Filecoin Foundation at Davos: Key Highlights and Future Prospects

Hosted by Filecoin Foundation and brought to you by CNBC, the Filecoin Sanctuary in Davos brought together the world’s brightest minds across business, government, and technology to discuss the future of the decentralized web.

Over the course of the week, Filecoin Foundation established the Filecoin project’s value as a vital piece of infrastructure for the next generation of the web. We welcomed more than 100 speakers to our stage, including President of France Emmanuel Macron, Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, H.M. Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, CFTC Commissioner Caroline Pham, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Wikipedia Cofounder Jimmy Wales, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, Signal President Meredith Whittaker, members of U.S. Congress, members of Ukrainian Parliament, and the CEOs of global companies like IKEA and Chanel, as well as many other global leaders.

From climate change, to protecting human rights, to preserving truth in an age of AI, these brilliant speakers addressed today’s most urgent global challenges. Across these discussions, a key theme emerged: the power of decentralized tools and technologies to promote transparency and advance positive change.

Here are some panel highlights:

AI and Decentralization

Artificial Intelligence was front and center in Davos this year. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Inventor of the World Wide Web was joined by FF’s Clara Tsao, Meta’s Yann LeCun, and VERSES’ Karl Friston in a session moderated by Gillian Tett of the Financial Times. Together they discussed how decentralized technologies can help with AI data integrity, accessibility, and verifiability.

Talking Regulation and our Latest Space Announcements on the Sanctuary Stage

FF President Marta Belcher and CFTC Commissioner Caroline Pham explored how to create regulatory frameworks that provide clarity and enable emerging technologies like cryptocurrency to thrive. “As regulators, we can’t hide from the future,” Pham said. “We have to future-proof our regulations.”

Belcher and Pham also discussed the many non-financial use cases of cryptocurrencies and decentralized technologies, including FF’s announcement in Davos that it successfully completed a first-of-its-kind mission deploying the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) in space.

This mission, conducted with Lockheed Martin-developed software, demonstrated how IPFS – a decentralized content distribution system – can bring the benefits of decentralized technologies to space to enable better communications across long distances and progress to more resilient architectures as humanity expands its horizons in space.

Commissioner Pham applauded the successful completion of this mission, adding, “It’s amazing to see what we as humans can accomplish.”

And ICYMI: Dive deeper into why this milestone is critical for advancing networking in space.

Using Al, Blockchain, and Predictive Modeling to Protect our Planet

On a panel about how AI, blockchain, and predictive modeling are helping achieve sustainability goals, FF Founding Officer Megan Klimen summed up the need to consider global challenges when advocating for new technologies: “We are past the point in time where we can develop new technologies without climate first and foremost in our minds.”

Regulating Emerging Technologies

In another session on how to regulate emerging technologies, FF’s Marta Belcher was joined by Circle’s Dante Disparte, IBM’s Shyam Nagarajan, and Casper Klynge, former Danish Ambassador for Technology, to lay out a sustainable path forward for emerging technologies that simultaneously promotes innovation and cleans out the bad actors.

Together they talked about how regulators can create clear rules of the road for new technologies in a way that does not stifle innovation, with Belcher advocating that laws and regulations should focus on activities, not technologies.

Disparte noted that overzealous regulation can slow job growth, hinder technological progress, and hamstring the industries of the future. His message to regulators: “If you’re not going to do something, at least do no harm.”

Thank you to the thousands of attendees who joined us on the ground in Davos to learn more about the benefits of the Filecoin network and the projects across our ecosystem that are working together to build the next generation of the web.

For more panels from Davos check out our Filecoin Sanctuary YouTube playlist.

Where to Next?

Social Impact Summit

Co-hosted by Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web and Blockchain Law for Social Good Center, the Social Impact Summit will feature keynotes from Sheila Warren, Chief Executive Officer of the Crypto Council for Innovation; Rainey Reitman, Board President of Freedom of the Press Foundation; George Oates, Cofounder and Executive Director of the Flickr Foundation, and more leading voices across human rights, law, policy, and technology. Join us at the University of San Francisco to learn how decentralized technology can be a catalyst for societal change, highlighted by real-world examples of tech helping build stronger, more resilient communities, economies, and societies. Register now.

Join us at ETHDenver

Filecoin Foundation will return to ETHDenver in 2024, from February 29 to March 3. Join us on the Devtopia show floor as we step into the vibrant ecosystem surrounding the Ethereum-compatible Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) and the larger decentralized ecosystem to spotlight the Filecoin builder community, provide demos, and host talks. Find the full list of Filecoin ecosystem events at ETHDenver.