Return of The Decentralists: A Decentralist in Ukraine

00:00.52
karpus
Hey, everyone it's Henry Mike and Jeff of the decentralists and welcome to season 4 you may be wondering where the heck have we been for the last four months well our fearless leader has been busy and mike. but but I throw it right over to you? Maybe you can give everyone an update.

00:22.69
MC in Kyiv
Well you know Henry thanks for the fearless part I wouldn't don't know that I would actually I wouldn't do you ascribe to that. But um I am in Kiev in the capital of Ukraine and I have been here since well basically on and off what's to say.

00:24.87
karpus
Oh you are.

00:38.37
karpus
Um, yeah.

00:39.90
MC in Kyiv
Since August Sixth and so you know to kind of set the premise here you know normally I would be sitting in my cushy reclining chair with my fancy headphones and my fancy microphone and now I'm in my hotel room in Keve ah, that's running on a generator. Right now and I'm using my regular you know, kind of Apple headphones with the regular microphone so apologies to everybody listening if it's if my voice is not as melodious and is high quality as as usual, but we do you know we we do have to make a few sacrifices. Um in Ukraine. At this point right now and. I actually feel like I'm Ukrainian because I've now been here for almost four months um

01:20.30
karpus
Wow.

01:20.80
Geoff Glave
So Mike how do you get from and I don't mean mentally or physically, but how do you actually travel from a comfy chair in Vancouver to to there. How do you even get there like like what what? what? I mean is like.

01:30.34
MC in Kyiv
Um, and yeah, so yes, yes, yeah, it's it's it's crazy. Um, so yeah, and it's ah and it's it's.

01:30.40
karpus
Yeah, what's happened.

01:36.41
Geoff Glave
You fly to somewhere and you get on a train and you cross a border and you get a nut like how do you actually get there.

01:47.32
MC in Kyiv
Okay, so I got on a plane in Vancouver and I flew nonstop to Frankfurt Germany then I transferred onto a flight to Warsaw Poland um, you know so you spend a day then you you know you you kind of overnight then you have to get to a. Border town in the border between say have 2 options in Poland to get from into Ukraine one is kind of let's say directly Um east of Warsaw which is kind of in the northern part of Poland. And you go through a town called Shelm and I don't know how it's pronounced in polish because I literally cannot understand any of the names and you take a train there and that train is fourteen and a half hours but it's twenty kilometers from the Bellowusian Border so I opted not to take that route. And the most common route is you go south through Krakow to a town called preschemish that is right on the border of of Ukraine and then there are say 3 or 4 trains a day from perchemish into Kiev. And the total train ride from warsaw to kibe is 24 hours 24 hours right

03:03.34
karpus
No man okayed.

03:06.53
Geoff Glave
And you present yourself at the border with your passport and say hi and they say come on in and that's all there is to it. But.

03:12.28
MC in Kyiv
Yeah, yeah, I mean if you're if you're somebody like a canadian or an american or an eu passport or something you're treated like a regular border crossing human in Europe right? You have ninety days out of 180 and you know you have the train goes across the border. You know starts in prijamus goes make maybe half an hour stops a bunch of border guards get on. They grab all your everybody's passport and then you know they just you know come by and stamp them and and you go.

03:44.53
karpus
Um, whoa. Well Mike explain to the listeners why you're there. What's happening and what does it have to do with the decentralists and our technology.

03:55.90
MC in Kyiv
Um, well so you know if we want to flashback literally um twelve months because it was last November um as you recall we did and we did an episode. We did a couple of episodes that were related to this. Thing called hlphomeland and property right? remember we had the game changers with the the student interns that we had and 1 of them. Her name was sadaf and saddaf had gone and done a a kind of a let's say an assessment of this humanitarian.

04:12.50
karpus
Right.

04:19.60
karpus
Yes.

04:31.50
MC in Kyiv
Ah, area called Hlp and she's a ah blockchain you know uvc blockchain student so she came to to us because we were thinking of identity differently right? So you know we've talked about digital identity and blah blah blah for indifferent guises for years now and. What it came down to is is our approach and this was with anyone right? or that was art that was the kind of the brand. Um, and the idea was is that we think of digital identity differently which we call self attested identity. Okay so this idea of.

