a vehicle could track details such as distance covered, fuel tank capacity, oil levels, mileage among other important aspects.

The beauty of IoT comes from the fact that it allows devices to send such data to each other. Thus an IoT device collecting data from a vehicle using sensors can easily send the data to the vehicle manufacturer for inspection, for deciding repair schedules, for insurance-related decisions and for myriad other purposes one can imagine.

So in essence, IoT is all about our devices having their own internet realm to interact with each other by sharing and collecting data.

Big data analytics

As mentioned before, devices such as smartphones, IoT devices, and certain other software applications can collect loads of data. Such large amounts of data are practically useless if one cannot derive any useful insights out of it. This is where Big data analytics comes in. Through analytics, one can find patterns between large data sets and create actionable insights that could be leveraged for various executable functions.

As mentioned in the example for Vehicles using IoT, sensors can collect loads of data which can be useful if analyzed through tools using big data analytics. The processed information collected by the tools can be used by several departments, ranging from marketing, R&D, and sales, and for other actionable purposes.

How Decentralized Autonomous Intelligence combines Blockchain, Big Data, and IoT

As mentioned above, blockchain is a network which decentralizes the exchange of value. IoT is the link that connects devices and even technologies together, and Big data creates actionable insights out of the collected data.

So how can these three combine to form decentralized autonomous intelligence? This can be explained with a pretty simple use case:

Now, imagine selling an air conditioner having embedded IoT sensors to a customer. Now, these sensors would collect all sorts of data. Now, if the sensor detects damage to any component of the AC, then it can automatically generate a service request for maintenance of the appliance. This can be made possible with AI. Now, where will this service request go? It will go to a blockchain network powered by a smart contract application, which will, in turn forward the request to you, the seller of the product,

As a seller, you would have received a request for maintenance of an appliance you sold without any interference from the customer! This is what Decentralized autonomous intelligence is all about- leveraging technology to make lives easier and let people focus on other valuable priorities.

Author Bio: Ved Raj is a senior IT consultant at ValueCoders, an offshore IT outsourcing company based in India. He has worked in the IT outsourcing industry for 10+ years. His current job usually involves working with clients on their Blockchain development needs and helping them to build decentralized products such as Ethereum Wallets, Smart contracts, ICOs, etc.

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