PwC's Tech While You Trek: Automating Trust

Tune into another episode of Tech While You Trek to hear three PwC staff members who work in the emerging technology space: Kurt Fields, Jen Hanania and Matt Earl. They'll discuss how emerging technologies like blockchain, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) automate trust by working together to ensure the authenticity of data while verifying identities and enabling secure multi-party transactions.

Transcript

PwC's Tech While You Trek:  Automating Trust
Guests:  Matt Earl, Kurt Fields, and Jen Hanania

Adam  (00:08):

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Tech While You Trek. I'm your host, Adam, and today we're here to talk about one of the emerging technology convergence themes, automating trust, with Matt Earl, Kurt Fields, and Jen Hanania. Welcome.

Jennifer Hanania (00:22):

Thanks for having us.

Adam  (00:23):

Before we get started, why don't you all tell us a little bit about yourselves.

Matt Earl (00:26):

I'm Matt. I sit within our cyber privacy and forensics practice working on some of our emerging tech stuff, really into blockchain and the convergence of that.

Jennifer Hanania (00:35):

Jen Hanania. I sit on our emerging technology team where my primary focus is the intersection of blockchain, AI, and IOT and how we use those three technologies to automate trust.

Kurt Fields (00:48):

This is Kurt Fields. I lead our blockchain efforts in the US for PwC.

Adam  (00:53):

Can we have some definitions, please, about the technologies we're going to be talking about today? I heard blockchain, the convergence of IOT and AI. Give us a little bit of background here.

Jennifer Hanania (01:02):

Blockchain is the base for the other two technologies. Blockchain provides a shared, single source of truth. That is immutable, meaning we can only ever add to it; we can't edit it. And it is secure, so only the parties we want to see specific information can see that information. We can start using IOT to add on to that. We can connect our physical world. We can connect things like location, temperature, onto our blockchain. And then when we have all that information together, we can actually use AI to interpret some of that information. We can identify bad actors, identify patterns, and identify workflow steps that can then be automated.

Adam  (01:50):

Is that how you go about automating trust?

Kurt Fields (01:53):

When we talk about automating trust, it's becoming less and less about the technology and less about the building blocks and more about the rules, the governance. How are we going to convene all of the different stakeholders to contribute data and utilize data in a meaningful way, in an automated way, and in a verified way?

Kurt Fields (02:11):

And one of the things that we really see organizations struggle with is exactly that. It's how do we convene this ecosystem in a meaningful way to collaborate with these technologies? For decades, we have had legacy technologies that are focused on one organization, data and process within the four walls of one entity. Now, we're talking about looking beyond those four walls and collaborating in real time. There's less and less human intervention, and that requires a lot of trust.

Kurt Fields (02:42):

And so that's where we spend a lot of our time, trying to understand what are those business requirements or those controls or those data elements that we can mutually agree are not only important, but provide opportunity for efficiency, growth, reduction in cost?

Adam  (03:00):

And this is all based essentially on your ability to guarantee a certain amount of information available to them through this process of automated trust.

Jennifer Hanania (03:10):

Exactly. That's where blockchain, IOT and AI, and this notion of automating trust becomes really powerful and impactful. We can use that even to create trust in people and the contractors we deployed to do work for us. Last year, we held a workshop with some of our larger utility clients, and one thing we were surprised to see come up was actually the process of onboarding and authenticating and then subsequently deploying contractors.

Jennifer Hanania (03:40):

Oftentimes, in the wake of a blackout, utility companies will have to onboard dozens of contractors, and that process is actually really costly. It takes time and effort to onboard each contractor, check their credentials, find out where they would best be deployed. What we were able to identify as a potential solution really played into this concept of automating trust.

We were able to create a blockchain solution where contractors were able to own and maintain their credentials. They would onboard once, have their credentials authenticated by an industry standards body, and have their work authenticated at each utility company that they go to.

Adam  (04:28):

That's a great example of how this works for companies in the real world. Can you talk a little bit about how it might work for users and individuals?

Kurt Fields (04:35):

When we think about some of the other technologies that would then be interacting with blockchain, let's talk about a PPE scenario where someone needs to actually authenticate some of the equipment that they are using for any given situation. The IOT component would allow for an individual to actually gather data about the physical asset. In the simplest form or example, there might be a QR code on a physical good or asset that can be scanned with the mobile application.

That information is then either being verified or rejected in real time through the blockchain application. If we have that verified information, that verified data about the asset, AI then obviously gives us the capability to generate even more powerful insights about the asset itself, the process of how that asset's being used.

Adam  (05:32):

So PPE obviously is something that's on everyone's mind during this COVID-19 situation. Talk to me about other ways that the process of automating trust can help during COVID-19.

Jennifer Hanania (05:41):

In response to COVID-19, we're certainly seeing some states hit harder than others, and we're seeing a lot of doctors and nurses kind of bravely go to some of these harder-hit areas to help out. What that ends up doing is that does put us in a little bit of a bind, where we have to quickly credentialize these doctors and these nurses to make sure that they're allowed to work in situations where we really just need all hands on deck and we need everyone who can help to go and help immediately. So, if we were to consider a blockchain-based credential management tool in the COVID-19 era for healthcare workers, I think that would be really impactful and powerful.