04:54.39
karpus
Yep yep.

05:09.13
MC in Kyiv
How I choose to identify myself to anyone especially in a digital form should be up to me right? So if I wanted if I want to you know, connect with you Henry and you run the the you know you run the grocery store and all I want to give you is my credit card number and that's it.

05:28.45
karpus
Right.

05:28.48
MC in Kyiv
That's all I should have to give you but but you know with the way digital identity and all this stuff works nowadays you know every time you you take 1 of these digital identity platforms that's hooked or your Apple pay wallet for example and you go to the grocery store and you go boot right? Apple knows everything that you've just purchased when where. All of the identity attributes you have they share them with the grocery store la la la la la la la so we had this sofa test and identity and saddaf joined us to do some research on on identity and different applications and she was like you know I did this work. Um with this.

05:48.00
karpus
Right? right.

06:03.42
MC in Kyiv
This ngo called New America and they have this different idea for identity for HLP because homeland and property is kind of a unique scenario where and this was before February Twenty Fourth right I'm back in November last year

06:18.17
karpus
Um, oh yeah.

06:21.80
MC in Kyiv
And at that point you know the the big kind of conflict that had seen so many people displace with Syria and all of us had seen these pictures of you know hams and and damascus and all these places where they're literally blown to bits and so you have these these. Refugees and idps internally displaced people right? So they're not outside the border. They're still in Syria and you know they're they're like just doing their day to day work and their house gets blown up right in front of them. Well chances are in that house was maybe their passports. Their driver's license their land title if they even have 1.

06:52.72
karpus
Yeah, yeah.

06:57.37
MC in Kyiv
Right? So all of this stuff that you need to deter to show to prove who you are as a human what your say academic credentials or your job credentials are and the fact that you owned a house that now no longer exists because some russian.

07:16.14
karpus
Or yeah or they have used it as a staging area or something.

07:16.42
MC in Kyiv
You know artillery piece just blew it to bits totally something anything anything that basically my point is is that you you cannot get back to your house. You cannot ah, get to your documents and all you know is is that you and your wife and your kids are running. Right? literally with the shirts on your back and so what happens in this case is these these poor syrian people were crossing the border into say turkey or into Jordan or places like this where there's these huge refugee camps everybody knows what they look like all those white tents with the un symbol on them.

07:53.75
karpus
Yep.

07:54.19
MC in Kyiv
And they literally have to prove who they are and prove that their house. They owned a house and it was blown up because they have a right to get that restitution and get that back and so you know we started this.

08:01.33
karpus
Yeah, yeah.

08:09.24
MC in Kyiv
You know sadan did this research and she she was. You know we were doing the whole What's a use case right? Software Jeff knows this right? You know he's ah he's a he's a product manager right? You know you need to build software for a specific application or you risk you know building something that nobody wants right. So sadaf basically did this thing and she said well you know, right now. All of these people. There's 85000000 people in refugee camps all around the world and they have no identity and they have no proof of ownership of or occupation of property wouldn't it be great and and right now the only way they can document. It is on paper. Standing in a line for like a month to talk to some poor overworked. Um, human who writes it down on paper and may not even speak their language and and so it literally takes 10 years for these people to establish an identity and and and get back to.

08:56.12
karpus
Right.

09:06.69
MC in Kyiv
Some form of normal and and I mean and after 10 years is a refugee. What's normal. You know what I mean.

09:08.29
karpus
And yet and yet half of them have a right? Yeah yeah, but yet half of them have like ah inexpensive cell phones is that correct.

09:15.13
MC in Kyiv
Yeah, like exactly so the idea is is you know so as we start to go through this so sadaf comes up. She says look here's this would be what you guy what we're doing with digital identity in terms of self attested is a very good use case for people being able to self attest to their. Identity and their occupation of a home and they could use ah a mobile device which often you'll have these big diasporas of families like 30 people right? Uncles and aunts and cousins Grandmas and you know dot da da da and all these kids and they'll be 1 teenager in that group that has a phone.

09:50.18
karpus
Yeah.

