Navigating the future: Convergence of AI, Blockchain and Metaverse | Dr.Akhil Damodaran | TEDxKCMT
my name is Dr Akil Daman and I’m the
co-founder of LTM and also the dean of
irm University so basically in the
morning I teach and evening I work my
startup for blockchain today here we’re
sitting here to I want to share with you
a kind of a landscape which is going to
happen in the next decade a kind of a
technological change which you have
never imagined
a kind of a technology ecosystem which
we all will be swimming in especially
the people who the Next Generation to
understand that particular technological
ecosystem shift you have to
retrospectively understand what has
happened in the past so if you look at
the last decade especially the speculate
the 5 years the most important trigger
of shift in business which happened was
the co and Co literally shifted the
whole ecosystem of business and they
realized that digitalization has become
a priority there’s no way any business
can think a world without technology
they have to be part of the technology
the reason is first of all they realize
that it’s important to have automation
so that physical spaces there’s no
requirement of people to interact
physically so that it’s important to
have if there’s another pandemic at
least people are prepared for it uh at
least a business perspective most of
these uh the the uh the ecosystems a
business should be have a backup in
which the the technology can take a
Forefront if the humans are not
available with this premise technology
became most of the most of the
investment in The Last 5 Years but if
you look at the Last 5 Years huge amount
of technologies have come up I mean you
name it from Quantum Computing to
blockchain to Ai and digitalization etc
etc but I think there are three main
factors which has come out the first is
the blockchain the second is the
metaverse and the third is the
artificial intelligence I mean there’s
no doubt that some way or the other
these three are going to lead the way in
the next 10 years to understand exactly
why these threes are related and why it
is important to understand that these
three are going to lead the way we have
to understand why what is the concept of
these Technologies are for people who
don’t know blockchain just to give a
slight understanding it you have to
understand how the internet works so
internet in general uh perspective when
you’re sending a data from one place to
another through internet it and
generally what it does is it copies the
data from one place to another okay so
if you transferring a file it’s actually
not transferring file it is copying the
file from your destination to the other
person destination that’s it look it
from the money
perspective if I’m transferring money
from internet by that definition I’m
copying the money from my place to other
person so my money is still with me
that’s called double spending problem to
avoid that problem what internet does is
it puts a middleman in between now this
middleman is the bank so what it does is
it does the verification for you the
credit and debit everything that’s
called ledger so the whole record
keeping is actually done by bank that’s
why you get SMS from Banks when you do
the internet transaction that the money
is debited or credited in account it is
not the internet itself which does St
transfer in 2008 crisis which economic
crisis happened at that time Satoshi
nakoto came out with the paper and the
concept of decentralized Ledger came out
that why there should be a centralized
way of controlling the whole transaction
let’s have a decentralized way of doing
transaction so in a nutshell what
blockchain does is it’s a recordkeeping
ledger every transaction is completely
recorded without anybody’s uh any human
interference or any other technological
influence It Is by itself and it is
completely decentralized I mean the copy
of The Ledger goes to each and every PC
who is part of that blockchain so there
is no way you can change the Ledger at
all because everybody has the same copy
without being controlled by a central
Authority and the good part of this
blockchain was it also has a token
mechanism which we call here as uh uh
the the
cryptocurrency so in a way the
blockchain is able to do the currency
transfer it also has a record keeping
tool and somehow the world changeed
after that and people realize maybe the
education credentials medical
certificates pharmaceutical companies
medical devices everything can use this
blockchain because there’s no Bal band
required and everything completely
recorded and it’s completely immutable
so that’s the first premise of what
blockchain is and every image everything
goes inside blockchain is completely
owned by the person who has created it
that’s how the nfts have come up but
that’s worked out for the almost five to
six years when covid hit us people
realize that that somehow work from home
or not physically present in the in in
the business ecos system and still the
business runs is also important priority
and that’s how the virtual world has
come out and people realize that maybe
we need to have a virtual world in which
people can interact with each other
socially business-wise all the
Technologies can merge in the inside it
and people don’t need to go to office
for that and and it all triggered again
when Facebook renamed itself as meta and
they realized maybe does the next
generation of social networking is
possible and that’s how meta was
coming but that’s not all it hyped in
2021 and almost early
2022 and in 202 to December Chad gbt
comes in and when Chad gbt comes in the
whole Focus went from blockchain to
metaverse to AI now what is AI it is
nothing but exactly what the human brain
does automation but it learns by itself
so that’s the reason why AI has become
such a predominant thing it has the cap
capability learn from its environment
it’s it it’s it’s its uh daily usage and
