Digital Twins for Refugees

Johannes Castner: 0:36

Hello and welcome. My name is Johannes and I am the host of this show. Today I am here with Richard Thickpenny, who is um, who is an in independent consultant in funding and strategic partnership managing. He is a visiting fellow at the University of the West of England. And an engaged scholar at Aston University. Uh, he is at his own company. He's the director of Corporate Social Responsibility at the the New Penny Ltd. Um, today's topic will be his unique contribution in technology. He will be, uh, explaining, uh, a bit about, um, uh, about, about what that is and then what, what, what it is used for. And it is based on the concept of the digital, digital twin. Um, and it has to do with helping refugees, which is a topic that's quite close to my own heart. So, um, uh, without further ado, please, Richard, could you tell us a bit about what, what digital twin, what, what this concept means? It's, it, it's floating around there. We hear about it a lot. Digital twins, digital twins. This digital twins there. What is it exactly?

Richard Thickpenny: 1:46

What the digital twin approach will be in the context that I'm using it is it's actually a new way of, of actually engaging with refugees and the knowledge that they have. So typically, um, under European general data protection, Rules if, if you engage with somebody, take data from them, that data then has to be sort of almost preserved and, and, and kept safe from other people's use, and that's controlled by the person who asked the question and received the data. Um, and what that means is the individual, the refugee who actually gave information about their past or what they plan to do or their views on any service. That data is taken from them. They have no control over it and no further voice with its use. So what we're looking at is, is actually creating, in essence, virtual refugees. So the, using the digital twin approach, um, allowing an organization to create their own metaverse. Where the refugees that they're working with can actually interact in a virtual world, and that digital twin will actually hold, um, in effect as much data as the individual wants, the digital twin or avatar to hold. And how they're being created or how, and visiting them being created, is using, um, a range of social science questions. So you've got the responses to those and then that being supplemented by the individual themselves with further contextual data. What you then can have with that digital twin is a contract. For the use of that data. So what it does it turn to per refugee from being a passive provider of, of data to other, other people to actually being in control of the data that they, they give and through contracts like digital contract that goes with the digital twin allows, um, It to be perform part of co-creation of projects, but it also allows, um, the crypto tokens and other, um, other benefits to accrue around the data. So the individual creates avatar of themselves, the digital twin, an organization like a university or university student who wants that data. Engages with the avatar. The contracts is agreed using a crypto wallet, and payment is made either by tokens for services like gym membership, actual cryptocurrency, or other types of services. So the aim of it is to actually foster long term engagement with data provision rather than, A once in a lifetime provision of data. Mm-hmm., Johannes Castner: which can be then So you can, you can trace the refugee with this data as well. Right. So this could open up some, some issues as well, right? Or, or am I reading this wrong? Um, because it's on, on blockchain, what, what you'll get is a, is a lot more security. So I've spent time, um, like with, with another university who've spent nearly a year going through the implications. I've just taken data from the refugee and, and holding it in relation to a home office project because of the UK's hostile environment, refugee, so, This, this approach, um, actually puts the control of the release of data with the individual rather than the organization, because the traditional method would be an external. Somebody from a university or an external agency taking the data, you know, questioning the person, taking personal details, potentially anonymizing them. But then it's, it's held in an institution and within their systems for five years, 10 years, 25 years, depending on what they're ethics systems sort of dictates.

Johannes Castner: 6:45

So where is this one held? Is this a sort of data wallet? Or, or where Yeah, where does Oh yeah. So it is a data wallet. I, well,

Richard Thickpenny: 6:53

it it'll hold within, within, within a metaverse, like, like it's linked to the, the blockchain.

Johannes Castner: 6:59

So, so, but, but the refugee herself is, is in control of it, right? Is that

Richard Thickpenny: 7:05

right? Yeah. So, so, so it's, it's, it's their digital twin. So there, there's, there's a template twin has created and then. Um, refugees unable to sort of populate, uh, key data points within the avatar within digital twin.

Johannes Castner: 7:24

And so what, what advantage do they gain from that by doing this? I, I think what we were speaking earlier, you were saying also it, it would help their, the, uh, in, in building their career more strategically. Is is that, is that right? Yes.

Richard Thickpenny: 7:37

Yeah. What, what it, what it allows in, in many ways, Is by creating metaverse with, with other individuals. You've got an exchange of data that the individuals can, um, use their advertising then to communicate with each other. You can populate the metaverse with, um, with, with videos, with, with, um, so our online courses. Lots of interactive experiences, so the individual can learn through that. But what it also means, say for the universities and those researching currently, they can access very few refugees and you get, um, basically overuse of, of certain individuals. Oh.

Johannes Castner: 8:33

Could you, could you explain that a bit more? What do you mean by that?