09:53.30
MC in Kyiv
And so if you could basically use a phone that had some kind of internet connection and you could allow people to build their own evidence right? So I may go in and I may say well I don't have any identity documents I don't have any ownership of my home documents. But here's my address. Okay, here's my name. Um. Here's a here's a pdf of a power bill that I pay online. Um, you know here's my uber eats history because I used to order uber and here's pictures of me in my house at Christmas time and you know yada yada yada and now all of a sudden that's.

10:14.75
karpus
Yeah here and here's pictures of my home.

10:29.20
MC in Kyiv
Potentially enough evidence for say an ngo or somebody like the un you know, hcr or un n development program to go I think you're you really are Michael and I think that really is your house and I'm going to help you get that back.

10:42.81
Geoff Glave
And what's interesting is in other parts of the world and we mentioned this in the podcast and also when we spoke with John unra in in one of our shows was that one of the mechanisms that.

10:50.14
MC in Kyiv
Who.

10:57.67
Geoff Glave
People are using to document their their home their land their property as Facebook so they're going on Facebook and they're and they're taking all these pictures and their friends are liking these pictures because they trust Facebook they don't know to not trust Facebook and. Perhaps it's okay to trust Facebook in this example, if if that's all you got? um, but there's no sort of formal structure to clearly define things. They're just taking a bunch of photos and videos and and and things on Facebook. Because they trust Facebook more than they trust the land title office in in the country they're in.

11:35.69
MC in Kyiv
Well, that's exactly right? and and you know if there even is a land title office right? because I mean there's a whole bunch of there's a whole bunch of um, you know countries where they just don't even have the capabilities to even do land titles.

11:47.17
Geoff Glave
Right? And if you if you have a barber shop. It may not even be in the land title office. It's just a building where you're cutting. People's hair So exactly.

11:57.29
MC in Kyiv
That's exactly right? That's exactly right? You know? So so essentially this, you know we we get it. We get down into this as a software company you know? Ah I mean I'm kind of thinking. Holy this is a perfect use case. Okay, and.

12:08.25
karpus
Yeah, yeah.

12:12.40
MC in Kyiv
You know Henry and and jen you know the 3 of us have worked together in software for many years and we've also worked independently in software for many years and um, I've never had personally I've never had the the um the I the ability to work in a software company where what. Stuff that I that we were making and that I was selling I felt truly made a difference to people's lives. You know what? I mean.

12:39.80
karpus
Um, well absolutely, especially when you consider the application of this many one um is secure and private unlike Facebook which the the invaders could go on and see exactly what you're claiming and do the same despite it.

12:52.70
MC in Kyiv
Well this is it and and and and I mean at the you know it is at the end of the day if you're a refugee who literally has nothing then you'll take your chances that your enemy the regime you're fleeing from can can clearly publicly view. The fact that you're claiming to own a house because it's better than nothing.

13:09.46
karpus
Right.

13:12.22
MC in Kyiv
And and so you know we basically reach this. You know we have this awesome. Not only is it ah is it ah an actual really good application of this idea of self-attested identity that we wanted to do self attest to your identity and then determine your own connections. And those connections are secure anonymous right on traceable because we were using Tor. Okay, and and so that that was that was the idea hey here we are. We're building this thing and we think it's an actual better way for real humans to connect and then.

13:37.53
karpus
And who.

13:45.71
karpus
Right? yes.

13:49.20
MC in Kyiv
The war happens. Okay, so then it's all of a sudden flash forward a couple of months and February Twenty Fourth Russia invades Ukraine. Okay, and that was that was it I mean ah, my dad. Was born in Ukraine in a small town named named called ri eve right? between Turnopal and levive I consider my right I consider myself to be a you know I've I've always been kind of proud and of my ukrainian heritage I've always you know I've got my Ukrainian Football Jersey and you know I'm the only guy in the bar that's wearing it.

14:10.92
karpus
Yeah, as were my grandparents.

14:26.32
MC in Kyiv
Um, you know when the when the euros are on or something like this and um, this was this was personal and this was you know you remember those early stages of the war. Everybody's like three days and you and Ukraine's going to get taken over and all this other stuff and then it was like a month later and the good people of Ukraine.

14:38.42
karpus
Yes.

14:45.48
MC in Kyiv
And given Russia bloody nose and it looked like they weren't going to stop and so a it's a mixture of pride and b it's a mixture of the betrayal as a ukrainian even as a canadian ukrainian that I felt from Russia because even I was kind of like ah they're the same thing.

