Blockchain Summit Examines The Role Of Privilege In Spreading A Democratizing Technology

Tomicah Tilleman was quoted in a Forbes article about the third Blockchain Summit on Necker Island: 

The moderator, Tomicah Tillemann, director of the Bretton Woods II program at New America, pointed out that Civic doesn’t work, say, for refugees in camps or coming off boats without papers. 

“If we want to solve the problems of the world, we’ve got to work on solutions that are universal, but they don’t start here because critical mass is not derived from places that are behind,” said Lingham, pointing to the example of Apple and other tech companies. “The benefits that developing markets get from technology are purely derived from the fact that critical mass was achieved in developed markets first. You would not have $20 smartphones in Africa if we weren’t selling hundreds of millions or billions of phones in other parts of the world. Why? Because R&D costs money.”