Richard Thickpenny: 8:39

Within populations, there's, there's, there's some people who've got the time and the inclination to attend focus groups. Mm-hmm.. So they become regular candidates for focus groups. Mm. So therefore inform all policy and papers and articles that go on from that point. Yeah. Okay. But what you also get is if the story is a really good story that the refugee has that, um, the interviewer can become really empathetic with. And, uh, you get, um, a lot of exploration of trauma. Mm-hmm.. So the refugee then, whilst actually giving out lots of information, can ultimately trigger the traumas and PTSDs d from their past experiences. So this, this approach allows a sort of arms length. So distancing from trauma. So it means key bits, which people would want to keep asking about, oh, what was your journey like? And this, that and the other. That can actually just be done once

Johannes Castner: 9:52

I see. Yeah. Okay. But then also, But, but isn't there this problem? Okay, so I, I, I, I read up on a bit on the blockchain because I've been talking about it recently with, with guests on this show. So there is this potential cri well there's this critique of it that is that the data will live on forever, right? So if you are putting up something that you then regret having put up you, you can or, or, or, you know, in, in some ways also, when they are vulnerable people, because refugees often fall into this group of vulnerable people, people can put something up about them into the blockchain, and it's impossible to take it down. Right. Because it, it's, it lives on forever.

Richard Thickpenny: 10:41

But that's, that's already sitting there with lots of images and that a anyway. What we're looking at, suppose as much as anything is the, there will, the, the downsides with the data and hopefully with the, with the use of blockchain, it's more secure, there's more integrity around it, and there's more sort, transparency on, on how the data's moving around so that the, one of the reasons blockchain's been created, uh, Progress is that level of security and integrity that isn't there with, with existing systems. So with, with the existing situation then. Somebody would hold a focus group or a one-to-one interview and would hold data, and that could be kept insecurely by a researcher and end up who knows where. So once the initial piece is through and that person is actually in control, then yeah. Yeah. We've all tweeted 10 years ago and looking back at it, It may not read well and things like that, but at least with this, the individual can actually keep amending their data.

Johannes Castner: 12:11

So, let me ask you this. So, so just to be sure. When, when you can, uh, when you, when you have this digital twin, um, technology in your possession, if you're, um, if you're a refugee, you, you can add data to it, right? But can you also take data out of it? Because the blockchain has this permanence, right? The, the data cannot really be taken out. It can only be added. Is that correct?

Richard Thickpenny: 12:38

Um, those aspects are not that, that sheer at that, that's is one of the reasons for doing the visiting fellowship. So what I've been looking at, at primarily with the digital twin components is initially around creating a, a metaverse. Which it, it can operate. So it could do it like organization by organization, but ultimately the information can then go onto blockchain and be passed from one agency to another. Yeah, so, so what I've been looking at what, what I'm working on in terms of the digital twin component is, Is actually sort of sitting within a, a local metaverse. So, um, I, I work with a, a number of different agencies. I've created a metaverse between the agencies in which refugees could create their own digital twins. And what that, because the problem have at the moment, if you had 20 agencies working with a hundred different refugees, Each agency could be working with the same refugee, but would hold different information about that individual, which would've been sampled at different times. So, so actually you end up with like a really sparse, dirty data sets, which is not very usable. So, so the problem I've been looking at is actually how you. Put the data in the control of a single person. Yeah, the individual itself, so that it can disseminate or be used by the different organizations, so the individual in control. What that then allows is, well, if that's happening within that group, well what happens if that individual goes to another area? So if it just stays in one metaverse in one local piece, That same problem exists. They've got to like start a fresh, creative thing. So the blockchain would allow that transportability for the individual from location to location. So they could, they could initially say be in a camp in Lebanon, then they can sort transit through Europe. But at each point they could use a blockchain to access their own data. So they could use that avatar as a receptacle for qualifications and their own past life. I said, come into the new countries and then they can add into that and add, prepare for their own future life. So that avatar becomes their own sort of receptacle for for knowledge. Yeah. The contract, um, the crypto wallet piece allows them to provide in, to open and unlock information for different organizations, and the blockchain would allow that transportability from, from one place to another. So that, that's, that's how I envied it within this. Um, so yeah, in, in, in terms of this, this sort of solution and this

Johannes Castner: 16:10

sort of, I see. So it's, it's really basically allows them sort of their own LinkedIn tools in a way. They, it's, it's a bit like it's, it has a sort of a LinkedIn element to it, right? So we career building element, if I understand it correctly,

Richard Thickpenny: 16:30

you, you've, you've got, you've got that component. Um, So yeah, you, you can do all of your digital badging and build with into it, but what you've also got is because they are refugees are sort of research subjects, it allows them to capitalize on, you know, on that, on that part of their life as well. So, Yeah, so, so it's, it'll have a personal use for themselves in, in terms of what they want to accumulate into the avatar and use this receptacle. But it also allows them to create, yeah, a monetizable data set that can be, that can be traded with researchers or other organizations. So one. What I'm doing with the visiting fellowship will actually be looking at what type of questions that that avatar would respond to.

Johannes Castner: 17:35

Could you expand on this a little bit? Like what do you mean by questions so that,

Richard Thickpenny: 17:42

so, um, There's, there's a large amount of study into refugees around their mental health, around their employment aspirations. Um, so issues, what happened during the asylum process, what happened through the flight from home country. So there's, there's a lot of, um, sort of the, the social science type questions that people are research agencies are exploring all the time. Mm-hmm.. So that will actually be built into the structure of the avatar for, to allow it to actually interact. So you go to, what was your journey like?

