The initial phase of the company’s Digital Twin project in Las Vegas encompassed a seven sq km space of the downtown integrating local citydata which could be used in the future to fundamentally transform mobility, air quality, noise pollution, water management, and in particular, emissions from major buildings across the city.
Cityzenith unveiled a first glimpse of its ground-breaking Las Vegas Digital Twin at a special event in Las Vegas on January 4th, attended by Las Vegas Councilwoman Olivia Diaz and Chief Information Officer Michael Sherwood. The company’s impressive project video describing the Las Vegas Digital Twin effort in detail that was first shown to the public at the event, and over the past several days, has been seen and shared by thousands of people from around the world.
“The Digital Twin project is developing at an impressive rate and is ahead of schedule,” says Cityzenith CEO Michael Jansen. “The base twin is now completed, and in the second quarter of this year, stakeholders from Las Vegas will be invited to join phase 2 of the Digital Twin project, including real estate owners, government agencies, university researchers, data partners, architects, and casino operators.
“Also, we have new partners that provide risk-free, no money down financing to building owners for green building retrofit projects. That means we can now decarbonize buildings anywhere in America without charging building owners a single penny to get started. This is a game-changer. Only 1.7% of American office buildings are green. With the combined power of our digital twin platform fuelled by innovative financing, we intend to change that.
“Moreover, we have invited the Digital Twin Consortium to collaborate with us and bring their expertise to this extraordinary, first of its kind urban Digital Twin project.”
Dan Isaacs CTO, Digital Twin Consortium commented: “We’re excited that Cityzenith is using digital twin technologies to help Las Vegas building owners significantly improve mobility and environmental considerations, including air quality, noise pollution, water management, and emissions for carbon footprint reduction. This smart city project will also provide Digital Twin Consortium members with multiple opportunities for collaboration.”
Cityzenith is providing the project’s Digital Twin technology as part of its ‘Clean Cities – Clean Future’ initiative to implement its SmartWorld Digital Twin platform in major world cities, a program designed to help drive down urban emissions and significantly improve cost efficiencies for local building owners. SmartWorld, aggregates, analyses, manages and reports emissions performance across multiple assets in real-time to ensure ongoing operational metrics and ESG compliance goals are maintained.
The company’s ‘Clean Cities – Clean Future’ initiative has projects underway in major US cities, including Los Angeles and Phoenix, with more than a dozen major cities and building owners in the queue to follow soon.
On the 25th November 2021, Matthieu Annenkov published his post-modern NFTcollection ‘cryptoluv’ on Opensea. Postmodernism is a movement that challenges the ideas and values associated with the previous artistic movement, entitled modernism, which began during the first decades of the 20thcentury. Modernism explored abstract and conceptual art by restabilising different painting techniques. On that account, one can see how ‘cryptoluv’ innovates; it’s clear and concrete message opposes the typical abstract artwork found in modernism. On the other hand, its political outlook and the adoption of NFTs as a way to disseminate the art work are quite unique. Despite the fact that all this sounds promising, it is not without queries: First and foremost what exactly is postmodernism? , how did it begin? , and why is Matthieu’s work an example of this genre?, In what ways do NFTs contribute to the growth of Russian postmodernism? and finally, how does ‘cryptoluv’ as a whole helps in the reduction of censorship in Russia? In this article, we will investigate all of these questions in order to provide clear reasoning as to why Annenkov’s ‘cryptoluv’ is vital to expanding the genre of Russian postmodernism.
Andy Warhol canvas ‘Marilyn Diptych’.
What is Post modernism?
Postmodernism is a subgenre of art that arose from movements that opposed modernism. This genre is associated with art forms like intertextuality, as it frequently includes realistic canvas rather than the more abstract works of modernism. The canvas above from the painter Andy Warhol, titled ‘Marilyn Diptych,’ is a well-known example of postmodernism, depicting a black and white and coloured version of famous movie star Marilyn Manroe from the 1930s-60 (before this paintings release in 1962). As a result, of it employing intertextuality (examining the relationship between previous texts), it challenges modernists’ emphasis on progression.
The first examples of postmodernism were seen in the post-World War 1 when Dada art movement began. This movement mocked previous art establishments by reacting negatively to the horrors of the war, even developing anarchic actions and irreverent performances. However, the term was not used until 1979. J.F. Lyotard, a philosopher, pioneered this movement with his book “The Postmodern Condition.” This movement expanded to all kinds of mediums and later on even cinema, the American classic Pulp Fiction is a great representation of postmodern cinema.
How is ‘cryptoluv’ an example of post modernism?
