The Dakai team was invited to Sir Anthony Ritossa’s Global Family Office Summit in Monaco. We (Laszlo L. Mari & Mark Ilsinszki, the two Co-CEOs of Dakai) had the privilege of being VIP speakers at the event, sharing our thoughts on AI, Blockchain, and upcoming trends in the tech space.
What was the conference about?
A few times every year some of the largest family offices in the world and a small group of non-investors gather to share their thoughts and opportunities with each other. These families are scattered across 55+ countries and represent over $4.5 trillion of wealth. As a direct result of these events companies raised over $2.8B.
The 400 attendees include the Saudi Royal Family, Sheikhs from UAE, heirs from Bahrain, Qatar princes from across Europe, and the managers of some of the most famous families such as the Rockefellers. The tech industry is represented by leaders of Fortune 500 companies, large enterprises, and research institutes who all speak at the conference.
Topics covered in our speeches
After these facts, it’s no surprise that it is a great honor to take part in this event for the second time in a row as a speaker, the previous one being in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia earlier this year.
Laszlo covered Blockchain and the implications of the current recession on builders, infrastructure providers, and other important non-trading industry players. Our conclusion after talking to relevant parties in the space as well as seeing our own demand for innovative work was that there are fewer early-stage startups due to decreased funding in the space (the valuations of these startups have decreased and their majority can no longer afford most of our services). On the other hand, large enterprises are heavily investing in the space with a clear use case for the technology. Their largest needs are trustless payment systems with bookkeeping and smart contract functionality between parties. This will enable supply chains to have automatic, quick transactions with tax reporting, and regulatory monitoring while removing the need for an entire back office.
We also talked about how NFTs will “grow up” and be a part of our everyday lives. Large brands want to employ the technology to create a unified “profile” for their consumers which saves all of their preferences in order to provide a seamless transition into their new products, cars for example, or hyper-personalized marketing materials. This will also enable people to share or trade/sell their possessions transparently while providing crucial analytics for the brands which can be used for targeted advertising or loyalty programs. One large benefit of these systems is that it removes the need for recording personal details, so the name of a user will not have to be recorded.
Mark covered Artificial Intelligence trends and concluded that with the current market conditions the industry will focus on utilizing the technology to automate currently manual processes, cutting down on labor costs and speeding up operations in the process. This transition will take time since each company will have to analyze its current workflows to realize how AI can be employed to its benefit since there is no “one size fits all” solution on the market. During the transition period, these smart systems must be overseen by skilled operators as the technology is not mature enough to operate fully autonomously. Another important fact is that there is a huge shortage of skilled machine learning engineers on the market which means that companies will have to rely on companies such as Dakai to provide AI as a service and guide them through this process.
Young Business Leader Award
I (Laszlo) was very surprised when I was called on stage during the closing statements of the conference since I did not expect to be among the 6 people who were given an award with some of the most influential people present at the conference with decades of experience.
On stage, I was presented with a bronze & brass statue with my name on it alongside “Young Business Leader”, awarded by Sir Anthony Ritossa, the organizer of the conference; His Royal Highness Abdulaziz bin Faisal bin Abdul Majeed bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, member of the Saudi royal family; Markus Lehner, retired Ferrari racer and principal of Markus Lehner family office; and His Royal Highness Prince Michel de Yougoslavie, the descendent of one of the oldest families in Europe.
It is a great honor to be recognized among people I look up to and aspire to work with, however, I could not have gotten to where I am now without my talented and hard-working team at Dakai and our advisors and clients, who are building the future of the tech industry day in and day out.
I believe that the timing of this award was right, we are creating a new precedent in the tech industry. We aren’t focused on just providing code but work closely with the leaders of the organizations that trust us with their projects, advising and connecting them with relevant people in our network. We are actively pushing forward each project that we take on and not just turn code into cash. I hope that this kind of collaboration will be more common in the future in the tech industry.
Looking forward to joining the next event in October!
