There is a reason why I have been silent for the past eight weeks. Not that I am presumptuous enough to think anyone noticed that, but sometimes I remember this is my way not to loose touch with the rest of the world about what’s happening to me, not to mention the fact that my kids one day could potentially wonder what dad was doing beside coming and going with his trolley. (as a side point, I think the noise of the luggage wheels entering the house and getting out will probably be the most remembered sound related to Dad they will ever have).
To start with, we did run two great FinTechStage events in May, Milan and Amsterdam (which explain why April was quietly upgrading to an hectic time, because – of course – shit happens and you need to deal wit it). We can safely say both events were successful, from what we could gather from the partners, the sponsors, the audience and the speakers. On thing we have to do better is find a smart way not to loose all the good content FTS is bringing to the different eco-systems.
I will shamelessly point you guys to an amazing post my friend Daniel Gusev (who spoke in Amsterdam) wrote about the event, and I can only be grateful for being so exhaustive and thoughtful in creating this.
We do have ideas on how to capture the fil rouge of all the events we do, and build services around it, and you will hear about it very soon.
I also spent a week in San Francisco (beginning of May) with everyone at Omidyar, in my first ON Summit.
Amazing experience: I went there thinking I would be amongst the very few knowing only a handful of people, and realised there the organisation has grown so much in the last twelve months that at least three dozens of people were there for the first time as well! I am very humbled to be part of such a group, not only because of the mission we share, but most importantly because it s constant reminder – for me – of a different way of building businesses, empowering people, both with for profit and not for profit initiatives, and it was overwhelming as well to realise the spectrum of activities ON is involved with, some of which really triggered a whole new world.
Let me give you an example: I discovered what the Property Rights division does. To be fair, as well WHAT Property Rights even means. Had no idea that over a billion people are concerned by the fact that there is no proper and factual record of their properties (land, houses, etc) with all the terrible consequences that such a matter has on their lives. ON is amongst the few organisations in the planet investing resources and research power to tackle this global issue, where of course technology has a great role to play (think of drones to assess land perimeters, etc).
Immediately after that, I spoke both at the CGAP annual meeting and et ICT Spring Luxembourg, two events fortunately for me overlapping each other but making these three days particularly intense, especially because in the case of the CGAP event (CGAP is an Independent policy and research center dedicated to advancing financial access for the world’s poor) I discovered a whole new network of organisations driven by the same mission (make the world a better place, for lack of a better definition).
It does not happen very often I go to a conference where I don’t know a single speaker, and almost never where I don’t meet someone I have seen before in other place. Well, this time – no doubt – was an exception on all of it.
Another important part of last weeks activity flipped around the work ON is doing in defining an investment thesis on Digital Identity and what it s called the Me2B space. A simple way to explain the latter is how can we put the user (the customer, everyone of us, in other words) in control of his own data and find new economics around the sharing of these data with potential suppliers of services that de facto – today – are getting it for free. I am writing this post from London, where we are visiting a number of players in this space and craft the right strategy around it.
Lastly, I am writing a book,(yes, a book) in Italian, about FinTech, that will be part of a collection produced by the Bocconi University (I think, this is what I have been told). I am just mentioning it as this is what definitely filled up all the little spare time I usually take to write my posts. Book is almost over, only two chapters remaining, will hopefully tell you more before the really summer starts. Summer starts the day I go to Sestri Levante, of course, before then it s just normal busy time in a short sleeves black t-shirt instead of long ones!
Stay tuned
Matteo