Matthieu Annenkov’s NFT collection ‘cryptoluv’ began with the goal of being totally liberated from the structure it would have communicated. It so happened that in Russia they will regularly utilize censorship. This is evident from as early as the 1930s, as Malevich, a well-known Russian artist, was forced to abandon his non-conformist style by Joseph Stalin. Hence, as the collection ‘cryptoluv’ is an experiment, with a series of ten photographs that are laid out as if they were controlled it aims to challenge the control the Russian government has over art.
The creator of this NFT series, Matthieu Annenkov began his career as an underground graffiti artist in the streets of Moscow. Here, he used his internal thoughts to shape his canvas from an early age. His experience as a grafitti artist helped him develop his unique style that explores the relationship between the spectator and the artist.
Why are NFTs key to expanding Russian Post-modernism?
NFTs or non-fungible tokens is a term that represents items such as your record, and due to their extraordinary properties, these tokens are incompatible with other things. Accordingly, as most NFTs and ‘cryptoluv’ are published on Opensea, an American platform, they reach a broader audience and are available to everyone with a computer as a result of their digital nature.
This helps Russian artists express themselves and reach a wider audience, as in Russia there is an extensive amount of censorship in what was shown to the public. Accordingly, independent media was rarely published in society; during 1988 a statistic carried out by Basic Concept of Journalism, asserts that 80% of all editors or publishers of newspapers and media were part of the Communist-Party. As a result, most post-modern artists were discouraged from releasing any work to the public because they did not want to challenge the Communist Party’s control. Even famous post-modern artist like Erik Bulatov, had to label his work as Contemporary Russian conceptualism to avoid problems with the press.
Therefore, because NFTs are published online, they will not be as tightly controlled by the Russian press, and due to most and ‘cryptoluv’ being published on Opensea a foreign platform it will encourage more postmodern artists to publish their work.
In what ways might Annenkov’s ‘cryptoluv’ be unique?
As previously stated, ‘cryptoluv’ is an experiment by Matthieu Annenkov. This NFT collection contains a selection of ten NFTs, with the predominant themes of these photographs being passion, lust, sensuality, and sexual attraction; it provides a fresh perspective on Russian culture. An independent artist creating a collection based on a contemporary topic is critical to conveying new visions of contemporary Russia.
The method used to promote Matthieu’s work Opensea, is also critical for the future of Russian media production. Opensea is an American platform that also happens to be the world’s largest NFT platform. As a result, Matthieu’s use of this is essential for two reasons. Because this is a foreign website, publication rules vary, hence it encourages artists to freely portray their work.
To conclude, I believe that ‘cryptoluv’ and NFTs in general will be vital in widening Russian postmodernism and nonconformist art. Matthieu’s decision to depict his work as post-modern allows it to examine the relationships between texts and create its own independent meaning. Moreover, his option of using NFTs as a media to publish his art, give Cryptoluv extraordinary properties; these tokens are incompatible with other things, and because they are digital, they will have fewer problems with the Russian press. Finally, his decision to publish it on Opensea, (available to purchase here) which is an American platform, enables it to reach a wider audience.
Adam Hollander is a serial entrepreneur and, using his extensive experience in-game mechanics and motivation, has recently launched a new NFT generative collection called Hungry Wolves. Hungry Wolves is a gamified social-based NFTs platform that generates digital content on the Ethereumblockchain.
Adam has over a decade of experience successfully building and marketing products at scale. A passionate member of a number of prominent NFT communities, including BAYC.
Adam Hollander Interview Focus
1. Career background
2. As a serial entrepreneur, can you tell us about your experience creating FantasySalesTeam and its acquisition by Microsoft?
3. You have been doing amazing things in gamification. Can you tell us how you see gamification, especially when it comes to business and workplaces?
4. Can you tell us more about Hungry Wolves?
5. What are your views on NFTs, crypto and blockchain?
Adam Hollander is a serial entrepreneur and has spent the last decade launching and growing successful companies. In 2011 he founded FantasySalesTeam, a gamification platform that encouraged employee motivation through interactive competition. That company was acquired by Microsoft in 2015 and fully integrated into Microsoft Dynamics CRM. After spending two years with Microsoft as their Director of Gamification, he joined a medical education startup, OnlineMedEd, in 2017 as their COO and fourth employee. Adam spent 4.5 years with the company which now boasts more than 350,000 monthly users and recently completed a $25 million fundraise.
Adam has now turned his attention to a unique and fast-growing market: NFTs. NFTs have been taking the art and collectables world by storm with billions of dollars in sales and certain high-end collections.
“Imagine walking into a museum and seeing a priceless piece of art on the wall. You could take a picture of it, but it wouldn’t be worth anything. You could buy a print in the gift shop, but that wouldn’t be worth very much either. The original piece is valuable because it’s the original,” Adam explained in a recent article.
