Building the Irish Blockchain: John Hand explains why CheckItsReal is one to watch

What is your background briefly?

30 years’ experience working with business colleagues developing software solutions in response to business problems.

After an initial career in Finance as an Accountant I realised that it was in the application of technology where I could excel, leveraging my commercial business experience with strong disciplined project and program management.

At HSBC I spent 26 years architecturally designing, developing and managing local, regional and global technology solutions across multiple business areas as diverse as Retail Banking, Investment Banking, Risk (Fraud, Credit, Market and Operational), Finance, Compliance (AML and KYC) and Data and Information Services (CRM, MIS, BI, Data Analytics, Big Data).

Working both out of the UK and also abroad for 8 years, initially as CIO in Argentina and then Regional Head of Software Development and Architecture for the group’s operations in Latin America, some 4,500 IT staff across 15 countries has provided me with a unique perspective of the challenges of developing international software across multiple jurisdictions and the impact not only of local regulation but also local culture and diversity.

In my global roles I have developed multi-million dollar solutions which have been implemented across multiple countries and have built and managed globally diverse teams across multiple continents including China and India.

Does it seem like a logical background to what you do now?

During my time at HSBC I spent a significant proportion of my time building solutions to help the bank fight financial crime, from Credit and Debit Card fraud through to systems to help detect Money Laundering across the various groups businesses from Retail and Private Banking to Payments and Cash Management and Investment Banking.

Applying this knowledge to the fight against the production of counterfeit goods seems to be a logical extension.

Why did you get involved with this ICO?

Firstly, I was interested in working with a team whose mission was to help save lives and passionate about it.

Secondly the opportunity to be part of what could be the next wave of technology in the Information age that we live in.

Blockchain has I believe enormous potential to help provide an auditability of an asset’s journey from its creation to its consumption, which as a former accountant piques my interest, as this has often been one of our major challenges in the past. An immutable transaction ledger that is secure has enormous appeal and enormous potential well beyond its initial use case of Bitcoin.

Why do you think this is such a powerful idea?

Checkitsreal and verifymymeds provides a simple and safe solution that leverages next generation technology to save lives and fight crime which appealed to me given my background and the many years I have spent developing software solutions to fight crime.

It was the first idea I had seen since I retired from the Bank that made me feel it was worth going back to work for. This idea could save real lives.

How can people find out more about the ICO?

The best way to find out more about the ICO is via the www.checkitsreal.io and www.checkitsreal.com websites.

The company has an initial coin offer which starts with an invite only round on the 6th of April 2018.

How can people find out more about you and your work?

Via my LinkedIn. 

How can people contact you and learn more about you?

I can be contacted via LinkedIn or at john.hand@checkitsreal.com

Prepared and edited by Andrew Carroll, Journalism MA in DIT.

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