Johannes Castner: 18:34

Oh, I see. So it's autonomous and there'd be a set of information. So, so will it be autonomous from the person then in that sense? It's different. What I understand the digital twin to be in a way that it, it re it, it acts on its own.

Richard Thickpenny: 18:51

That component I'll still be exploring, but that would be ultimately you could build it that sort of chatbot autonomous component. So that would be what the individual could actually release in the contract is the ability to interact with, with key things, because a lot of social science and that questions are very similar.

Johannes Castner: 19:14

I see. Ah. Right, so it answers on behalf of these, of, of the refugee so that the refugee doesn't have to actually bother with it. And not only that, but also because the, yeah, because of the traumatic aspects. As you mentioned before, they might not want to talk about these things, but they, they might also want to let people know about them, While not wanting to talk about them personally again. So I see that is really a great, that's, that's certainly great functionality. Interesting. Very, I mean,

Richard Thickpenny: 19:48

what I'm looking at, at Yeah, go on. What, what I'm looking at, at or around it as well is sort of currently, um, using design thinking, you could, you could focus group with a number of refugees and you could create a persona which you would use then within the design of a service. So that's very point in time. Then over a year or two, three years time, the relevance of that lived experience of that individual in that, those, those individuals that created that, um, design persona, yeah. It starts to become irrelevant and redundant and, and outdated. This approach I'm hoping to be able to do with it is allow. Ag essentially ongoing aggregation of data so that the design personas could actually alter over time as, as variables change within individual times of Right.

Johannes Castner: 20:55

They should. Right? I mean, if, if they're digital twins, then they should, I would assume they would. If I understand digital twins too. Yeah. Yeah. In the right way. In that way,

Richard Thickpenny: 21:05

correctly. And, and it is that actual, that that digital version of, of, of the real thing that you would use as an engineer when, when you're looking at, at systems where you're getting that constant feedback, this is a, a mechanism where there's a potential to actually create continual system feedback. Mm-hmm.. Johannes Castner: Yes. So yeah, speak some more on that. I think that's interesting. It's, um, I, I, I think it's, it's gonna be quite the key component cuz if in, in New Zealand they've been looking at projects for, um, like basically all of the government funded projects, it's like 1950. So they have a, an actuarial approach to funding design. So they, they know that if they, if a project that has these components and it works with these types of people, then the results. Like that. So that's a, that's a gov that's a government making best use of its money over time, and it's not getting best value for money. I'm looking at it more from the customer perspective as well. So there's, there's a big move in the UK currently to build lived experience into, into service design. And that's either by having focus groups or steering groups that feature people who are using the service, saying like the refugee service, or employing individuals from the refugee backgrounds because their knowledge, the refugee journey can inform service design. Whilst that works, it's, it's still very. In in that moment of time. So the lived experience as a refugee from 20 years ago is entirely different, say than Ukrainian refugee experience in 2023. You can't just have an individual who's been a refugee and a lived experience. If you're designing a service, you can't have outliers. Because you could have had an Iranian, um, homosexual professor who'd been you seriously forced outta the country with his whole family, sort of been held to run some who could have lived experience being a refugee compared to an 19 year old who, f's, um, national service of course.

Johannes Castner: 24:02

And has had to very different things for sure.

Richard Thickpenny: 24:05

What's Yeah. But, but services are actually being designed on that basis with that very sparse outlier data sets. So you, you always hear about the taxi driver who was a doctor in their home country. Yeah. Yeah. I heard about it. Very, very, very, very limited global data that supports doctors end up as taxi drivers, but it's, it's accepted that refugees, some of them are doctors and are taxi drivers here. So this, this sort of, by encouraging more people to take apart by having that cryptocurrency piece, you're getting more. Data coming in, it's being refreshed and you, the system isn't then reacting to outliers, uh, is actually reacting to what's hap what is truly happening within the system for the majority of situations. So again, there's, there's some philosophical arguments around that. There's some ethics. That, like do you exclude the outliers? What you identified that they exist or does that mean that you then have the information that allows you to provide services for outliers and those more around?

Johannes Castner: 25:42

Right. I guess in the, in the era of personalization, it really makes sense to. To extend this idea of personalization, which we have in consumer culture, all, you know, all over the place, um, to, to refugee services. And that's, if I understand your work correctly, there is something in that vein to it, right?

Richard Thickpenny: 26:07

There is, I've seen over 20 years working with the refugees, I've just seen so much standardized a approach that's, there's actually, um, white middle class solutions to the problem. So the last sort of five years has been moved towards a lived experience, which is an idea of. Well, we don't know really what we're doing, but what we'll do is we'll bring in some more people. Yes, a different type of person, which will give us a bit more knowledge and then hopefully that makes it work, rather than actually, what do pe, what does a customer really want from service? What happens if we provide a service like this? How can that service be improved? How do we move if, how do we say, for example, Yeah, we're in the west. There's, there's plenty of opportunities. Yeah. There's, there's a broad range of salaries people can settle up. How do we get people into a position where they can actually make best use of those opportunities? Well, if you've got 200, 300, 400 people regularly feeding information in about what's happened in various situations. Now you can then create a service that provides the solution for the customer, the person who's life you're actually trying to direct for the next 40 years of their working life. Life. Yeah. You're actually getting comprehensive feedback from. Yeah. The, the customer using service as opposed to, well, in 2020 we interviewed 15 people. Yeah. Is what they said. This is how,