“Until recently, you could copy a digital asset, like a picture, an unlimited number of times and each would be identical. You could never prove which was the original. As a result, it was extremely hard to value digital art. With NFTs and the blockchain, all of that has changed. Now an artist or company can create a scarce number of digital assets and distribute them with infallible proof of ownership.
This is game-changing not just for art and collectables, but for other types of assets ranging from digital land to medical records.”
“The bar is being consistently reset. A few months ago, you could create an NFT project with relatively low-quality artwork, a completely anonymous team, and it would sell out based purely on speculation,” said Adam. “That’s changing now. Projects are becoming more established and are being treated like companies raising investment with meaningful value expectations. I believe Hungry Wolves will raise that bar yet again by creating dynamic game engagement and competition.”
You can learn more about Hungry Wolves at www.hungrywolvesnft.com. The Priority Sale begins on December 5th and the Public Sale goes live on December 6th.
About Hungry Wolves
Hungry Wolves is a gamified generative collection of 6,000 NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain. Join wolf packs with friends, hunt Scrumptious Sheep NFTs, and eat them to earn rewards for yourself and your packmates. Learn more at www.hungrywolvesnft.com.
Cityzenith’s ambitious project to help Las Vegas building owners transition to net-zero carbon emissions has completed its first stage.
The Las Vegas Digital Twin project encompasses a 7 sq km area of downtown Las Vegas and will leverage the city’s advanced 5G networking and cutting-edge IoT sensor network to power advanced analytics that fundamentally transform mobility, air quality, noise pollution, water management, and in particular, emissions from major buildings across the city.
The project is developing at an impressive rate – the base twin is now completed, and soon, stakeholders from across the City of Las Vegas will be invited to join the project, including real estate owners, government agencies, university researchers, data partners, architects, and casino operators.
Cityzenith is providing the project’s Digital Twin technology as part of its ‘Clean Cities – Clean Future’ initiative to implement its SmartWorld Digital Twin platform in major world cities, a program designed to help drive down urban emissions and significantly improve cost efficiencies for local building owners. The program has been a massive success.
Project partner Terbine brings together and contextualizes IoT data from local government agencies, building operators, transportation systems, vehicle manufacturers and more, to provide the high volumes of sensor information needed by the urban Digital Twin.
Cityzenith’s Digital Twin platform, SmartWorld, manages and reports emissions performance and analytics across assets in real-time to ensure on-going operational metrics and compliance goals are maintained.
Cityzenith CEO and Founder Michael Jansen said: “We are honoured to be working with the City of Las Vegas, providing the market’s only end-to-end decarbonization solution for buildings in cities, to ensure Las Vegas’ buildings achieve net-zero emissions in the years to come quickly or without risk.”
Terbine CEO and Founder David Knight said: “Transitioning our home city into a clean, sustainable, and more attractive place to live and visit is a fantastic opportunity, and we’re delighted with our progress so far on this project. What we’re building here represents a model for how other cities can enable sustainability and a better quality of life for their citizens.”
Cityzenith will soon unveil two other major projects in the United States, new net-zero Digital Twins for Los Angeles and Phoenix, with a dozen city net-zero Digital Twins to follow in quick succession.
You can watch a video, displaying Cityzenith’s Digital Twin project in the City of Las Vegas here.
Investment banker and meditation teacher Jim Conley joins Sunny (Gurpreet) Singh and Thomas Power in the next episode of the ‘Living with Sunny’ Youtube podcastseries. The three experts discuss the most prevalent issues in wellness: meditation, Wholistic Wellbeing in the corporate setting, hypnosis, and more. Living with Sunny’s episode X is out now on YouTube and chosen podcast destinations.
Jim Conley is an investment banker, meditation teacher, and one of five co-founders of The Mindforce Institute. He is certified in Contemplative Psychotherapy by the Nalanda Institute, an intensive two-year program integrating Western contemporary psychotherapy, neuroscience, and wellness psychology with the mindfulness and compassion-based systems of Buddhist psychology and meditation. He shares his life story with the listeners.
Conley feels like the way his life panned out was not planned, but he sees the value in it. Early on, he was a pre-med student and an athlete but eventually ended up as a banker. In the end, his penchant for nurturing and generosity of spirit led him into the world of wellness, meditation, mindfulness, and resilience training. In 2019, he created the “Mindful Awareness Training” workshop: a secular overview of the four scopes of mindfulness combined with practical experiential techniques, 8 useful meditation-tastings, and Lovingkindness compassion practices — woven together with neuroscience, psychology and, with the luck of good timing, fueled by global interest in the ‘mindfulness movement’ (i.e. somatic embodied practices combined with visualization).
