Oh welcome to gossip about gossip. Powered by Hedera Hashgraph. And each episode will cut through the hype of blockchain promises and explore real world examples of organizations creating the next generation of decentralized applications, which will bring trust back to the internet for us all. Hello everyone, and welcome to the latest episode of gossip about gossip. The podcast where we talk about real world applications of distributed ledger technology. My name is Zenobia Gods talk, and I'm the SVP of communications here at World's labs, helping to tell the Hedera story. Today, I am delighted to be joined by Neal's skill digger, who is the EVP of products and operations and also the co-founder at ABC. Hi, Niels, how are you? Hi, Zenobia. Good morning. Doing well, Thank you. And Thank you for having me. Absolutely so I know we have talked. We've shared some of the progress that ABC has made and what ABC does. But I think there are folks who might be newer to the story who don't know what you do. So can you give us all a little bit of background on the company and the reach and what you work on? Absolutely my pleasure. So ABC was founded about five years ago with a really bold mission in mind, which is to solve large scale supply chain challenges around the world. And when I say large scale, it's really at the government nation level. Instead of solving discrete, unique issues in certain supply chains, we're just going to go all in and do all of it for entire countries one at a time. So we are here to deliver what we call the digital infrastructure for the future of the global economy, which is a pretty bold statement to make. But that's really what we're doing and what we're so excited about, obviously, that mission and seeing it unfold in different places in the world. So our technology is, of course, with blockchain companies, which is probably not a surprise to anyone listening in here today. But we are we're basing our technology on two blockchains. One is Hyperledger fabric, and the other, of course, is the consensus network service. And we have invented what we call smart hub, which is the digital representation of any supply chain, where everything flows through from data to trade documents like shipping documents, invoices, purchase orders, what have you, and then really any data associated with any supply chain transaction and the actors in that supply chain and that data is then ingested on, on the primary blockchain, which is Hyperledger. And then we were able with Hedera consensus service to actually do what we call the double digital notary, which creates additional trust in the data in that not only is the data present on one blockchain and we verify the authenticity of the data provenance of data coming into that blockchain, but we also further notarize it on the hadero network for specific events. So think about that as like going to close a real estate deal, buy a house and there's a whole docket full of all kinds of paperwork. It goes in front of an actual notary. And that notary job is to ensure that you or you and the documents are accurate and true. Right? so we'll do that in a digital space. And so we really bring supply chains at a large scale into the cyberspace and make all that data immutable on a blockchain and create trust and provenance at a level that really resonates when we go talk to the governments around the world. So so far we have implemented very successfully for the pharmaceutical supply chain in Bahrain for the entire country. So there's not just one pharmaceutical or another, it's everybody in the entire country and everyone's mandated. They wants to do business in Bahrain to actually sign up for our technology, register all their information on the network in the blockchain. And that's the only way you can import pharmaceuticals into Bahrain, and that ensures a government that they can trust the products come into the country. And when someone scans a label somewhere in the supply chain they can trust, it's actually authentic. And it came from the company it claims to come from. So in from pharmaceuticals, the WHO estimates about a million people die every year. They literally are killed here because of fake pharmaceuticals. So this is a very I mean, just the pharmaceutical industry is a very, very big issue for humanity, really. Trusting that the medicine you're about to take is actually what it claims to be. But this really applies to all kinds of supply chains. And for us, the pharmaceutical supply chain is a great entry point. But the ambition and the strategy is to do everything. The authenticity, the trust and the product really, really kind of relates to any product or even service that you can trust. The other party and you can trust the product is genuine and what it claims to be. So very excited to also announce that we are taking that next step and providing the first sort of bridge between the physical supply chains in a country through customs processing and the digital with our Smart Hub in the blockchain. And we'll actually be doing. The customs processing for the Republic of Kyrgyzstan. Starting with some pilots and just expanding. But that is really what I said in the beginning, that our strategy, our vision is to provide the future structure for the infrastructure, for the future of the global economy. So entire countries and everything that goes into that country will eventually be where we will end up. And Yadira is right there in the middle of it. Right everything flows through that mechanism, that technology to provide that province. So as a consumer, when you scan the label, you have full visibility into the history of that product all the way back through the supply chain where it came from. That's powerful. Yeah you're certainly not tackling small problems. We have ambitious people. Absolutely so I want to go back to we had I know we had previously shared the story about you, the partnership that you have with the Kingdom of Bahrain. Those kinds of things take time to develop. Right so can you tell us, since we made that announcement, what has the progress been? What are you seeing? How does that translate into potentially transactions on the Hedera network? Oh, absolutely. So, yeah, you're right. It takes it certainly takes time, right. From starting a project like that to actually being fully, fully live and immersed and everyone onboarded and all that. It took, it took quite some time. But we are there actually. June 1st we went live fully live in Bahrain for the pharmaceutical supply chain, which which is fantastic. Thank you so much. And it's a huge validation of the whole of the technology and the robustness and this scalability and the speed, the efficiency and everything that it stands for. So that's such a great validation of everything we do. So in the country of Bahrain, where it is fairly small country, like slightly less than 2 million people, give or take. And just in the pharmaceutical supply chain, it's going to be about 100, 100,000 live events, as we call it, a year. So that's