Disruptive Technologies and Business Opportunity. Alex Tapscott is an expert in early-stage, high growth companies and path-breaking business ventures. A passionate advocate for the disruptive potential of new technologies as key to start-up success, he believes the emerging blockchain platform will provide significant entrepreneurial opportunities as it revolutionises the way we transact our lives. Blockchain is the open-access, secure global platform on which Bitcoin is based. In a world where, according to Alex Tapscott, “It’s cheaper and faster to mail an anvil to China than it is to send $100,” blockchain facilitates an authenticated, peer-to-peer transfer of value without an intermediary (such as a bank), in a manner that is transparent, public, permanent — and completely anonymous. As the Internet protocol has dropped the cost of sharing information to almost zero, blockchain will do the same for value, eliminating the need for the burdensome systems of current financial institutions. But while the Internet is notoriously untrustworthy, the blockchain “world wide ledger” is incorruptible and so its functionality can be applied to other private exchanges and permanent storage — for example voting, legal contracts, government records and more. With an in-depth knowledge of blockchain’s transformative capabilities, Alex addresses its potential applications in global finance, government, healthcare, education — as well as its promise for the start-up world. He is the founder and CEO of Northwest Passage Ventures, an advisory firm in the blockchain industry. Alex is the co-author (with Don Tapscott) of the critically acclaimed #1 Globe and Mail Non-fiction best-seller, Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin is Changing Money Business and the World (Portfolio / Penguin Random House 2016). Alex currently sits on Advisory Board to Elections Canada, the independent, non-partisan agency responsible for conducting federal elections and referendums. He is also a founding Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on Blockchain. Alex was Director of Institutional Equity Sales at Canaccord Genuity Inc. from 2008 to 2015. He managed a diverse client base of value, growth, long/short equity, merger-arbitrage and activist investors, including many of the largest asset managers in Canada and some of the largest hedge funds in New York. Alex is a graduate of Amherst College (cum laude) and is a CFA Charterholder.