In the course of the discussion, Singh has made an observation about the value of COVID-19 pandemic:
“I tell my friends that you know, with Covid, what Covid has proven to us is that the emperor has no clothes. And the modern lifestyle is leading to a lot of lifestyle diseases, and we’ve been living with it, we’ve been living with things that we should not live with. We should be addressing them. We should be confronting them. We should be solving them. We should be overcoming them. And that is not happening.”
The ‘Living with Sunny’ YouTube podcast series is co-hosted by Sunny (Gurpreet) Singh and Thomas Power. As seekers of wellbeing, the two interview a range of figures from the worlds of business, medicine, academia, science, technology, and publishing, to explore individual wellbeing journeys and map out society’s progress towards a better, more harmonious world, across various industries.
Sunny strongly believes in the Wholistic Wellbeing concept. That is what this podcast really is about. Wholistic Wellbeing makes you feel better; it is about becoming a better person, mentally, emotionally, and physically.
As a seeker, Sunny has long studied how the use of holistic health can help everyone achieve a feeling of wholeness necessary to their overall wellbeing. He calls this concept Wholistic Wellbeing, which consists of 7 pillars: Emotional Wellbeing, Physical Wellbeing, Social Wellbeing, Financial Wellbeing, Professional Wellbeing, Community Wellbeing, and Planetary Wellbeing.
You can find ‘Living With Sunny’ via YouTube, but also via LinkedIn, Apple, Google Podcast, Spotify, and over 20 podcast directories. Tune into the Living with Sunny podcast on YouTube and Podcast directories. New episodes every Tuesday.
Living with Sunny: The Hosts
Sunny (Gurpreet) Singh
Sunny (Gurpreet) Singh is the founder of RoundGlass and Edifecs, and the visionary behind the Wholistic Wellbeing concept: the practice of using wholistic health in order to feel whole and at one with ourselves.
A serial entrepreneur and paragon of corporate wellbeing, Sunny has dedicated his life to developing and sharing a sustainable and accessible holistic healthcare model. The culmination of years of work in this field, RoundGlass is Sunny’s magnum opus: a company through which he offers cutting-edge solutions, content, an app, and other technologies to facilitate people’s journeys towards Wholistic Wellbeing.
Sunny’s altruism also shines through his philanthropy, most notably through the RoundGlass Foundation in India. Among other impressive projects, the Foundation has been supporting over 700 villages in India and other exceptional work in wellbeing, education, sustainability, and sports. Offshoots like RoundGlass Sustain and RoundGlass Sports have contributed tremendous progress in their respective areas.
Thomas Power
Business advisor and tech trailblazer, Thomas Power is an entrepreneur and serial board member, with expertise spanning multiple industries. He has worked for the likes of Apple, Google, and Microsoft, and now sits on the board for The Business Café, Social Power Limited, Digital Entrepreneur, and, most significantly, 9 Spokes, the software company responsible for the 9 Spokes business management app allowing companies to aggregate meaningful data across their business, apps and banks. In this capacity, Power has harnessed his technical acumen to deliver insights to small businesses so they may improve their efficiency, and offer them access to vital industry information, normally only available to bigger businesses with greater budgets. Supporting corporations from start-ups to household names, Thomas’ input is visionary and scalable to any size, helping businesses grow and thrive.
Pursuing his passion to help others on their journey to corporate success, Power founded Business is Personal, a mentoring service for businesses and professionals, in 2019. He runs the service with his wife Penny, and they offer seasoned advice on Mental Wellbeing for employees as well as bespoke services to enhance the health and vitality of businesses.
With over 1,000 speeches delivered in more than 56 countries, including a TEDx talk on ‘The Future of Social Networks’, Thomas’ three decades at the forefront of tech have earned him enviable status as a speaker. Much of Power’s present time is dedicated to traveling the world, educating and advising corporate clients, and hosting industry conferences.
About Jim Conley
Jim Conley is an investment banker, meditation teacher, and previously one of the co-founders of The Mindforce Institute. He’s also managing director of Yellion Partners, a boutique specializing in corporate finance, mergers & acquisitions, turnaround counsel, operational & strategic advisory, and private equity & venture capital to both private and public companies. His experience includes long-term assignments (+16 years) in Brussels, London, and Amsterdam working for Prudential Securities, JP Morgan Chase and Deutsche Bank serving a client base of multi-industrial multinational corporations. He’s completed operational assignments at The Financial Times Group (Pearson, Plc) as a business unit CFO/COO; and as Global CFO of an international art and travel publishing group.
