This morning, @tim-beck and I attended a fascinating breakfast talk on "Quantum computing and its implications for cryptocurrencies", hosted by the friendly and welcoming Blockstarters team.

Blockstarters

Blockstarters is a blockchain hub and business incubator.

Based in Johannesburg, South Africa, we bring entrepreneurs together to create a hub of innovation and resource sharing, and through our extensive network of investors, we take startups to market. Our network reach extends as far as Silicon Valley and Shanghai.

They have an attractive, open first floor space for the "incubees" - according to their website, some eight startups, and these firms were represented in force this morning.

The speaker

The speaker, Dr Alpha Hamadou Ibrahim, Technology Strategy Consultant at Accenture, has a background in physics and quantum information processing.

Alpha introduced himself briefly before launching into a challenging presentation on quantum computing and cryptography, with applications to cryptocurrency. Born in Cameroon, Alpha was educated in South Africa. He is one of the many inspiring examples of high achieving Africans in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) worlds.

The talk

When I say challenging, I mean challenging if all you know about quantum computing is that the computers are really expensive and it is one of the technologies which has the potential to disrupt our future. And you've heard that researchers managed to demonstrate the phenomenon of quantum entanglement recently. Frankly, I wasn't there for a deep understanding of the content; I was there for a head first plunge into a topic I knew almost nothing about to have an idea how to learn more about it in future, as well as to mingle a bit with some of the Blockstarters team.

Here's a brief selection of slides from the talk, none of which are part of Alpha's core message as I didn't ask his permission to share his own material.

Here's where Gartner's Hype Cycle places quantum computing:

Yes, firmly in the Innovation Trigger phase.

Alpha also briefly outlined some of the future potential applications of quantum computing across various industries. Because of its probabilistic nature, quantum computing lends itself well to optimisation challenges.

Alpha concentrated most of his core talk on the risks that quantum computing can pose to cryptocurrency key security.

Here's the summary from the invitation:

Quantum computing and its implications for cryptocurrencies

Quantum Computers are devices that use quantum mechanical properties to perform calculations in a completely different way to traditional computers. Specifically, some problems that are very difficult to solve with traditional computation can be solved more quickly with quantum computers. An example of such problem is factoring large numbers.

Most of the public-key cryptography used today, like RSA and elliptic curve cryptography, is insecure in the presence of a sufficiently large quantum computer. Shor’s factoring algorithm gives a fast way to solve the problem on whose hardness these systems are based. A sufficiently large error-corrected quantum computer could use this algorithm to break the digital signatures used in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Alpha stayed true to that summary in his presentation.

The talk after the talk, and a bit of reflection

I was deeply impressed with the calibre and diversity of the participants at this session, and the openness that all showed to each other regardless of their depth of understanding of the technical content. That kind of acceptance of diversity augurs well for a tech incubator in a highly disruptive field such as blockchain. And of course I was happy to see young women well-represented and holding their own with ease.

The mildly depressing takeaways

Alpha clearly hit some hot buttons with the Blockstarters room, as a lively discussion on factoring algorithms ensued. One of the more depressing takeaways for me is that "nothing is secure"...the "s" in https is essentially meaningless. Another takeaway is that "we seriously don't know what we don't know yet".

The inspiration of connecting with someone who cares about education

On the encouraging side, I had an energising chat with one of the co-founders of Blockstarters about possible collaboration on one of my favourite "give back" topics - how we might be able to bring them together with a phenomenal movement, Taungana, which connects STEM-amazing high school girls from rural Africa with STEM education and career perspectives. Ideally, we'd find a way to expose these young people to the world of blockchain by introducing them to people immersed in that world who are building real value through these incubated startups in a way that could inspire them to also consider careers in blockchain.

Bringing this back to my business

More directly relevant for me and my business, 6th Wave Africa, is that I got the sense that the interactions between the innovations on Gartner's Hype Cycle may lead to levels of unexpected and exciting innovation - as I outlined in my post last year, we are already in the Sixth Wave of Innovation, or the Sustainability wave. Here's a simplified reminder of the Six Waves of Innovation:

Source

Drawing a huge circle around it all

So besides the cautionary tales around security of cryptocurrency keys, which we clearly need to take seriously, let's also think of ways that quantum computing and the innovations it is likely to bring to our lives could contribute to sustainability - perhaps starting with exposing young African minds to the tremendous potential of a career in blockchain.

A big thank you to Blockstarters for the invitation!

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