really events on the supply chain as it comes into the country and goes through the process of eventually ending up with the consumer. So that's pretty significant and something we're really proud of. Yeah congratulations. So country of 2 million people just for pharmaceuticals, that's about 100,000 events that you see over the course of the year. Yeah and it sounds like that was a great place to really sort of develop that and then be able to hopefully potentially repurpose that with other countries. Exactly and as I mentioned, we're then expanding to all kinds of other products. Right some of them oil and gas industry, food industry, high value items, you name it. Precious metals. I mean, it applies to everything. And actually, even we have demand for also for services. So non tangible. Not just physical products crossing borders, but also services. So it's really powerful and it's unbelievable the opportunities that blockchain and in particular with their that brings to the table and to really leverage the power of the platform and the community. Right and that's really what got us super excited about it there. Once we selected hit, we started having these strategic conversations with you guys, the network behind it, the technology, of course, driving it all, the fact it's environmentally very sound and super fast and extremely stable. All of which contributed to areas is the blockchain to choose for these very large scale use cases. Yeah and it sounds like the governments that you're working with are interested in tracking essentially anything that has value. Right or anything where you need accountability, whether that is assets, raw materials, metals or things where you need accountability for their population, they need to know that there is trust in those supply chains. Exactly and the traceability. Right, because that's a key part of the process. You're able to track the product through the supply chain, not just where it came from, up to the point where when it's crossing the border into your country. But what happens after that? Tracing it all the way up to consumer. And then for the consumer. Consumer at the end of the day to validate the provenance of products by having the ability to completely transparently look at the events leading up to that point. Right and so in Kazakhstan, you're doing something a little bit different that's not pharmaceutical supply chain, correct? It is also a pharmaceutical. But it is. Yes but it's the opportunity there is to essentially process everything through the smart house, no matter what it is. So we are we're taking those steps now. That's really the actual at scale strategy we're executing for the pharmaceutical supply chain. And that industry is a fantastic starting point to not only prove out the technology, the business model, the ability to roll it out to support it, the scalability, technology, everything, all of that is involved in driving innovation and the maturing and products to take it to the market. Right it's something new and highly innovative and disruptive in many ways, too, right? When you bring new technology and different ways of doing things to the table, something is being disrupted. And this is highly disruptive in many ways, which is a great thing. That's that's what we're here to do. But disruption, just for the sake of disruption is really disrupting something is kind of pointless unless you end up in a better place for everybody combined, right? So usually they're winners or losers, but all combined, you have to have a lot more winners and losers. Otherwise there's no real otherwise there's no strategy, there's no value. And that's just how it is. So, Yeah. So the pharmaceutical supply chain is great because there this just first of all, there's a global push for a compliance push for traceability. So as an organization we align with 2 is called G is one that's providing a the global standard for traceability. And how the data on products are represented by label like a QR code or a 2D barcode, right? In the pharmaceutical market. That's just something that's being pushed out hard because there's a lot of safety involved for people. Right you have. And just the regulatory compliance, the ability to enforce that and make sure the industry is playing nice. Yeah and so I imagine it's not it's not a sort of simple knock on the door, hey, government of this country, go try this out. What is that process like? What are those conversations like? Well, you're right. That's not just a simple, simple conversation. And it also takes a lot of time to mature. That's also happening at very strategic level. And I'm very fortunate that to be a part of a group of co-founders. Right because we're a group where we have those relationships to actually be able to not only knock on the doors, but walk right through the door because they're there already established relationships. That's why we are able to work at this very high level, very, very high level. And within governments to have these conversations and position, of course, blockchain as the way to as a system and do system of record for the government. Right and that's really maturing. And I've seen over the last just year or two how that has matured and the mindset has matured. This is a very, very large scale, truly industrial application of new technology, which of course, it takes a lot of educating. So our process is really is educating. We spent a lot of time in meetings educating. Getting entire teams of government teams and whatnot to educated on all of this, not just what we do, but blockchain in general and everything related to that. So it's a long process. But once we're there, you know, the opportunity is, of course, very large. Thank you so much for everything that you are doing. Before we wrap up, is there anything. Last words of wisdom that you'd like to share? Well, I'd say. What an incredible time to be a part of. Right we all came out of this kind of traumatizing period of a couple of years of uncertainty and all kinds of things related to that. And I feel like now's the time for everybody to have the energy and the tenacity and the patience to really go all in on what they believe in individually with their strategies and really push hard right now within to and the community liberates the community that that's just such a big, beautiful thing about blockchain, which is different from the past that you're not, you know, no one's alone. It's a community this year and it is willing to share because that's a whole I mean, if you think about it, if you have blockchain, decentralize it. All right. So leverage, leverage, people leverage knowledge, reach out, share ideas and help each other bring things to life. And I'm just super excited about that. Wonderful well, Thank you so much for sharing your progress with us. We can't wait to continue to hear more about this journey. And as you on board, new countries, new applications within each of those countries. Thank you so much. Thank you very much again, zenobia, for having me. My pleasure.