In 2017, Jim completed the Nalanda Institute’s two-year Certificate Program in Contemplative Psychotherapy, an intensive program integrating Western contemporary psychotherapy, neuroscience, and wellness psychology with the mindfulness and compassion-based systems of Buddhist psychology and meditation.
He’s also completed a one-year teacher training certification in Compassion-Based Resilience Training (CBRT), an evidence-based course for building resilience and well-being of mind, heart, and body using mindfulness and compassion practice as well as visualization techniques, somatic awareness, and breathwork.
“Finding Your Atom” is the new podcastseries by Amrita Sen, artist, designer, and producer, and Dinis Guarda, author, and founder of citiesabc and openbusinesscouncil. Today’s guest is Beverly Hills’ leading fashion designers for Hollywood A-list celebrities and the global social elite Mark Zunino. The three of them go on a journey to discover what drives Mark’s career: his passion for everything he does.
The two come together again, after the success of their previous podcast series “Music For” with another concept of recognising unique identifiers, and motivating the audiences with an increased mindfulness and self-awareness. The podcast is available on Dinis Guarda YouTube channel, and major podcast directories.
The presenters of the podcast are adept with the knowledge of meditation fundamentals, and consequently emphasise on negating the cacophony of the thoughts in our lives, focussing our energies on the relevant one. Thus, “Finding Your Atom” could be a unique opportunity to glue yourself with your own personality.
#FindingYourAtom #MarkZunino #Passion
About Mark Zunino
Celebrated Los Angeles based designer Mark Zunino has come to define “Red Carpet Style” over the last decade. Initially an advertising major at California’s prestigious Pepperdine University, a chance interview with legendary film and television designer Nolan Miller led to an apprenticeship in 1985 and, ultimately, a full-fledged career in fashion design now spanning over 30 years.
Learning the art of the couture business from European trained pattern makers and tailors, Mark was able to refine his skills and eventually launch his own label in 1998. The experience he received from designing for such Hollywood legends as Elizabeth Taylor and Sophia Loren allowed him to retain the values of old Hollywood glamour in his designs and reinterpret them for some of today’s hottest celebrities. Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry, Demi Moore, Gwyneth Paltrow, Courtney Cox and Brooke Burke are just some of the world’s most beautiful women that have recently worn the Mark Zunino label. From the personally hand-drawn sketches to choosing the finest fabrics from around the world, a Mark Zunino gown is always the epitome of female elegance, glamour and individuality. Appointments in his private salon are hard to come by, as each design is custom made from start to finish with no detail left unnoticed.
In 2011 Mark launched his ready-to-wear line on QVC called “The Mark Of Style,” as well as his first bridal collection with New York’s Kleinfeld Bridal. With shapewear, handbags and fragrances on the horizon, Mark Zunino plans on making his vision of glamour available to every woman seeking to express their inner beauty. Mark’s goal is, and has always been, to make every woman feel as though she were walking the red carpet every day of their lives.
Originally from India, Amrita Sen is a US-based designer, singer, producer and business woman of Indian-themed products and entertainment for global markets. Amrita Sen combines the creation of original artistic content with extensive business experience to commercialize unique products at retail and on-the-air.
Among her many achievements, Amrita performed at the 2009’s Academy Awards with music legend AR Rahman, singing Jai Ho from the Oscar-winning movie, Slumdog Millionaire. As an entrepreneur, Amrita creates original Indian-themed art on successful lines of fashion and home products and distributes it through her own personal brand, Amrita Sen Designs.
More about Amrita Sen
Read The Book: https://issuu.com/bollydoll/docs/awak…
Listen To Amrita’s Music: https://open.spotify.com/artist/21n4V…
Dinis Guarda is an author, academic, influencer, serial entrepreneur and leader in 4IR, AI, Fintech, digital transformation and Blockchain. With over two decades of experience in international business, C level positions and digital transformation, Dinis has worked with new tech, cryptocurrencies, drive ICOs, regulation, compliance, legal international processes, and has created a bank, and been involved in the inception of some of the top 100 digital currencies.
Dinis has created various companies such as Ztudium tech platform a digital and blockchain startup that created the software Blockimpact (sold to Glance Technologies Inc) and founder and publisher of intelligenthq.com, hedgethink.com, fashionabc.org and tradersdna.com. Dinis is also the co-founder of techabc and citiesabc, a digital transformation platform to empower, guide and index cities through 4IR based technologies like blockchain, AI, IoT, etc.
As an author, Dinis Guarda published the book 4IR: AI, Blockchain, FinTech, IoT, Reinventing a Nation in 2019, among others. His upcoming book, titled 4IR Magna Carta Cities ABC: A tech AI blockchain 4IR Smart Cities Data Research Charter of Liberties for our humanity is due to be published in 2020.
