Insights from Decipher 2022: Welcoming Web 3.0 & the Opportunity for Sri Lanka
A deep-dive into the future of the internet & its many possibilities with Dilshan Senaratne
Having spent most of my career in branding and marketing technology products and services, my trip to Jumeirah, Dubai as part of the Sri Lankan delegation attending Decipher 2022 felt like a peek at the future. A future shaped by third generation web technologies achieving mass adoption.
The prospects were exciting to say the least. Not just for myself as a technology marketer, but for every future user of the internet, and in particular for the Sri Lankan technology industry, considering the opportunity that web 3.0 presents to truly transform the national economy.
But, let’s start at the top. What really is web 3.0?
Web 1.0 was the first iteration of the internet in all of its dial-up connection, text-heavy, eternally loading glory. Simply, the internet the way 90’s born millennials remember from their childhood. This form of the internet is the least important to my story.
Web 2.0 is the broadly collective term for the internet as we know it today. While opinions may differ, in my mind, the web 2.0 phenomenon is based on a few foundational beliefs about the internet, its users and the nature of interactions between users and the internet.
Dynamic content which responds to user input (such as search queries), application programming interfaces (API) which allowed inter-application communication, self-usage, interpersonal platforms such as blogs and social media, and cloud computing possibilities such as SaaS are all results of foundational beliefs associated with web 2.0.
Web 3.0, on the other hand is arguably the most current theme in technology. Underpinned by an overarching theme of decentralization, the third iteration of the internet promises to be a semantic form of the web wherein data is stored and processed using distributed ledger technologies.
While the prospects of blockchain technology backed data processing and an internet with the capability to recognize and respond to natural language sounds incredibly promising, my personal belief is that web 3.0 is a culmination and collective of many independent streams of technology.
To illustrate, web 3.0 will reveal apt use cases for bleeding edge breaktrhoughs in artificial intelligence, machine learning, virtual reality and the internet of things, showcasing the true potential of each technological advancement in the most potent form for mainstream user consumption in personal, enterprise and administrative scale.
Back to Decipher 2022, the Algorand community event which was held in Dubai recently.
Algorand is a two-tiered blockchain protocol founded in 2017 by Silvio Micali, an MIT professor. For anyone familiar with the industry, Algorand is known to be a promising decentralized, carbon-negative, high speed, low cost blockchain solution.
For the uninitiated, blockchain is a decentralized, distributed database technology able to record, store and transfer data in a secure, immutable way between users (peer-to-peer) without a central bearer of the cost of trust.
Simply put, blockchain technology is the bedrock on which cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and metaverses are developed. And, in this scheme of things, Algorand is a key contender in the competition among blockchains to emerge as the face of the future world in which the internet has completed its transition to web 3.0.
If the competition to discover the Google of web 3.0 is ongoing, Algorand is firmly in the running.
Why should we care?
Understanding why all of this is important to us in Sri Lanka, especially at this difficult time requires a brief historic inquiry of the domestic technology industry.
As at 2019/20, the Sri Lankan IT-BPM industry generated $1.5bn in revenue, a 108% growth over the period between 2013 and 2019, and a CAGR of 13%. Constituted of 600+ ICT firms and 80+ BPM companies, the industry is the 4th largest foreign revenue earner for the country, and arguably has been the most resilient industry in recent years.
With the local economy shifting its focus towards services, it’s also important to note that the IT-BPM industry accounts for 30% of service export revenue, and 12% of service foreign currency inflows in Sri Lanka.
Further, over 88,000 Sri Lankan individuals are employed by the IT industry, and an additional 25,000 by the BPM industry segment; totaling to a tally exceeding 113,000 of the 8 million strong total workforce of Sri Lanka being employed by the IT-BPM industry.
Finally, IT-BPM industry workers earn comfortably above the average pay rate in the local market, recording one of the highest per capita earning rates when comparing across all industries.