Johannes Castner: 28:08

yeah, that makes sense. So this is, this is a really innovative and new approach to this problem. Um, using all of this blockchain technology, digital twin technology, and. Uh, do you think it would not be possible to do this? You know, so I just want to ask this as a, as a sort of devil's advocate. Um, you know, would that not be possible without all of this fancy technology? Could you not do it? Um, with. Websites, and you know what, whatever exists sort of in the, in the web two world or in the world that we, that we know of, um, generally still. Um, what, what is that? What is it that the, the, the, oh, okay. You in some ways, you answered it already in, in the way that, you know, the, the, the privacy issue. And so on. But is there, is there anything that's really glaring that, that really needs this approach of blockchains and crypto? I mean, you, you could do digital twin also without, without crypto and, and, and blockchain, correct. Is that

Richard Thickpenny: 29:12

you can, you could, um, yeah. Salesforce and things like that exist. You can aggregate stuff on that, but. Currently, all of the systems are in control. We're in the control of others rather than you, the individual. So there's no democracy in it, the the system, how it operates. Yeah. As soon as you put data into web two, anything like that, it immediately gets controlled by gdpr. So the individual loses. Their data straight away and can never get it back. So you have those aspects. There's also, um, actually around creating good services. So yeah, quarter of a way through the 21st century. Yeah. Blockchains already quite a few years old. Okay, the use cases, are only now coming onto the system? But I was on, I was working on actually building the internet brands 2000, 2001. There were no uses for any web 2, at that point. It could all been done on by paper. So you can get around it, but. Just to share complexity of ensuring an individual could get their data shared between three or four organizations to improve a service. It means that, you know, the current systems just aren't, um, just aren't viable for that, and that's why you end up with such disparities and service between organizations and and across countries. So this is a, a way of actually putting, I, I think it's probably the only way that you could guarantee integrity for individuals to have control. And

Johannes Castner: 31:22

you can, are, are you sure that you can do it with this technology? Because, you know, there are, there is critiques by, um, luminaries such as Tim Burners Lee, who, who brings up this, you know, these problems. The data permanence for one thing. So there is, is a sort of a lack of privacy once it's, you know, because it's public actually, so, right. The blockchain is, is public, you know, and so once the data gets on there, you can never scrape it off. Then the other issue

Richard Thickpenny: 31:53

contractually, so there is, yes, there's that permanence of, of the web, which. It may only be five years if we go into a nuclear situation around things, it, it could be for another thousand years. So yes, there is permanence, but there's also, even that permanence may be restricted because data storage requirements for the internet are growing so massively. So you have those issues, but there's also, it's more. To do with that, um, the integrity and security component that you get with it that allows, you know, that individual, if that data goes out and is there permanently, well at least they've received something for it, whereas, and they get residual payments. Yeah. The data is sold again, I'll get money from that. So they, they will maintain. A type of income from that data. Cause that's what the contract will say in the small group of organizations. You know, it actually allows sort of crypto or Yeah, the crypto tokens to be used as well. So you've actually got tradeability. So the individual is trading knowledge in return for something which he can then trade as an NFT

Johannes Castner: 33:23

so, so I was talking on this point, you know, before we get too far from, it was recently speaking to Yasmin Al-Douri, um, in Germany. And she, she pointed out this potential issue with that, right? So if, if you have, if you have poor people, Um, who can, or if, if you can make money, let's say if you can make money on, on, on lack of privacy or on your data, then in some ways privacy could become a luxury. And, and that sounded a very, that sounded like a stark statement, you know, that, uh, was kind of a taken aback by, and, and it, it seems, but it seems to be true, right? So if, if you're a poor refugee, And you wanna make money on your data and you must, or you must make the money on your data because you have children to feed or whatever it is that you're, that you're struggling with, versus someone who is more economically independent who can then afford this privacy. Will this not just contribute to some other new form of inequity in privacy in other words.

Richard Thickpenny: 34:36

I think that's, that's in the philosophical world. Yeah. E everybody likes an Elon Musk. Everybody likes a Tesla. And you know, you've got a bloke who's made a massive amount of money from datas and various things, got sweat surfing, more data, you got your Zuckerbergs and, and all of that. So in web two, Every website I'm going on is harvesting stuff from me, and I have no very little control over that. You know, on European websites, you've got the reject or accept this, that and the other, but there's still essential data being harvested. You know, I'm using Edge and Chrome and things like that. This stuff just being harvested all the time. So actually, Currently, there's like 10 or 15 people in the world who have made vast piles of money from just harvesting data. No integrity, no security, no transparency. I don't know where my first suite lives. I don't know where my first Facebook, I don't know where friends reunited. Ancestry or anyone. I don't know anything about where that data is and where it ultimately will end up. Will it be free range on the internet? Yeah. I've got, I think my oldest stuff now is on like 2006, but there's some other things that were on websites which have disappeared. I don't know where that data is now. So the blockchain, well, It aims to offer better security than what's currently there in terms of data. Who ultimately controls the blockchain? It's meant to be more, you know, a more distributed control system. What it's currently. So this, this risks with rogue nations and that, yeah, I don't know. We're holding a conversation at the moment. I don't ultimately know where that the server is, where our bits of data, where our bits actually flowing through. Yeah. Is it in Germany? Yeah. Is it in San Francisco? Is it in? We don't know. And, and we don't know what will happen in any of those areas. We don't know what will happen in, in, in 10 years, so we dunno whether California will split away from the us Oh wow.

