The first day of The Next Web summit featured a talk from the world’s most famous whistle-blower, a dismissal of Web3 from the founder of Web 1.0, and a surprise holographic appearance from the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Zelensky’s appearance was kept top secret, as the leader of the war-torn country addressed Europe’s top tech entrepreneurs, investors, and corporate leaders via 3D hologram. He spoke at seven major tech events across Europe, challenging tech leaders to donate financial and technological resources to begin rebuilding Ukraine.
During his brief keynote – powered by ARHT Media’s holographic technology – Zelensky set out plans to leverage tech and digital transformation as a cornerstone in the rebuilding of Ukraine, which has been devastated by the invasion of Russia earlier this year.
“Our goal is to make Ukraine the freest digital state in the world,” he said, touching on some of the technologies his government plans to champion as it rolls out a digitally driven rebuild via the United24 platform.
“Ukraine is a chance for a global digital revolution,” he said; “a chance for every technology company and a chance for every visionary to show their value, skills, technologies, and ambitions.”
The broadcast was produced by Talesmith and featured at TNW and Dublin Tech Summit, both partners of TechInformed, as well as The AI Summit at London Tech Week and SuperReturn Berlin, expanding the reach of his address to 200,000 leaders across every vertical of the tech industry.
Zelensky’s appearance came immediately after the keynote session, which featured former US intelligence consultant and author Edward Snowden, best known for leaking highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013.
Snowden – who was not in Amsterdam for TNW but spoke over a video link – talked about the importance of data privacy and concerns he had over the future of the web. He was joined by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood.
Snowden painted a familiar story during his speech, recalling the beginning of the internet, when anyone could build their own website and experiment freely. But the involvement of major corporations, many of which sprang up from the internet (like Facebook and Google) led to a 2.0 version, in which Big Tech became the gatekeepers of the web. Now, everything revolves around platforms provided by these behemoths, and instead of charging customers directly, they demand our data.
Snowden painted this as a pitch-black story. “Where did it go wrong? How do we get out of this situation, where governments and companies collect and store all our data? Only if we recognize that this system is not sufficient can we, as a public, force the large organizations to change.”
He pointed fingers at governments, the tech giants and even telecoms providers for their treatment of customer data, warning that bad actors could abuse the amount of data we offer freely in exchange for services.
“We are given a giant block of legalese which we have to sign up in order to use devices or services, and we’re not given a skip option. They say this is an agreement, but do you really feel you’ve agreed to this? But it is almost impossible to function in modern society without using these devices or services.
“It is like society has been on a spinning plate. Now we’re all seeing the plate slip in slow motion, and we’re trying to catch it,” he added. “I’m worried that it is going to break.”
Wood, however, was more positive about the future of the web. As the man credited with coining the term “Web3”, the Etherium founder questioned whether your average citizen cares enough about data privacy.
Wood asked, “do people want the ability to examine the world and systems in it enough?” He said a “failure of expectations” that we would not be spied on by governments, or our data would not be abused by service providers, had led to the current situation.
On the optimistic side, he credited Snowden’s leaks as leading to a sea-change in how the public view data and data privacy.
While Wood may have coined the term Web3, the founder of the World Wide Web (or web 1.0) wholly rejects it.
Sir Tim Berners Lee – famed for creating the World Wide Web – was also discussing the future of the internet. He warned that the current access to data carries risk of exploitation, but solutions such as blockchain and web3 will not solve this, because it does not silo data enough.
Berners Lee offered his own company – Inrupt, which he launched with fellow speaker John Bruce – as a potential solution, as it aims to put individuals in control of their data through its Solid project.
The Web founder explained more about Solid in March as part of the Tech Show London at the Excel Centre – read his views here.
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