From the Meetup site
https://www.meetup.com/London-Cryptocurrency-and-Blockchain-Beginners/events/247956145/
"Using your brain in the Cryptocurrency and Blockchain space"
Rachel Black will be giving an introductory talk into what blockchain techology is, and why we should all be paying attention to it.
Bitcoin and Ripple have been all over the news recently but for many of the wrong reasons and there is a lot more that can be done with the underlying blockchain technology than just creating new cryptocurrencies. In this talk Rachel will guide you through how it works at a pace that will suit anyone from complete novice right through to seasoned veteran, before moving on talk about some of the applications for the blockchains and distributed ledgers.
We also have Will Polston, an award winning Mindset Strategist with a background in trading and also many entrepreneurial ventures.
Will works as a mindset strategist and aims to empower you to be able to fulfil your full potential in life and make it happen. Using strategic intervention Will has worked with celebrities, professional athletes, business owners and those at the lowest of lows to take their lives from where they are to where they want them to be. As well as assisting you in achieving your goals in your personal and business life he aims to heighten feelings of confidence and self-belief.
He will be talking you through how to achieve the right mindset to approach a highly volatile marketplace, like cryptocurrency, and how you can control your emotions and self belief through the rollercoaster ride.
Georgia Rakusen will be tackling the UX problem in blockchain head on. A Senior UX Researcher for MOO, one of the UK's most successful tech startups, Georgia first got into Bitcoin in 2013 and has been completely obsessed with it ever since.
Combining her exemplary track record, and incredible understanding of human behaviours, she has carved a very successful UX career having originally started out as a project manager. Now, Georgia is combining her two passions and looking to find innovative ways to bring blockchain to life and break down the usability issues that so many encounter.
Priyanka Lilaramani will then be talking about applying principles of organisation design to a whole industry and how only a technology like distributed ledger technology (DLT) can make that happen. Blockchain can facilitate the reduction of financial waste and also bring accountability throughout the supply chain of all services, but in particular within financial services / management. Priyanka will be talking us through how this can be applied to many industries and can make us change the way we approach our working day.
Each speaker will have roughly 15 minutes followed by an individual Q&A, at the end there will then be a panel discussion before networking. This month we are very kindly being hosted by Digax - Digital Asset Exchange
Below are my notes for me to refer back to next is my brief summary of the meetup
Arrived later than usual there were a lot of people already waiting
Did not stop me getting my front row seat , which is important to me becasue
I can stretch my legs
I can get pics of the screen easily
I am not distracted
Another really good meetup by Angus & Alastair, they lined up a diverse set of speakers and while I have been attending since since Juneish last year i came away having learnt somethng.
I got to speak for a good 5 minutes each 121 with each of the speakers at the end which is really cool.
Rachel did a really good job of covering the basics of Blockchain, Georgia talked to the UX experience and what needs to change so that the tech is adopted more broadly and is successful.
Out of all the meetups I go to this one is the best , my bias here is that it was the first one I attended , however they have had a very eclectic mix of presentations and if you are trying to get your head around this new area of Tech and thinking then this is a great friendly environment to learn in.
My highlight tonight was when I was just about to speak to Georgina the person speaking to her said I know you I thought you were famous - then I realised you were at the first meet up I went to .Famous for 5 seconds....
My Notes
DIGAX sponsor Digital Asset Exchange & Zebra
Racheal - What is Blockchain from Yoti She was at Wirex meetup couple of weeks ago
Spoke to what blockchain is not Bitcoin and Ethereum - my words these are protocols that utilize the blockchain
features of a blockchain
What is a Hash
Simplified Blockchain
How the Blockchain works - merkel tree
Why You can't change blockchain My Favourite Slide:
Next up was Will Polston
A little left field from the presentation I concluded Will runs a Coaching practice
While I resonate with the message I perceived from him which was :
You are the person that stands in the way of you
It was a bit rar rar for me , I like my coaches to be a little more subtle , my bias here is experience of a coach that had more time and delivered and was not in a selling situation that Will was in. I did want to catch up with him however he left before the end.
He did briefly speak to FUD , Fear Uncertainty and Doubt,
then to the only two fears we are born with (which I have googled)
Falling & Loud Noises
https://medium.com/@kollinkennedy1/you-are-only-born-with-2-fears-so-why-are-you-so-afraid-c9c097bdfbd9
My immediate thought was get the loud noises - how much falling are you really conscious of in year 0-1?
he then spoke to ERO
event response outcome
![IMG_0730.JPG](
Next up was Georgia https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgiarakusen/
Got a lot from this quick notes to jog my memory below
Georgia spoke to the User experience angle and until we nail that everyday adoption is not going t happen
Below slide was to demonstrate a traditional investment v ICO investment - I would say here that there are some ICO's that
Have a pipe dream and need cash to make it happen not in a scammy way
Have a working product and are now launching an ICO to raise funds to pay back initial investment / build further
Are Scammy Scam Misters
Georgia did sepak to once you have invested stay informed and push the team if they are not doing what they said they would do , which was said by the guys from Medium at the SVk meetup last week
![IMG_0738.JPG](
Priyanka Plinth - Private Capital Markets
I did not get to speak to Priyanka - should have
I got a bit lost with regards to what the overall message was , lots of mentions of its about People
There was a discussion about Provenance which is mentioned in the recommended podcast on ECP4 which did resonate as she spoke about De Beers
https://steemit.com/expertcuration/@expertcuration/ecp4-podcast-recomendation
In brief if you own a piece of art if you can prove the history of ownership then its value is much more credible
One thing that Priyanka did say that I also noted was be aware of
"Trading a known devil for an unknown devil"
This reminded me of a Lets Talk Bitcoin Podcast where Steven Levine talked to a Problem statement they were looking to solve in the music industry with blockchain and he came out with the following Donald Rumsfeld like statement:
"Even when you solve the problem you are not actually solving the problem , you are just solving the problem you could see and the next problem is the one you could not see and is caused by solving the prior problem."
Angus Maidment - One of the organisers this was Impromptu (ish)
BlockChain BS
I can't do justice to the stand up Angus gave it was very funny and a great ending pics below, the last one random but means something to me