Johannes Castner: 37:24

I think that's an unlikely I'd

Richard Thickpenny: 37:33

ultimately, the, the, the data ultimately sits on some form of memory device somewhere or a large number of them, and you dunno what the encryption is around. Yeah, those, those data devices. The blockchain supposedly has a higher level of beta security. Current systems.

Johannes Castner: 37:58

Uh, so the, these critiques, have you read them by, uh, or have you come across them by, by Tim Berners Lee about the blockchain? Um, namely, you know, that it's not so that there is this privacy issue, that it's also not fast enough and not cheap enough. I think those are the three points, if I remember it correctly. If, if I'm saying this wrong, please, uh, comment on the comment section. Um, but I. I, I, I, I haven't, I haven't read, see, so I think it's, it's just, I haven't read it. I think it's most three points, basically, that, that they're not cheap, that they're not fast enough, and that they are actually not private enough. So, so that these three things, uh, you know, that solid, um, uh, is, is is an alternative to the blockchain. I don't know if you're aware of this. Also answering, you know, sort of questions in the same area. You know, there there's this question of, you know, what should be called Web three. I, I was talking to Yasmin Adori about that topic, and that's not really defined very well at all. And, and so they're competing paradigms still, you know, aside from the blockchain. Have you explored any of those alternatives?

Richard Thickpenny: 39:11

I haven't yet. Cause what I've been looking at is more around the actual, the creation of, of, of the concept and, and the actual shifts in the way that that data develops. So that creation of the digital twin component. Cause ultimately what I'm looking at, Actually be a single server solution. Yeah, it, yeah, it, it could be a, a housing association with the two thousands tenants where, you know, with within their communications, within their interactions with their, their tenants, they can create a metaverse for them to operate within. So for me, the blockchain component, Is a life-threatening partner of the system. It's it's potential, it's potentially an enabler to allow an individual's movement around the globe. And data in that aspect, that point has, has got lots of errors or, yeah, there's holes in the system at the moment, just as there was when I started to use the internet. 30 plus years ago with, with the Dialup.

Johannes Castner: 40:33

I remember those myself.

Richard Thickpenny: 40:35

I think it's, and actually doing the first online bank banking using those, so ly the right to point out that in, in the, in the. System. There's great big differences compared to the system that he created.

Johannes Castner: 41:02

Yeah. But you see the problems that came about in the system because originally, um, you know, if you look at the web, originally it was decentralized, right? So like you, you had your server. At your house where you would put your website up and then you would run it 24 7. If you wanted your website to be up 24 7, it would be on your computer. And, uh, so, so there was no, it was in that way really quite decentralized. And then what happened is it, it was sort of captured, I wanna say. By the big corporations, right? So in a way, one thing that they didn't see, I think, and they talk about this, um, you know, so I mean by they, I mean, um, you know, Jarron and, and Berner, Slee and so on and, and, and other early internet pioneers, what they didn't see is this, this. Now in hindsight, everything is obvious, right? So this, this, this point that compute power, computing power and data, also free, free data access. Basically, if you have free data access, somebody can capture it, somebody can grab it, right? So if the data is out there, somebody can grab it and centralize it. And then if they have, uh, a monopoly on compute power, because if they just accumulate most of the compute power, then in some ways they can centralize the internet, right? They can, they can do what they did. And, and so that's why it's not decentralized at this moment, right? This is how it, how it turned out. And, and some of it has to do with efficiency. Right. So this idea is that if I want to build a website now, I will not actually want to put it on the server in my house, but I would much prefer to put it up on using, using Amazon Web services or, or, or Google Web Services? Um, I tend to use Google Web services. Other people use aws, but the point being that that's much easier. There's a lot of infrastructure there that you can use to, to wield, you know, enormous amount of, of, of compute power. If you, if you just wanna rent it for, for a moment or whatever. If you wanna do some kinda, uh, machine learning calculations or something like this, it's quite easy to do . And so the decentralization has its adva like, you know, so the centralization, as I'm coming to find out through these conversations also part has its advantage in, in some moments, right? So it's, it's, it's, um, it, you know, in this collaborative, uh, economy approach where you can just buy compute when you need it, you can put things up, right? So there. Advantage of, of centralization, right? That, that, that complete decentralization will then lead to these kind of problems we had in the early internet. And could you address this? And, and why is that not similar to what actually was the problem with the original internet in terms of efficiency?