the way the data is given to it that’s
how the AI came up but the point is
somewhere we have to
realize in spite of so much projection
that you know this whole ecosystem is
going to be more than 8 to9 trillion
dollars in the next coming decade we
don’t see anything on
ground we see that the attention to
these Technologies in the last decade
has shifted so much it started
blockchain it peaked up so much in 19
when the cryptocurrency Bitcoin was at
the at the highest and then metaverse
took the focus and from there the focus
went to Ai and it was never and such a
tectonic shift was never seen before to
understand what the future looks like I
think we have to retrospectively again
see how the internet
evolved and to make show this confusion
is completely out let us ask a question
what makes a technology great
a technology is not great because the
technology has features the technology
is great when it creates a revolutionary
product for the
consumer so for for for for the people
to understand internet was not popular
it was Amazon which was popular it was
Facebook which was popular it was Google
which was popular who who use the
internet for the products they have
created which revolutionized the way the
consumer saw things around them and
that’s how people realize that you know
there’s a new internet world for them
that is what missing at this moment so
how to make sure these Technologies are
going to do the same thing I think what
we need to do is we have to change the
lens in which we are looking these
Technologies and what we need to do is
combine all of them together and see
from a one frame so your internet
becomes the base layer by which all the
data and everything is coming up apart
from that the above layer is blockchain
which is a governing layer your whole
virtual currency the whole policy
everything will be part of the
blockchain because this is going to be
the governing layer top of it will be
the metaverse in which the Virtual World
Graphics everything will be handled well
apart from the top of it will be AI
which is going to enhance the consumer
experience by taking all the data and
everything which is coming out to the
all the layers all the three layers
below so what the world will look
like let us
imagine let us imagine that a small pain
in Kerala somewhere in the village he
does a very good painting how much money
he can make he may have maximum go to a
market which is maybe in the border of
Kerala or maybe maximum to the K to
Karnataka and how much money he will be
making I think what you look at is a
different way the lens the lens
is imagine that the same paintings of
the painter is now created into digital
artifacts and then we are putting it
into metaverse they have a complete
Gallery inside metaverse globally you
can watch it from anywhere you can buy
those additional artifacts because of
blockchain once the painting is been
bought by somebody the money will
directly go to the painter’s account no
middleman required imagine the kind of
Market can create for
them imagine the government can create a
public private partnership inside metav
in the sense they can have all the
historical monuments and that um
Heritage um monuments they can create a
digital art effects of it looks exactly
immersive as possible people can go
inside it visit the place pay the money
for it the money will directly go to the
development of or reconstruction of the
physical monument in the real world and
everything is completely transparent
because of blockchain no way the money
can go be
diverted imagine the other way around
that you are watching your movie you’re
booking your movie on a theater you
don’t need to go to theater just put the
VR glass and you can actually watch the
movie most immersively possible much
much greater than what a theater can
give you and the money goes to theater
because of blockchain you’re paying the
fee and there’s no third party of
middleman required transparently given
give and take between both the consumers
and the producers completely fine
imagine the way the world will be I
think in the next 10 years you will see
a virtual economy a place where people
will do business people will do social
networking people will do everything
everything including college and schools
a lot of classrooms you will see inside
a virtual world where all the learnings
can be recorded inside the credential of
blockchain and everything is completely
recorded immutable and all the
everything can be traceable and what
next Once you remove the VR glass you’ll
be sitting your native place with your
grandparents so imagine the whole world
with in front of you which is not
physically present but that’s exactly
what the the real world does I think
this is a emergence for virtual economy
or what we call as a next iteration of
internet thank you
The future is driven by the convergence of AI, blockchain, and the metaverse, reshaping how we interact with technology and with each other. AI powers automation and personalized experiences, while blockchain ensures secure, transparent transactions. The metaverse offers new virtual spaces for work, play, and commerce. Together, these technologies open up new possibilities for innovation and collaboration. Akhil Damodaran boasts extensive expertise across diverse industries, including telecommunications, information technology, aviation, and education. Currently serving as the Dean at IILM University’s Undergraduate Business School, he gained notable acclaim in 2021 by receiving the prestigious Celerity 40 under 40 Supply Chain Achievers Award. In addition to his responsibilities at IILM, Akhil is the Founder and CEO of Elteridium, a blockchain smart contract company focusing on public-private partnerships.This dynamic professional not only excels in academia but also leads innovative initiatives that contribute to the intersection of technology and business. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx