Tiffany Tsai on Maxonrow’s blockchain wallet protocol

0:01i'm ashton addison from event chain for investmentpitch media and fintech news network and today on blockchain interviews we have tiffany tsai the deputy cmo of maxonrow tiffany welcome to the show and thanks for taking the time to be here hi ashton thank you so much for having me you're very welcome i'm very excited to hear some more updates from max and rowe as

0:22i did speak with the team last year on crypto coin show around the time of the maxin row mainnet launch but i'm sure that we have a lot of viewers that missed that interview and would like to get a little bit of background maybe to start on what you and your team are working on at the maximum row project and what's the vision of the project sure um mexico is a tech company and our

0:46mission is to build a safer and more efficient digital future for everyone and we believe that one way we can do that is by leveraging our blockchain power technology to increase the security efficiency in digital processes and right now we have already released a crypto wallet that is kyc and can also double as a digital identity wallet where people can be kyc

1:15i didn't verify it very easily on the wallet itself which can expand to other use cases for just for example right now we're going through a pandemic so now there are use cases we're exploring that can be used to track contract contact contact tracing and to know people's whereabouts during their current team we also offer other blockchain powered services such

1:39as tokenization and document management system mm-hmm that's great and there's a couple different faucets that max and rose diving into and this kyc built into the protocol is definitely a unique function could you elaborate on a little bit more on you know what makes maximum unique in the blockchain space compared to all these different projects that are

2:00popping up sure so when we launched our mainnet that's also the same time we launched our kyc wallet and one of the shortcomings that we saw on blockchain applications is that it cannot be complied with global regulators and laws around the world so we thought a good way to do that is by building a healthier ecosystem where everybody on the blockchain can be traced

2:27into a real person so every single user on the blockchain on the maximum blockchain can be traced to a real identity and all of the kyc record now the kyc information itself is stored on the blockchain so it's immutable and so if um in an unfortunate case there is a scam or fraud and the regulators will need um information on who the the people are

2:56in real life their real identities we can provide that information so people are hold accountable that's good and are you already working uh in some real world scenarios where this global ide uh is being implemented to to help um right now we're okay we're partnered with kyc chain that's our kyc partner and we're exploring a couple use cases around the world

3:24um we've added another product into our roadmap that wasn't in our whitepaper before called netlog and it's a it's a medical uh platform where people can gather information easily and share information more easily and we're talking to a couple governments in europe and the middle east right now but unfortunately before any um contract is signed we cannot talk

3:52about who they are um but in taiwan where i'm based we are also working on a couple research projects and applications with ai in the medical imaging field with a couple universities here we if if everything goes as planned we should see that before january next 2021 but okay but yeah i will keep you you

4:22guys will know when when it's uh launched sounds great we're exploring we're exploring a couple use cases in education uh finance and uh medicine right now healthcare so that i think you can say that those are the areas that we're focusing on right now definitely and last time i had spoken with max and ro you were working on events and you know with the pandemic

4:45shutting down most events around the world uh how has that affected your plans and have you managed to pivot successfully and continue working throughout the pandemic well i hope so successfully we definitely pivoted um we have been planning a hackathon our our first ever um called maxathon for quite some time now and it was supposed to be a 40-hour hackathon in

5:10berlin in in person um but as you know as the pandemic hit in march we decided that we have to do something about it first of all we decided to postpone it and then we decided that we have to move it to the to online and in the beginning we were all a bit um disappointed and sorry um for the partners that we already um collaborated are working with in in

5:38berlin that that wasn't going to happen but we realized that when we relaunched we thought it was really important that we changed the challenges and the focus of the hackathon to issues that that is the most important in our time which is managing the pandemic right so we shifted from education government governance and healthcare to only focus on healthcare so that everybody can pull

6:02their resources on working on the issues that that's actually affecting us right now 2020 has been such a challenging challenging and weird year and before we tackle and start working on some of the issues that's making it such a weird and challenging year um i i just think that would be the priority for us right now and by moving online we're able to also recruit

6:26more people from all over the world and we've extended the duration to one month so that people can have more time and more flexibility as a lot of people are adjusting from um major life changes um resulted from the pandemic right now they're moving they're working from home they're adjusting from a lot of different changes because of the pandemic so so we're really excited by