Richard Thickpenny: 43:48

I think it's, yeah, with, with all of the technological advances, there's, there's those component, there's those periods in time where it, it doesn't, it doesn't work. So the early internet didn't actually work exceptionally well until money came in and allegedly it's because of like the, the access to porn. Allows revenues to develop, which allows more computers to be bought and it's to build up. So there are, I, I, you know, I, I worked on building the infrastructure for the internet and the amount of sort of dark fiber. Yeah, just fiber and multiplexers put in place waiting. Essentially the development of the smart phone. For them to be used and economically viable. I think that's where ultimately the blockchain argument will rise or fall. Is there a viability around it? So the, the likes of discord and roblox, those where you're creating communities of interest that sort of congregate around a server. Is that gonna be efficient with 8 billion people globally? That ultimately whether those, those bits that are traveling around the system equate into money for somebody. So at the moment, the wealth that comes from the internet is sort of held in a, a few people's hands. The distributed model allows essentially a great exp expansion of the internet with a larger number of people making money from it. So is it fair that there's, it's like seven mega trillionaires. There's like 30 or 40. But that's, that's, that's ultimately what will, will happen. Or there'll be, you know, an American internet and African internet, you know, a European internet with some sort of linkage between them. Yeah. It's, you've got a potential for a community of interest, nation state version.

Johannes Castner: 46:36

Oh wow. So you, this, this is in some ways it would feel like, a bit like, like going back, right? Because, um, nation states, in a way you could say that the internet has enabled us to get a little bit past that system or, uh, at least pretend to. And, and then what you're saying is that if, if nation states get their own internets, then I would feel like this is a step back into, into a.

Richard Thickpenny: 47:04

Or it could be in seven nation state. It could actually be sort of like a, a, a global state of, um, union around sort of like a key concept. So climate activism could take on its its own Yes. Yes. Right. Part of, of the web and things like that. Community

Johannes Castner: 47:26

groups basically like interest groups could, could take the place of.

Richard Thickpenny: 47:30

Yeah, but, but they could become larger and larger sort a nation state size worth of interest. Yeah, I see that. That makes sense because you've already got, yeah, so countries like Wales and, and Scotland and the smaller European countries. Yeah. They have populations like one to 5 million.. It doesn't take long to build community of interest. Like one to 5 billion. Yeah. A number of it. Yeah. Social media influencers already have more. Yeah. The Kardashians have more people interested in them than there are populations of countries. Yes.

Johannes Castner: 48:09

the Kardashians. It's very strange. Yeah, that's, I think that's a very strange one. I think that, uh, I think it was, was a bill man who pointed out, Many more young people are interested in the Kardashians than they are in what Greater Thunberg has to say. And in that way there is, they're the generation of, of the Kardashians and not the generation of, of greater Thunberg, which I think he and I am hoping that we would be the, the that, that they would be the generation of, that's an unfortunate thing. Materialism seems to still rule.

Richard Thickpenny: 48:51

Yeah, it's like a day's gone by. Each nation would have its fleet of ships and go onto the high seas. Yeah. Whether those sort of like communities of interests would go on the high seas in the future to take control. Don't know, but that's, yeah. There is potential for that. You've seen it with like just Yeah. Support around. Where you actually have got belligerence coming into, into data and control of information. Yeah. Yeah.

Johannes Castner: 49:23

That's really, uh, that's, that's, that's a dark,

Richard Thickpenny: 49:27

so that's not the area that I'm gonna be working. No,. Johannes Castner: Yeah. Let's bring it back to that. So, so in terms of these refugees, so, uh, you know, when, uh, how many are, are you already working with refugees currently? Having them use, is this already something that's being, uh, deployed at the moment or is it still in the research stage? I, I haven't got it deployed yet, but what I'm hoping if I've got my initial funding applications in, so what I'm looking at is, is actually testing it without technology to begin with. So looking at a, so developing a fairer exchange of knowledge. So, um, I'm looking at a couple of projects with community groups and one of the local universities around actually in exchange for knowledge that's coming from the community, in return for that information, they'll have access to, um, did you digital batching modules? Digitally batch modules from university so they can. Yeah, they can provide information. I'm looking at, um, vaccine hesitancy. So looking, so information you get from the community in relation to their views on vaccines. That's provided an exchange for, um, digitally badge modules around leadership. Um, another areas of interest for the individuals, so actually building in the, the, that trading component. And, and looking at the ethics that go around that, that trading component. And so I can then actually start building up the question Yeah. The, the template questions and that, that's sit within each.

Johannes Castner: 51:26

So when do you expect that, um, that there will be the first refugees who can take full advantage? Of a, let's say a prototype or, or when, when will you have a prototype that, uh, you know, you'll wheeled out?

Richard Thickpenny: 51:40

Uh, probably not until, yeah, probably not until later this year as concept, there's quite a bit of just, just actually building up something that's relevant and usable. That's what the visiting fellowship and the engaged scholarship components are for, cause it gives me access to the academics and those working in the field that allow that to then be built up.

Johannes Castner: 52:07

Absolutely. I would be very interested in following your story with respect to that. And perhaps you could also come back at some later point and tell me about your successes and failures, you know, and, and what you've learned basically in the process. That would be very interesting. Yeah.