14:59.29
karpus
Yep.

15:04.31
MC in Kyiv
Hey they're like brothers you know, blah blah blah and um, so now what you have is in in in Syria 13000000 people were displaced but it took 8 years to displace that many.

15:17.25
MC in Kyiv
Four months three and a half to four months is all it took to displace that 14000000 ukrainians it's it's going down because they're coming back, but it's it's still the total number is 14000000 right out of 44 so 33% of the population left their houses and are either.

15:20.69
karpus
Yeah, and now how many are displaced Mike Okay, okay, Wow. Okay.

15:36.98
MC in Kyiv
Living in another country or living in Ukraine but they're living at you know their parents' place their grandparents place. Whatever so now it was it was clear that we needed to focus on um the the solution that we'd already been working on right? we done you know like ah as Jeff mentioned we. Talk to people like unra who was an expert and Julia Panfill and all these different folks. We had a use case and now we had ah a reason right? A real personal reason and um, you know I mean I will admit it it was. It's because I'm ukrainian heritage. Okay.

16:12.65
karpus
But still I mean it's it's It's a travesty. It's tragic. It's an illegal and unjustified occupation and and people are dying every day.

16:14.40
MC in Kyiv
Makes it personal.

16:25.65
MC in Kyiv
Yeah, right? And so um, you know at that point we decided that um you know it was there was going to be um, there was ah enough of a market. Let's just say from a traditional software perspective. Okay. There was enough of a market because now there's a 100000000 refugees and idps around the world. Um, there's there's a it's it's a great cause and um, it just it needed to be done because these people need to be able to not go through.

16:44.88
karpus
Oh yeah, yeah for sure.

17:01.13
MC in Kyiv
Any more trauma in their lives people who've been displaced who've refugees and I mean Henry I tell you boys live being here for four months you hear so many stories of you know like it's not even close to the stuff you hear and um.

17:12.33
karpus
Um, ah.

17:18.00
MC in Kyiv
Ah, you know the the idea that we could use what we were going to build to actually help people here and then almost like battle test it right come into Ukraine while the war is going on literally like literally right come into Ukraine.

17:29.37
karpus
Yes.

17:32.87
Geoff Glave
Um, literally.

17:37.10
MC in Kyiv
Wildest wars going on and and say look we can help right? So that was kind of the start of this of this you know, kind of I want to say quixotic quest to um work with Ukraine and then we were you know we were lucky. In that a bunch of the people that we've been working with um, gave us an opportunity for for me and and for me and and Andra and igor the 3 of us came to Ukraine. We had an opportunity to come and kind of spend some time. It was like look. Come guys. We're going in I got and I got a reason to go and we just you know I just jumped at it and came over August six

18:19.67
karpus
Well yeah, but who but who would you meet with you just can't show up but how did how did who did you meet with at first.

18:27.32
MC in Kyiv
Well I mean ah we just showed up. Frankly, um, you know, but the the idea was is that is that I hadn't really considered it and I I mean who was considering it who was sitting around in their house in you know Vancouver toronto or wherever. Um, going I think I'm going to go to Ukraine nobody. Okay, but um, you know one of our colleagues egor smetk Kosky he's he's with the I o which is the un migration office and they've got a bunch of they got like a hundred employees here that are trying to figure out how to deal with these.

18:44.64
karpus
Yeah, nobody.

18:54.68
karpus
Ah.

19:02.83
MC in Kyiv
Refugees and idps people that are moving around That's what these guys do guys and girls and so igor is like well look. They've asked me to come to come in and start to try to talk to some people as Jeff had mentioned at this point you know with Igor's help and and John's help and a bunch of other great people's help we had put this. Note together this concept guidance note we called it which was to come in and help the ukrainian government and you know hopefully right? There was no meeting set up at the time but the idea was to come to come to Ukraine and say look you know we are a group of.

19:32.27
karpus
Nope.

19:38.73
MC in Kyiv
You know, well-meaning well-intentioned and well and and and experienced h gp practitioners who've got you know 30 years of going all over the world helping people in places like Yemen and Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and you know South Sudan and all these places. Recover from war scenarios and and get their homes and houses rebuilt like think of Bosnia think of the whole yugoslav kind of conflict right? and and um you know the the ukrainians had.