The transformative impact that technology as an industry has had on the Sri Lankan economy and labour pool is clearly evident when considering the facts. What must also be recognized is that many of the market leading industry operators including local heritage bluechips in the calibre of Virtusa and WSO2, as well as MNCs such as HCL are all successful participants of the $3.3tn global technology industry which emerged from mainstream adoption of web 2.0 technologies.
The bottom line is that Sri Lanka was transformed by the emergence of industry in the web 2.0 era, and we are now faced with the potential for capitalizing on the web 3.0 opportunity.
What does that opportunity look like?
The purpose of the Sri Lankan delegation in attendance at Decipher 2022 was entirely premised on understanding what the web 3.0 opportunity looks like for Sri Lanka, and the region. Our delegation included a multi-faceted team including South Asian pop music sensation Yohani, entrepreneur and entertainment executive Dilanjan Seneviratne, blockchain advocate Sanjay Mendis, digital marketer Cleona Mark, brand strategist Banura Sooriyapperuma, and myself in the capacity of a technology marketer with interest vested in the potential for private sector exploration of the web 3.0 industry.
At the event, Algorand demonstrated an impressive cohort of case studies to illustrate the true potential of not only the Algorand ecosystem but also the broader web 3.0 landscape.
Among the success stories that were presented, a few truly stood out for me in consideration of parallels that can be drawn to Sri Lanka and the applicability to the local business context.
NFTVerse, an NFT storefront project founded by Neel Kamal, a system architect based in India is one such example. The NFTVerse platform bridges the gap between web 2.0 and web 3.0 in terms of interfacing, payment infrastructure and tokenization of assets.
The web 3.0 transition stories of Napster and LimeWire were also of interest purely from the perspective of understanding the potential for legacy brands to navigate their held brand equity from the web 2.0 era to web 3.0 by innovating at the level of their business models, and modernization of their core technologies.
Dequency was another project of interest given their unique positioning as a platform for musicians and visual artists to connect and collaborate with NFT and metaverse outcomes in mind.
Many other projects were of significant interest and strengthened the case for Algorand as a potential blockchain partner for future projects that emerge from Sri Lanka at enterprise and sovereign scale.
Serendipitously, Algorand also launched their Indian operation - AlgoBharat at Decipher, bringing the opportunity closer to home. AlgoBharat is led by Anil Kakani and Nikhil Varma who are choice partners for any projects building out of Sri Lanka with the potential for partnership with the vibrant Algorand ecosystem.
But, how exactly will Sri Lanka participate in the web 3.0 opportunity?
In my view, the immediate web 3.0 opportunity for Sri Lanka will progress along six major business verticals.
Tourism
Entertainment, Music & Art
Real Estate
Public Sector
IT-BPM
Banking, Financial Services & Insurance
Tokenization of real world assets will hold the most potential for many industries including tourism, entertainment, real estate and the public sector. If done right, these industries will attract foreign investments in the form of token issuances. Importantly, tokenization is viable within the current regulatory environment, an aspect that lends to the potential of such projects.
On the other hand, the challenge for founders and businesses engaged in tokenization will be to maintain pace with advanced digital economies capitalizing on the first mover advantage.
Regulatory clarity and forward-thinking leadership at policy level will be critical for the banking and financial industry. Liberalization of decentralized financing protocols and cryptocurrency trading will be among key concerns for businesses intending to engage in the financial service industries.
Awareness and education are critical for the IT-BPM industry transformation towards building web 3.0 competencies. The readiness of existing organizations in this industry space will be stress-tested in coming years and productive exploration will yield lucrative rewards.
In these terms, the coming years will be decisive as to whether Sri Lanka finds its feet in the coming web 3.0 era. The onus is collectively on regulators, businesses and the talent pool to drive progress and maintain pace with the global industry.
Dilshan is a technology marketer and business consultant with over 12 years of industry experience engaging with top local & regional bluechips. At present, he heads talent brand globally and corporate communication for APAC & EME regions for a $2bn US-based technology services provider. Dilshan is an avid researcher and writer of emerging technology themes including web 3.0, blockchain and cryptocurrency.