He is ranked as one of the most influential people in Blockchain in the world by Right Relevance as well as being listed in Cointelegraph’s Top People In Blockchain and Rise Global’s The Artificial Intelligence Power 100. He was also listed as one of the 100 B2B Thought Leaders and Influencers to Follow in 2020 by Thinkers360.
President of World Smart CitiesForum, Jaewon Peter Chun, joins Sunny (Gurpreet) Singh and Thomas Power in the ninth episode of the ‘Living with Sunny’ Youtube podcastseries. The three experts discuss the concept of ‘Holistic Wellbeing’ outlining the idea of a ‘Smart Cities’. Living with Sunny’s episode 9 is out now on YouTube and chosen podcast destinations.
Born in South Korea during the most challenging times, while it was still recuperating from the traumatic history of colonisation, Jaewon studied his initial years there. He started his career in investment/finance in tech. Progressing gradually, he got involved in projects focusing on smart cities. Sharing his insightful experiences with the listeners, he emphasises holistic wellbeing incorporates societal wellbeing and planetary wellbeing, apart from the individualistic pursuit of happiness.
Jaewon feels that it is important that we, as citizens of a community take active participation in its wholistic wellbeing. “We usually call it the ‘Transparent Governance System’. Because most of the cities develop by very small group of entities. The Smart Cities is more open to its citizens. I mean, citizens’ involvement in these kinds of activities are more important in the Smart City initiatives”, he emphasises.
Particularly talking about wholistic wellbeing of a Smart City, Singh agrees with Jaewon:
“Smart cities should incorporate into their whole framework, how does the community in the Put the humans at the centre of a Smart City. It is about humanity and humans. It is about enabling something for humanity in a positive way. It’s almost like wellbeing should be a core value of Smart Cities”.
The ‘Living with Sunny’ YouTube podcast series is co-hosted by Sunny (Gurpreet) Singh and Thomas Power. As seekers of wellbeing, the two interview a range of figures from the worlds of business, medicine, academia, science, technology, and publishing, to explore individual wellbeing journeys and map out society’s progress towards a better, more harmonious world, across various industries.
Sunny strongly believes in the Wholistic Wellbeing concept. That is what this podcast really is about. Wholistic Wellbeing makes you feel better; it is about becoming a better person, mentally, emotionally, and physically.
As a seeker, Sunny has long studied how the use of holistic health can help everyone achieve a feeling of wholeness necessary to their overall wellbeing. He calls this concept Wholistic Wellbeing, which consists of 7 pillars: Emotional Wellbeing, Physical Wellbeing, Social Wellbeing, Financial Wellbeing, Professional Wellbeing, Community Wellbeing, and Planetary Wellbeing.
You can find ‘Living With Sunny’ via YouTube, but also via LinkedIn, Apple, Google Podcast, Spotify, and over 20 podcast directories. Tune into the Living with Sunny podcast on YouTube and Podcast directories. New episodes every Tuesday.
As 2021 draws to a close, Amrit Dhami, Thematic Analyst at GlobalData, offers her view on these themes:
M-commerce is fueling the development of super apps in the West, but China will continue to rule the roost
“The increased use of mobile wallets — a virtual wallet that stores card details on mobile phones — and mobile commerce (m-commerce) — purchasing online via a mobile phone — is driving the development of ‘super apps’ in the West, similar to China’s WeChat and Alipay. In 2022, the value of mobile wallet transactions will exceed $266 billion in the US and $60.5 trillion in China.
“Mobile wallets act as a gateway to a broader range of financial services without the need for consumers to leave the app. Mobile point of sale (POS) software usually requires biometric authentication and offers more security than contactless card payments. It’s also more convenient for users, as they carry their phones around everywhere with them anyway, and no additional hardware is needed. This will continue to encourage consumers to abandon cash and cards.
“Since it’s now easier than ever to make transactions using mobile phones, it’s no surprise that m-commerce is exploding to become the most popular method of online transaction. The convergence of mobile wallets, m-commerce, financial services, and social media will encourage payment companies such as PayPal to develop super apps that will streamline the consumer experience and provide a portal to a host of services.
“However, the West’s super apps will fall short of emulating China’s powerful digital ecosystems because western social media companies consistently fall short at building consumer trust — something that is pivotal to the success of super apps. In the absence of the regulatory hands-off approach in China that allowed Tencent and Alibaba to grow substantially, US social media giants must earn their users’ trust if they aspire to reach super-app status.
“GlobalData’s Thematic Scorecards score companies based on how they will perform in various themes. Almost all of the 35 companies on GlobalData’s Social Media Thematic Scorecard score less than two (out of five) for the ‘Data Privacy’ theme, including Meta and Snap. Data privacy is incredibly important to consumers and regulators, so this demonstrates that social media companies still have some way to go before they can be allowed to grow into super apps.”