Kurt Fields (06:21):

We're also seeing how blockchain combined with other technologies like IOT and artificial intelligence are mitigating some of the challenges that we're facing in the travel industry. If you think about being able to go to an airport, get on a plane, get to your destination, and prove not only that you are healthy, but that the people who are providing service to you, whether it be an airline employee or someone at the airport, being able to prove that they are also healthy.

And then ultimately also being able to prove that the physical asset that you're interacting with, in this example, an aircraft, being able to prove that that is clean and has been cleaned and serviced appropriately, that type of information we're seeing stored on things like blockchain.

Adam  (07:13):

Can you talk to me a little bit about some hurdles to adapting this kind of technology?

Kurt Fields (07:18):

The past five years, we've seen a lot of draft legislation, draft regulation, standards bodies trying to push out guidance, and a lot of debate about what's appropriate for any given use case. And that also means that the guidance had to be rationalized with existing law and existing regulations. This has been a lengthy road, a lengthy process because we know that many institutions had already been experimenting with projects for each of these, and so they're looking now at how that guidance measures up against what they have designed for, and it's becoming more of a dialogue.

A lot of the private sector is now approaching public institutions and saying, "We either understand and accept the guidance that has come out," or they're saying "We might see gaps in some of the guidance, and we're still looking for additional regulation because we need to understand what the guardrails are for these use cases." And they're coming with these experiments and these learnings to public institutions and sharing.

Matt Earl (08:15):

The idea is, I really do think personally, that we're sort of fundamentally asking companies to sort of change the way that they currently do business. Right? If we're building an ecosystem and we require ecosystem consensus, that's something I don't think most companies even imagine they would do. Especially with increasing levels of competition each year, it seems that companies are trying to leverage any type of competitive advantage that they can possibly find.

Now, we're sort of saying that this isn't a zero-sum game, that it doesn't take one winner to kind of rule them all, but through this sort of joint collaboration, we're able to actually add value for everybody. I just think that fundamentally that's a different sort of mindset that companies need to think about.

Adam  (08:59):

What are some things that companies should be thinking about now, as they're thinking about adopting this kind of technology?

Kurt Fields (09:05):

What becomes the biggest challenge is how do we actually utilize the technologies in our respective business environments? Meaning we're talking about technology that connects multiple different entities, multiple different organizations, is how do we align on business process requirements, data types, and other considerations that go beyond just our organization? We need to collaborate with other organizations when we look at any of these business processes that we want to put onto blockchain and incorporate some of these other technologies as well.

Jennifer Hanania (09:41):

To put it bluntly, digital transformation in one organization is hard. Now, we're thinking about digital transformation across multiple organizations, and we're not just thinking about the alignment of a business case across multiple organizations. We're not even just thinking about the alignment of data standards across multiple organizations, but we're thinking about, to Kurt's point, the alignment of risk tolerance across multiple organizations, legal comfort across multiple organizations. And that's where this becomes a really fascinating puzzle to solve, and that's where PwC really plays an interesting role as building the trust, to create the tool to automate trust.

Adam  (10:34):

Here are the final questions that we ask all of our guests. Y'all ready for this?

Jennifer Hanania (10:37):

Let's do it.

Adam  (10:39):

What would the you of 20 years ago be most surprised that the you of today is using, technologically speaking?

Jennifer Hanania (10:46):

I think the me of 20 years ago would have been shocked that VR is not only as sophisticated as it is, but we're using it in a corporate setting.

Matt Earl (10:54):

I never would have assumed that I would be carrying a mini computer around me everywhere I go and my most valuable item that travels with me everywhere. I check for it constantly. I'm using it all the time. It's the way I stay in touch and communicate with people and at times even get work done with it.

Kurt Fields (11:08):

And I think for me, just because I normally would be traveling so much for the work that we do, I am most surprised by the technology that's letting us verify and share our identities, getting into a car, getting to an airport, getting cleared to fly.

Adam  (11:26):

The last question I was going to ask you was what your bold prediction for technology for 20 years from now would be.

Jennifer Hanania (11:32):

I think things will just be even more seamless than they are now. I think the notion of reaching into your pocket, pulling out your phone to get information will be completely foreign to us. We won't have the clunkiness of having to pull out a device or even go through a manual process to get to the answer we need.

Kurt Fields (11:51):

Whether it's a wearable or some sort of other digital overlay to our physical environments, I think we're going to be in a world where our decisions in real time are augmented and enriched and assisted as we go about our daily lives.

Matt Earl (12:05):

We're doubling, if not quadrupling down with this concept of convergence, right? I don't know specifically what that looks like in 20 years, but I think convergence is definitely going to continue and in very unique and interesting ways.

Adam  (12:19):

Matt Earl, Kurt Fields, and Jen Hanania, thank you very, very much for coming by and spending your time with us today.

Jennifer Hanania (12:24):

Thank you for having us.

Adam  (12:25):

This has been another episode of Tech While You Trek. I have been your host, Adam, and we will talk to you next time.

Speaker 5 (12:36):

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