20:01.81
karpus
Sure.

20:08.66
MC in Kyiv
Had had anticipated this war was going to happen and they had if they put a law in place that was going to set up this structure to allow everybody to get their houses to clean compensation from Russia because it was a betrayal but that law just wasn't good enough. Okay, it was good that it's there. It just. What it was not written. It was written on it was written and released for first reading on the twenty fifth of February for the day after the war started right? when nobody could have anticipated that it would be what ten months or something like this now and running.

20:31.41
karpus
Oh boy.

20:44.66
MC in Kyiv
That there would be 14000000 people displaced and that you know great swathes of the country would be covered in mines and destroyed and all this other stuff because it was the twenty fifth at that point it was crimea and those little breakaway republics in Lou Hans could don't ask you know what I mean.

20:58.10
karpus
Right.

21:01.67
MC in Kyiv
And so they put this together saying oh you know how many people can there possibly be displaced so it's not a ah criticism with the Ukrainian government I mean they did their thing but it wasn't anticipating the scale of the problem and when it comes to things like individual humans claiming for their houses and property and all this stuff. It's it's. You You need to have a flexible system that will allow for all circumstances because the worst the the biggest consideration has to be the trauma that these people are going through on a daily basis.

21:33.55
karpus
Right.

21:35.26
Geoff Glave
And also to ensure that whatever you know that that what might seem like 1 small little request which to them is everything doesn't just get lost in the noise like in the in the scope of reparations for. Power plants and for aircraft and for everything else you know, somebody's farmhouse in the south might not count for much but it counts for everything for those people and so making sure that's recorded and and is is part of it is is essential.

22:09.38
karpus
Yeah, absolutely and thank goodness we've got Dr John Unra from Mcgill University in Montreal who is one of the world's top experts on hlp involved with the development of this software.

22:23.64
MC in Kyiv
Absolutely you know and and and you know to to to Jeff's point I mean you know the you know the ah the ideas it's it's it's when you're talking about large numbers of people like 14000000 right? Um, you're you're talking about. Um, you're talking about a group of a group of people who are in very stressful situations and the the thing that.

22:55.61
karpus
Um.

22:58.54
MC in Kyiv
They need first and foremost is some kind of assurance that there's something that there's something positive. Ah which is not easy at the end of the the kind of this scenario that there's going to be an end.

23:16.25
karpus
Right.

23:18.19
MC in Kyiv
That there's going to be you know a time when they're going to go back to their family home. Um, or at least our hell at least their family plot. Um, you know there's going to be some kind of resolution for this horrendous. Um, you know, kind of crime because. Let's face it Gentlemen I Don't think there's probably ah you know with the exception of perhaps the Ukrainian folk or any other folk who've you know, been in War type scenarios you the 3 of us have probably never sat down in our day-to-day lives in our entire existence and contemplated. What'll happen tomorrow if I just if I come home and our house is blown up and there's people shooting at me and I have to run.

23:59.60
Geoff Glave
Absolutely not.

24:01.61
karpus
It's it's it's beyond. It's Beyond comprehension to me. You know.

24:03.82
MC in Kyiv
Right? You know a I wonder you know I wonder if I'm going to have my kids tomorrow you know Jeff like oh but they' you know because maybe they just get taken away. So.

24:17.35
karpus
Yeah I it's it's actually too uncomfortable to think of but yet Ukrainians are living this um on a daily basis. Well.

24:23.93
Geoff Glave
And we've got to think about it. We can't stop thinking about it.

24:27.16
MC in Kyiv
You have.

24:29.26
karpus
Exactly right? And that's a perfect time to ah say Michael I know you've got a run considering what's happening keev right now. But what we can do I mean there's so much more to talk about and we've got a lot more questions and I'd like to continue this in the next time you have an opportunity to get online because I do realize that. Internet service. There is spotty and power is spotty but um, Michael thanks so much and I look forward to speaking to you again very soon.

24:49.56
MC in Kyiv
Um, yep.

24:54.90
MC in Kyiv
Thank you Henry! Thank you very much slava Ukraine.

24:56.86
Geoff Glave
Um, and stay stay safe. My friend stay safe. It's lavakrani.