The herd of fintech unicorns will continue to expand and engage in strategic partnerships
“Fintech unicorns—private companies valued at $1 billion or more— have now climbed to 116 in number, with an aggregate valuation of $529 billion. A surge of investment in start-ups has expanded the herd of fintech unicorns this year, and 2022 will be no different with the likes of Corvus Insurance and Navi Technologies set to join the cohort. Meanwhile, at least 10 current unicorns will become public, including Stripe, Monzo, and Chime.
“The sheer volume of highly valued start-ups operating in fintech demonstrates the extensive ongoing disruption of the financial services sector by digital technologies.
“Disruptors and incumbent institutions will continue to form dynamic partnerships to capitalize on the innovation of start-ups and large user bases of traditional financial institutions. Goldman Sachs and Visa are among those building an extensive fintech network.”
Openness in data ownership has played a critical role in fintech partnerships
“Open banking has encouraged partnerships between disruptors and incumbents by allowing accounts and data to be linked across institutions, important for services like smart budgeting, automated onboarding, and credit risk assessment. PSD2 (the amended Payment Services Directive) has facilitated openness by giving third parties access to banks’ infrastructure.
“Open banking —where banks open up data for regulated providers to access — has been a key driver of partnerships between unicorns and banks, and has been delivered top-down in Europe through PSD2. A more open model of data ownership, where data can be moved across different institutions, increases transparency in banking services, and is an important step in shifting the ownership of customer data from banks to the customer. Institutions will be battling to win our trust and confidence.
“Openness in data ownership will continue to be a key theme in the financial services sector, so discussions around PSD3 will continue in order to instigate the more aggressive measures needed for further networking across financial institutions.”
Generation Hashtag is driving fintech innovation
“Generation Hashtag refers to the cohort born between 1991 and 2005. Having experienced the uncertainty of both the Global Financial Crisis and COVID-19 recession, this generation will continue to redirect their savings towards commission-free stock trading and investment apps such as Robinhood and Freetrade. These apps target young investors with a firm grasp of technology, but limited wealth —Robinhood’s average user is aged 27.
“Generation Hashtag is also wary of credit card fees, so is driving innovation in interest free, buy now pay later (BNPL) services. BNPL is convenient for consumers and lucrative for retailers, reducing cart abandonment. However, more transparency around BNPL services is urgently needed to ensure consumers understand that they are accruing debt through BNPL, which can negatively affect their credit scores. Regulators will pay more attention to BNPL following its rapid growth in 2021, with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) already recommending rigorous affordability checks before consumers can use such services.”
• The podcast was conceived by the creators of “Music For” YouTube series to create a sphere for self-reflection, and understanding yourself at the most basic of levels. Amrita and Dinis commit to take you through the journey of various special guests, and learn how they realised their ‘Personal atomic Identifier’.
• Episode one is now live on YouTube and selected podcast directories with Special Guest Steven Husak.
“Finding Your Atom” is the fresh podcast series by Amrita Sen, artist, designer, and producer, and Dinis Guarda, author, and founder of citiesabc and openbusinesscouncil. The two come together again, after the success of their previous podcast series “Music For” with another concept of recognising unique identifiers and motivating the audiences with increased mindfulness and self-awareness. The podcast is available on Dinis Guarda YouTube channel and major podcast directories.
The presenters of the podcast are adept with the knowledge of meditation fundamentals and consequently emphasise negating the cacophony of the thoughts in our lives, focussing our energies on the relevant one. Thus, “Finding Your Atom” could be a unique opportunity to glue yourself with your own personality.
Amrita, who already created her podcast space with “Music For”, aesthetically embarked on the journey of meditation and wellbeing with music. With her new podcast, she benchmarks the principles and practices she herself has been implementing for many years.
“Let’s shrink down. What are you good at, at the most atomic of levels? Once we think about that, it becomes very clear every person has a thing. There are about 7 billion people in the world. It seems less likely that even five of them are identical. It’s impossible. There are billions and billions of stars in the universe, they have their own unique formation identifiers. Then, why is it so hard to believe that every soul in the world, including mine or my mom’s (who is in heaven now), has a unique identifier? I want to challenge everybody: what is your atomic level identifier? What is really the essence where you have something to say. What is it that only you can say? We will have to shrink it to that level”, Amrita explains excitedly.
In its first episode, Steven Husak, (intro of the personality) reveals his journey of exploration of his own ‘Atom’. He gradually unveils the challenges he faced in his career, evolving his business strategies over time based on various parameters. He also shares his experiences during the journey, and the ways he has embraced the digital frameshift in the entire industry.