Richard Thickpenny: 52:27

I've expected quite a few failures. There's, there's, there's quite a lot of learning I think needs to be built into it. Say its, it's quite a significant use case and there's lots of ethics around it and, and just operationally as well. Um, I'm, I've just had, had my 58th birthday and I was talking to, Somebody in their twenties the other day who was just astounded to come across an old person who actually knew about using avatars, , and NFTs and blockchain , which shows what that's, that's a major hurdle to overcome because even to, to start developing it within organizations and that there's a lot of work just on. Bringing people up to speed around. Mm-hmm., simple thing like an avatar. Yeah. So the, with, um, Aston and others, there's, there's a lot of work now on creating virtual company avatars Right. As well. So again, there's, well, so there's the individual

Johannes Castner: 53:46

component. I wanted to ask you one more thing. I wanted to ask you a few more things, but I wanted to ask. With respect to, when you're saying lots of ethics, could you just give us a, a, maybe the, the most difficult or the most puzzling problem that is in that area of ethics with respect to the digital twin com, uh, um, I'm sorry, technology that you're wielding out and, and you know, what, what is that, you know, what is the most complicated or what is the hardest problem in the ethics area?

Richard Thickpenny: 54:14

What you, how things have been operating is that there's been a big move to decolonize research. Um, remove racism from research, remove othering from research. So essentially it's, it's trying to make that sort of. The methods of research sort of fairer, more, more equitable and, and less, um, power orientated, but it's still an extractive process. Yeah, there's, there's a subject and you get information from that subject, which informs your thesis, which is then published as a, as an article. So, Having the individuals in control what they provide into that system shifts the power, and quite significantly cause whilst the individual can currently say yes or no, chances that it's still the organization. Is in control of the whole, the whole process. There's no trading currently. It's occasionally some money will be found to provide, um, a payment for the focus group, but, but it's all taken away. There's, so what you have with this is the ethics of paying somebody to provide you with inform. Entering a contract where you're obliged to give them residual funding, yeah, as you make use data, more and more, you know there's residual payments being made and is that an appropriate use of university funds or government funds. So it's that, so there's that component of was should we really be paying for this because, well, what if they lie, it encourages people. Yeah. It's the, it's the selling in the kidney type scenario. You mentioned it before, you got poor person, they gotta give more and more and more; for money. Johannes Castner: Yeah. I mean, I mean, you feel, you would say that, I mean, No. What we want is to, is to get as much as we can. Right.

Johannes Castner: 56:58

Ok. Yeah. That's also a problem. That's a, that's a good point. That's a good point. It's, it's, it's a, yeah. You can use it. It's in a way, sort of like an Essex washing that's going on, right? It's sort of to say, oh, yeah, we don't wanna make these poor people get money from us, because then maybe they'll depend on it or something like this. It's, it's a. But in reality, it's really about saving, saving money. Okay. I understand that point. So it's, it's not really an ethics problem then. It's maybe it is, but it's more political problem, it seems.

Richard Thickpenny: 57:35

Yeah, it's, it's within that framework. Who controls that decision for To be an ethical or, or political, yeah. We've got, I just was just recently in Los Angeles and I decided not to to go to the Getty Museum. Cause the Getty Museum had a superb exhibition of Sudanese gold and stuff. And it's like, well, I could go all the way to this place a whole get diaper every day. There's a whole set of people curating it and using his. He's like, well, what a patronizing situation. Some person made a load of wealth by selling. Yeah, a commodity that's helped destroy the planet. Put that into a trust fund so he could educate people and things, and a whole set of people curating stuff around education. And it's all like really, really nice. It seems like a, a good concept, but I looked at it and thought, well, why, why sh? Why should I bet you go to this building because of this man's? Well, to learn something that's been extracted from That's

Johannes Castner: 58:56

true. This is really always the paradox in New York as well. You go to the Mets, you know, beautiful metropolitan opera, and it's funded by the Koch brothers and it has the, you know, their name on it and so on. It's always been a little bit of a, um, uh, problem for me as well. I can see where you're coming from. The, the Geti Museum is beautiful.. Yeah. And that's

Richard Thickpenny: 59:18

what you'd

Johannes Castner: 59:18

be getting.. I like the Geti Museum. Nevertheless, I think it's beautiful. But, but I agree. It's,

Richard Thickpenny: 59:26

I, I spent five days, well, it's, it's still, I spent five days on Santa Monica Pi Ev every evening because that gave me more. Insight into wealth of humanity that I would've ever got going to one man's Yeah.

Johannes Castner: 59:47

Wealth fund. Yeah. No, it's a very interesting place for sure. Uh, Santa Monica, NIC area. I spent so, uh, many years there, in fact, , so I, I'm quite familiar. I went to Santa Monica College before going to Columbia, so yeah, I was, I was living in, in, in that area for quite some time. I'm aware.

Richard Thickpenny: 1:00:09

And it's those ethics and politics with the Getty thing. Everybody believes it to be a really good. Situation because it's the whole purpose of its to like, but

Johannes Castner: 1:00:20

isn't that also true with all the royalty stuff here in England? Uh, you could, you could. Uh, okay. I think, but I think we're off a bit. But, but, uh, you know, to bring, you know, maybe a bit of a conclusion. To what you're doing. What, what are the, the, okay, let's, let's start with this, you know, where, what is your fear of what could go wrong in, in your research coming up? What would be the most catastrophic sort of to your research or to your work, uh, with respect to this work that you're doing?

