Lintba in the College of Europe
October 2020 is the Cybersecurity month, every Thursday we are releasing one of the winners of our Political Fiction Story contest that was part of the ELF Cybersecurity, blockchain and big data online event in May 2020.
‘The world wasn’t prepared, and no one would have guessed how a technological revolution combined with back to back pandemics would have changed the world after 2020’ mumbled Lintba and turned to his class in the College of Europe. His students, all of them born after 2035, and preparing for their final history class test, had no idea how much their life was facilitated through technology.
One of the students, Jean, raised his hand: ‘So if I understood correctly, even if you passed your degree, you still wouldn’t get your inscription in the universities’ database?’ ‘No, of course not, you would get your diploma on paper at the end of the year’, replied Professor Lintba. ‘On PAPER?’ Jean hysterically shouted, ‘What if you lose it after walking out of the door?!’ A round of laughter followed from his classmates.
‘The world was a different place back then’ Lintba let it resound in the classroom. ‘Through the Talin Treaties in 2023, the European Union enabled each state to digitalize your diplomas in trusted distributed ledgers. Not only did it enable member states to develop trusted systems to register your diplomas, your real estate, your money, to sign most varieties of contracts, and store your health data! It also developed trust in between the member states. Patents from companies could easily be verified in all of the states. E-voting enabled citizens to gain more trust in the EU election system. Supply-chains and most importantly food supply chains are much better coordinated and can profit from smart contracts. The food you eat today, and the information you have about it, for example where it was produced, which ingredients were used and its carbon footprint, are only possible through information stored in the European food blockchain and thus made possible by the Talin Treaties.
Please remember guys! Before those times there were still people trading with physical money! Coins and paper, which were stored in physical wallets!’
Jean and his classmates looked stunned but Lintba continued:
‘What I want you to remember is that the pandemics in 2020 changed the digitalization process and enabled blockchain to take off in our society. The Covid-19 pandemic as well as the resurgence of Ebola created a structural change in our societies and accelerated our digital capacities. The EU was at the forefront of this change. It created not only the legal framework but also a series of blockchains uniquely suited for verifying, securing and sharing data for Inter-organizational, and cross-border transactions. The pandemics pushed through the obstacles that existed before! Viruses laid bare the weaknesses in our supply chains and the inability to deploy resources effectively during pandemics. The world was brought to a halt several times and blockchain recreated trust to manage crisis scenarios more effectively.
You have no idea how difficult it was for governments to navigate through a health crisis without the technology we consider today as normal at their hands!’
Sometimes the Lintba, the educational AI, provided for free by the European Union, seemed to have developed a bit of a sassy attitude. On top of it he was expecting a lot from the young students. Jean had enough for today, pushed the off button and got out of his cubicle. He was tired of staying the whole day in his virtual reality space to study. Time to spend time with his friends.
By Jeffrey Drui, Member of Jonk Democraten Luxembourg