“Neil Armstrong had some fears when he stepped on the moon, and we are not anything even close to that. That’s it, don’t be afraid to take chances, go with it. Even if nobody trusts you, go with your dream”, he reassuringly reveals in the end.
Dinis Guarda, co-host of the podcast shares, “Looking at the layers of the society, understanding the concept of finding one’s atom is extremely fundamental in comprehending the pace and direction of life, providing it enough impetus and consequently projecting in the most relevant direction. This is what mindfulness is. This is what the practice of self-awareness and reflection is, as guided by the most pious meditation and yoga practices since centuries. For me, creativity and the love of my dear ones is ‘My Atom’. It drives me to accept and embrace challenges in various ways, and keeps me motivated enough to find ways through every situation”.
New York, NY, December 16, 2021 — Today, ConsenSys, the leading Ethereum software company, announced the launch of ConsenSys Rollups, to provide enterprise-grade scalability to leading financial organizations, addressing the key use case of scalable applications on the Ethereum blockchain. ConsenSys leveraged the expertise of Mastercard’s engineering team to design the ConsenSys Rollups solution.
The creativity of projects on Ethereum is exploding in areas such as decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFT), gaming, Web 3.0 and the metaverse. Ethereum’s usage is at an all-time-high, with the number of Ethereum addresses exceeding 177 million and tens of thousands more added each day. While high network usage indicates strong adoption, it also establishes a need for scalability and privacy-enhancing solutions.
With this in mind, ConsenSys engaged Mastercard to co-develop key building blocks to make blockchain technology scalable on the Ethereum Mainnet or for private use; providing benefits for all stakeholders in the ecosystem.
ConsenSys Rollups is an innovative modular software solution for permissioned blockchain applications focused on providing scalability and privacy capabilities that can be connected to any Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible blockchain. It can be used on the Ethereum Mainnet, or on private ConsenSys Quorum networks. ConsenSys Rollups leverage zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs to protect specific transaction elements, such as account balances, sender, recipient, and amount, to prevent this important transaction data from being shared publicly across the network – significantly enhancing the privacy and confidentiality of transactions. Zero-knowledge proof technologies enable one party to verify their knowledge of something to another party without having to convey the information itself. ZK proofs can then be used to verify and certify batches of transactions without having to execute them directly on the blockchain network. Solutions built with ConsenSys Rollups can currently achieve a throughput of up to 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) on a private chain while only 300 TPS can be achieved on private chains and 15 on the Ethereum Mainnet.
Programmability on zero-knowledge rollups is designed to enable additional functionalities in the future. Even higher transaction throughputs are expected to be possible through reliance on trusted parties for data availability.
“ConsenSys Rollups enables vastly more scalability in addition to strong privacy protections to both enhance solutions for existing use-cases and enable new use-cases. This innovative solution will help accelerate the building of the future of finance”, said Madeline Murray, Global Lead of Protocol Engineering at ConsenSys.
ConsenSys Rollups will enable more types of blockchain use cases
By increasing scalability and confidentiality for asset transfers, ConsenSys Rollups enables the implementation of new, innovative use-cases including:
• Central Bank Digital Currencies(CBDCs): CBDCs issuance on top of a ConsenSys Rollups powered Quorum network can provide scalability and privacy capabilities for digital currency transfers among central banks, commercial banks, and retail users.
• Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs): DEXs built with Rollups will bring scalability to Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and NFTs, and more use cases on Ethereum that need faster settlement but the security guarantees of Ethereum.
• Micropayments: Micro payment applications that see users pay, for example, on a per-stream or per-view basis will require high throughput to properly function as large numbers of users interact with platforms and decentralized applications (dapps). Rollups on mainnet will allow Ethereum to scale to meet the demand of new Web3 economic paradigms without network congestion, high fees, or finality challenges.
• Private transfer and taxes: ConsenSys Rollups open a new pattern for confidentiality on the Ethereum Mainnet, or on Quorum powered networks. With partially anonymous rollups, users can transfer or swap tokens and transact with partial anonymity. Use-cases that require auditability and transparency but also maintain user confidentiality will be enabled with rollup solutions. This could remove the next barrier to entry for more DeFi or cryptocurrency users on new services.
Raj Dhamodharan, Executive Vice President of Digital Assets and Blockchain Products and Partnerships at Mastercard says, “We believe there is real potential in blockchain technology helping to solve real-world problems. We’re in the early stages, but are starting to see efficiencies in how permissioned and private chain product constructs use open-source technologies. Our work with partners like ConsenSys will continue to advance this space.”
ConsenSys Rollups is compatible with all tokens that follow the ERC20 standard.
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