Jason Kelley, General Manager Blockchain Services for IBM with Matt Bird at the World Economic Forum

HIGHLIGHTS

• IBM ranked #1 by Juniper Research and HFS Research
• Kelley oversees global team of 1,600 employees dedicated to blockchain
• IBM blockchain has over 500 client engagements to date

(ESG News) – The coffee you drink claims to be Fair Trade, but is it really? Blockchain could be used to help ensure that the goods you buy are exactly what they are purported to be.

Coffee was just a small example that Jason Kelley, the Global Head of Blockchain Services for IBM, shared with Matt Bird, host of the Traders Network Show, during a conversation on the “circular economy.” The conversation came during the 2020 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. 

The circular economy has to do with our increasing interconnectedness, Kelley explained.

“People are not just connected, but now they are interdependent,” he said. “We work together, we live together, and it’s changing the way we think how that happens and how we actually execute on that.”

Blockchain, a technology that allows for real-time trusted communication between different ledgers, can be a critical data-sharing tool in a circular economy, he said, because it turns the theoretical into the real. For instance, not only could you see if that cup of coffee is Fair Trade, but you could check whether the grounds were put back into the soil, and you could even tip the farmers who helped plant the beans.

“Can we make this data something that we all can see with clear transparency and know that what we are seeing is real?” Kelley posited.

Blockhain enables transparency because it has the capability to share verified data among multiple channels and ensure the data is exactly what viewers want to see.

“That’s what blockchain does,” he said.