Lessons - The Struggles of Being an Entrepreneur | Dr. Mark van Rijmenam - Strategic Futurist Speaker

So walk me through that transition in your career, did you jump into entrepreneurship, did you study and start doing consulting, did you build an organization and then after that was successful, move into speaking, what was that like for you? So after I did my degree in hospitality management, as I said, I moved to Dubai to live there for some time. After that I did a master degree in marketing management and I ended up at the ING headquarters, a large Dutch bank, where I moved more and more into the marketing space, but I gave it up after a couple of years because I went on a big adventure with a friend of mine, so we certainly navigated Australia on a push bike in 100 days, which was an absolutely fantastic experience and I can recommend anyone to do, just 100 days of just eat, drink, sleep, and cycle and nothing else, which was fantastic. But the thing is, after a such an adventure, you don't really want to work for a buzz anymore. So I tried starting my own company, I failed miserably unfortunately, so I had to get a job, ended up as a consultant, focused on strategy from an analytics perspective. I didn't really like it, so I got myself fired and then I decided to start it, to give it another shot and literally over the weekend I thought, you know, what shall I do, what can I do? I thought, you know, big data is going to be a hot topic, let's do something in big data. So I didn't have any understanding or any knowledge about big data, so I set up a website next day, taught myself about big data, started writing about it and a month and a half later I was invited as a keynote speaker as the expert on big data, which to me was absolutely crazy. It was even a paid gig and it was, they are totally crazy for me, but it also showed to me apparently there's something in this space and as I'm saying, we have, you know, in the land of the blind, it's the one I is king, so I decided to really go down the rabbit hole and explored this fascinating industry. And from there on, it sort of moved really fast because I started writing articles, from the first articles came my first book thing bigger. Then in 2015 I got the opportunity to do a PhD at the University of Technology in Sydney, they gave me a few scholarships, Australia is not the most logical place to do a PhD on technology, but I just wanted to live there a bit more longer, a long term. So I moved to Australia and after about six months in, I came into contact with blockchain and I saw that this technology is such a fundamental technology that is going to have a drastic impact on society that I basically, completely restarted my PhD, changed direction and included a blockchain at the same time also AI in my PhD. During my PhD I co-wrote a book on blockchain and how we can use it for social good, because I think that's how we can use technology from a positive perspective is very important to me. And at the end of my PhD I turned my dissertation into a management book because dissertations are boring to read and a management book is a bit easier to read. So I turned my book my dissertation into the management book, the organization tomorrow. At the same time I had found a data flock, a content platform and I think I've really found my sweet spot because I really, really enjoy being in this bleeding edge technology and at the same time helping organizations understand what's happening. So since that first keynote I gave in 2012 I've been doing key notes until last year, obviously until Corona hit. I used to fly all around the world and that stopped. I haven't been in the plane for about a year and a half. It's absolutely crazy. I don't know what's happening, but it's totally crazy. But I decided to reinvent myself and since I talk about digitalization I decided to digitalize myself and that's where the digital speaker concept comes from, which is basically yeah I'm now available as an avatar, I'm available as a hologram or a combination of both and I have recently started my own podcast or what I call the tech journal where the digital speaker covers the digital world literally from inside the digital world because it's recorded in virtual reality. At the moment just like a proof of concept not yet available in VR but that's just a matter of time when I move to that because I think it's a fascinating area to explore and it really brings everything together of what I do and what I like. Digitalism will mark the end of liberalism and be the first truly global political doctrine, a story where governments, companies, and citizens battle for data. What does that mean exactly? Sure. So first for those who are going to my Twitter feed now, I changed my pen today so I can show you the link for the speaker notes. But digitalism is a new theory that I've been developing for about a year now and it's a way where I think everything is being digitized at the moment. The entire planet, everything that we do, but data comes with tremendous power as we know from the large tech companies, the Google's, the Facebook of these worlds. But they also should come, and that's what I always say, with great responsibility of how to deal with that. And what I envision, what I foresee happening, is liberalism is nearing its end. And I'm not the only one who says that, you know, you Val Noir Harari also states that because of big data, because of AI, liberalism is nearing its ending. And we see this happening all over the place. You know, free competition doesn't really still exist. You know, Facebook, the Google's of this world, they buy every company, every startup that's out there. It doesn't really still exist, you know. Free will, does that still exist? And we have recommendation algorithms that determine everything for us. So liberalism is running into a few problems at the moment. But at the same time, I see that a lot of organizations and governments understand the power that data brings. So what I see is that, you know, in the next 10, 20, 30 years, the struggle within society is the struggle of the fight around data, who owns this data, and who can do something with this data. And on the one hand, we have the governments and the corporations. And on the other hand, we have the citizens, us, you and me. And both parties have different perspectives, have different objectives, and have different, you know, what they require. And so digitalism is this fight around, you know, this most important resource ever found or created by humans. And it can basically go in three directions. So digitalism has three streams. The first one is state digitalism, which basically means that, you know, the government uses data to enslave its citizens. And this is something we see happening in China. You know, it's massive aliens, you know, in Xinjiang, you know, they have developed an AI panopticon where everyone, the state knows everything about its citizens, that's been that they do. And especially with COVID-19, they have QR codes to leave the house to enter a building, they scan everything, your temperature, they have a social credit score, so they really use data to enslave their citizens. That's not a society I would like to live in. Then you have a second stream, which is near digitalism, which is basically corporate surveillance. And you know, where, you know, we have these large corporate organizations that have become so incredibly powerful that the governments, they can't really do anything anymore. You know, we see this happening with 2018 in the US Senate, where the senators asked Mark Zuckerberg basically how the internet worked. And those are the people who are, you know, who are making the legislation for the citizens. Well, good luck with that, you know, that's not going to happen. That's not only in the US, or it's also happening in the Netherlands, where, you know, the legislators have a very limited understanding of what technology means and how technology is impacting organizations. But the result is that, you know, these tech companies are becoming bigger and bigger and bigger. They are so incredibly powerful, and they basically use the data to enslave the customers for the shareholders. Again, that's not a society I would like to live in. And then the final phase is what I call modern digitalism, which I think is the most positive approach to data. And we use, here we use data to empower the citizens. So we have, you know, ethical use of AI. We have, you know, self-suffering identities. We have full control over your data, full secure data, privacy, a concept called anonymous accountability. So you can be anonymous, but you're still being accountable for whatever you do. And that's sort of what I see happening in Europe. You know, Europe has developed, came up with a GDPR. They have AI regulations. They came up with this risk based approach to AI, where they said, you know, we don't want facial recognition in Europe. We don't want social credit scores in Europe. And all other AI needs to be regulated very, very well. And so that's sort of the theory of digitalism. It's still under development. I'm still, you know, trying to figure out how this works. But I think it's these three streams that will, you know, take over the entire world. And depending on in which society you live, this is either something to look forward to, or something to be really, really afraid of.