Identity: the key to bringing digital society into its democratic age

ASU UTO’s monthly speaker series, Innov8, always brings the cutting edge technical and social ideas from bright minds in their fields, and November’s installment was no exception. For “Identity: The Key to Bringing Digital Society into Its Democratic Age,” the Innov8 audience was joined by Danny Zuckerman, co-founder of Ceramic Network and 3Box. Zuckerman took everyone on a deep dive into the way technology can improve access to information and equality in a digital age for all, looking at the past, present and future along the way.

Zuckerman broke down his talk in three main theses: the web is our digital society, technology empires rule the web today through their control over its information, and new information and identity technologies will let us reclaim our web. He drew a comparison between the three ages of human history (hunter-gatherer, agrarian and industrial) to show how the close of each one precipitated extensive revolution. And Zuckerman believes we are on the beginning edge of the digital age.

With this new age, our society consumes more content than ever, content that is found on platforms that have ever-increasing power over its audiences. Zuckerman explained in detail the value of identity technologies on the web, that is to say decentralized technologies that allow for the storing of data on trusted networks and user-managed hubs. In that vision of the future, we will have a more democratic and modern digital society, he said.

Thankfully, for a topic as complex as this, we are happy to provide the full talk below. You can also already look forward to and register for December’s Innov8 session, “Unbank Yourself: What Does It Mean to Be Crypto-Self-Banked?” with Igor Artamanov, founder of Emerald!