6:53having a longer format and an online format we could recruit more people and have them work on it for a longer period of time yeah well that's great to hear that you made the pivot and as well with the topic to focus on healthcare and solving the pandemic and i think that really aligns with your global id wallet and and the contact tracing and i can see how that

7:14all fits in so let's get a little bit more information on this hackathon that you have planned can you talk about when uh is it still available to participate in how many people are participating in it and have you guys reached capacity yet no um yeah for sure we haven't reached capacity um we have more than 25 countries more than 200 participants from 25

7:40countries sign up already and are active on the platform but that doesn't mean that all of them will successfully produce a project right so we are accepting uh proposals up until september 30th so you can still sign up and well since we've already matched people up into teams so we'll help you form a team once you sign up so don't worry about that um you can pick from five different

8:05tracks and we've kept the challenges pretty flexible one of the challenges called virtualizing the new norm and that's one of the tracks that we intentionally left flexible so that people can come up with anything that they can think of using our sdk to solve some of the problems that we're experiencing right now related to covid and um yeah we have a stellar

8:30panel of jury and more than 16 mentors who come from very diverse backgrounds so they can definitely help you out no matter you have questions on design business application or tech or our own technology mexico's tech team is online available through slack channels and on the platform to book one-on-one meetings to help participants um do the best and make the

8:55best out of this hackathon very cool and glad to have that support and are there with the people that are participating is it global access or is there any restrictions uh to be able to participate not really if you feel like you have something to contribute for example if you're an expert in blockchain software engineering design business or healthcare obviously

9:22you you can join if you have a laptop and uh internet access great and the time commitment yeah for sure so with all of these different uh you know hackathon initiatives that are going to be going on uh is the goal to have a winner and then implement that technology uh into maxinro with maxonrow and supply it to the world or you know what comes after you know

9:49the the the final product of this hackathon um there are five tracks and we're gonna pick one winner from each track and the total prize pool is 15 000 euros so the winning team each winning team is going to walk away with 3 000 euros and other than that since we provided mexico sdk for people to build these solutions on

10:16we would be more than happy to see if there are quality submissions that we can integrate into our existing solutions and of course it's also a way for us to see what talent are out there that's untapped and we are looking for people to recruit throughout the hackalone as well well that's great and you know we're running out of time but i want to get your thoughts on max and

10:40rowe moving forward you know throughout the many years what would you say uh what is one of the biggest challenges that you may face as the company continues to grow um one of the biggest challenges is one of the biggest jobs that we've encountered when we first started and that is government um moving government space in keeping up with

11:07emerging technologies so we are based in malaysia and taiwan but we also have a lot of partners throughout the world um throughout europe and north america and the middle east and one thing that we have in common is that the government is trying to make room for the technology but is not nearly moving fast enough so that's why we have a lot of research projects

11:32with major universities here in taiwan and as well as in malaysia to help build that bridge between industry academia and government so that we can help build a healthier ecosystem for people to adapt blockchain technology and help build a more efficient digital future more easily because right now the legal framework is not nearly as robust for it to

12:00um evolve and grow as quickly and as we like yeah that's completely understandable and uh all the best with getting over those hurdles tiffany so we're running out of time as i mentioned but for the viewers that are watching if they're looking to learn more about maxinrow or about the hackathon that you're hosting where's the best place for them to learn

12:23more and to sign up for that uh the best way will be our website www.maxonrow.com and you will find a lot of resources on our social media as well you can find us on facebook on linkedin on slack channels on telegram and we have that in at least english and chinese we also have a slack a telegram channel in spanish for the for people in latin america or spanish users

12:52and for the hackathon you can go to hackathons.maxwell.com to sign up or to find out the latest great well thank you tiffany i will leave all those links in the description box below all the best with maxon row and with the hackathon and you're welcome and uh all the best and let's follow up in the near future yeah talk soon thank you all right nice work oh

13:20i was so nervous thank you so much no problem that was good all right it was nice talking to you yeah yeah no worries i'll uh you too and uh all the best with your work day and i'll get this uh with uh with elliott i'll coordinate this and we'll get it to our editing teams and try to push it out right away make a big splash for max norrell okay great thanks again yup keep in touch bye