Richard Thickpenny: 1:01:00

I think that the, the biggest piece will actually be. Actually getting a, a buy-in to the approach because so, so much. Yeah. You've either got researchers extracting or you've got services which deliver stuff. You know, they have beneficiaries. This approach actually creates Yeah, a customer and a supplier. Because you're supplying information that to improve the service that you're gonna be a customer of. So it brings in a new relationship and I think that that new relationship with that, that customer supplier will need to be pitched and, you know, the approach of carefully curated to make it into. Approach that university or a large housing association or something will, will actually see as, as being a beneficial approach that adds value and improves the way that they're doing, rather than being the replacement to something that's broken. Yeah, so, so there's a. There's, there's a, a dance that has, that has to be, it's sort very careful way that you do that. So I'll be developing it with academics and then moving it from academia into a use case for blockchain conferences is, and then actually a real life use that's sort of supported and sustained. That has a, a lot of just pitfall, which is suppose the same with, with most service and product design. It's, there are lots of people who, who felt having large lumps of ice being brought down from Alaska on ships. And that was the way to make ice cream.

Johannes Castner: 1:03:11

That's funny. Right? So, so then lemme ask you Yeah. A little bit more of a hopeful question. What is your, what is, what are you really, what, what is your biggest dream associated with this, um, with this project? What, what would you really love to love it to look like in, say, a year from now, five years from now, and so on?

Richard Thickpenny: 1:03:33

Ooh. So in, in a year from now, I'd like to see the concepts actually be in a position where it can be actually demonstrated a avatars operational in a metaverse that would be good. Five years time. I'm looking at developing a, a number of, of new, um, projects around cultural entrepreneurship and. And I grow entrepreneurship, which is designed to empower women and, and create a lot of change in relation to sustainable development goals. So in five years time, it'd be nice to actually have a so completed a whole demonstration case that actually you can use this methodology to create dynamic, let's say this. Mm-hmm.. What have I called them? Yeah, the dynamic digital personas, which, which you can use for actually flexing service design and, and maximizing impact. So it's, it's a solution that can be, it has a lot of those, um, ESG type components to, so there's, it, it sits within that marketplace for impact. Great. So within that five years, Tyler, I'd like it to be sitting as I would. As a solution within, I would

Johannes Castner: 1:05:11

really love it if you could, you know, within, you know, the, as you, as you're making your progress and you, you're hitting your milestones and so on, if you could check back in with me, you know, on, on the show and tell us all about your successes, that would be a fantastic, uh, fantastic way to keep, you know, keep every once in a while maybe, uh, seeing what's, what's going on and, and how things have gone.

Richard Thickpenny: 1:05:37

Yeah, I'd, I'd, I'd love, I'd love to do that. Cause say I'm, I'm, I'm approaching my sixties. This, this is my sort of like swan song project, so I'd, I'd actually like to, to get it out there. So even if I've personally failed to achieve it.

Johannes Castner: 1:05:59

Well, are you working with, with the team or is it all do all on your own? Are you working all on your.

Richard Thickpenny: 1:06:08

I'll be working with, um, a team of academics. I've got access to a team of academics to, to feed into what I'm doing. I'm also working with a, a number of organizations in frontline organizations who are interested in, in the work, so they'll actually be. Essentially working with me on, on the wire frame of what it'll will look like and what the process journeys and things like that can look like. So yeah, it actually be developed in, in principle from, from live organizations. Great. And that, that, That that's of interest to universities. Cause I've already got the organizations ready to to, to trial with.

Johannes Castner: 1:07:01

I am very interested in this project. I'm very interested in, you know, uh, new innovative ways in which we can help people, specifically vulnerable people, and, uh, you know, ref and, and refugees particularly. Um, so I, I am, I'm very happy that you're doing something. I would love to see where it's going and how it's developing, as I said, and, you know, it's been a really fantastic time talking with you. And I think, uh, you know, I don't have any more questions for you. Uh, but if, if we can keep the que uh, the conversation going, as shows come up that are related, maybe you can find some inspiration or you can, you know, leave things in the comment section and keep, keep, uh, in touch with the show, in other words, that would be great. I think.

Richard Thickpenny: 1:07:47

Okay. Yep.

Johannes Castner: 1:07:48

this Show is published every Wednesday at 5:00 AM on the East

Coast, 2: 1:07:51

00 AM on the West Coast, and 10:00 AM in London in the United Kingdom. If you haven't done so, please subscribe so that you can keep up with the show. Give us thumbs up on videos that you enjoy and thumbs down on videos you don't enjoy, and please tell us what you enjoy and what you don't enjoy so much so that we can improve. Next week I will be meeting with Dorothea Baur and we will be discussing the democratization of AI in its various meanings and what that means ethically.

Dorothea Baur: 1:08:25

Well, democratization has become a popular term, not just applied to ai, but for basically meaning giving people access to. And so that means making it democratic or democratize. It means, uh, spreading out AI so that anyone can use it. And that's how democratization of AI is used, and I'm not a big fan of that use of the term.