1. START The way we trust is changing Presentation for Thursday at IAAO
This year, I’ve had a chance to think.  A lot.  I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of trust.  Trust.  Who do we trust and how do we trust.  Every day, We require an enormous amount of trust just to function.  I wouldn’t have made it here today if it wasn’t for trust.  If I didn’t trust that people would follow the traffic rules, I would have been scared shitless.  But I trust that the rules work, and I can get from A to B.
As admissions organisations, trust is our core business.  We bridge the gap.  We bridge the gap between someone wanting to learn, and a group of people who want to teach.  And we do that, by creating trust. 
As an early civilisation, we placed our trust directly in people.  If I betrayed someone in the village, everyone would know about it, and I wouldn’t be trusted.  Now, and for many years, we place our trust in large institutions, like banks, who store all of our money, somewhere.  We don’t need to know anyone at the bank, we just trust that this bank will take care of things.  In the last few years, there are signs that there may be another way of trusting.
Today I’d like to show you how the way we manage trust is changing and how it might affect you.  And I’d like to use money as an example.
(Hands a cash note to someone)
Here is a piece of paper.  I’m giving this to you.  Is it true to say that I had this note and now I do not have it, and you in fact have it?
But how can you be sure?  How can you trust that I do not have it still?  
(Because it’s in his hand?)
This system is a simple and effective way to keep count of where things are.  These pieces of paper are distinctive and we can see when someone has them and someone doesn’t.  Brilliant.  We can trust in the value of the paper so that we can trade things and get what we want.
Unfortunately, up until recently, this system hasn’t worked very well on the internet.  Because the internet was not designed for trust.  It was designed for communication.  It was not designed for exchanging value. It was designed for exchanging information. You can send information any where you like, anytime of the day.  But the information is not finite, its not unique.  And so its value is limited.
I’d like to tell you a story.  In 2008, a person called Satoshi Nakamoto, made a declaration on the internet.  He declared a new way of exchanging value.  He prefaced this declaration by saying that commerce on the internet relies on third parties.  These third parties, such as big banks, make lots of money and hold lots of power, because they are the trust brokers.  But what if there was a way for that trust mechanism to happen without those third parties?  What if there was a way for me to give this to you, on the internet.
This mysterious person, Satoshi, outlined a proposal for a peer to peer electronic money system.  His idea was to create trust not with third parties, but with mathematics.  And thus, Bitcoin was born.  The technology to power this electronic money system, he called blockchain.  And blockchain is the really exciting idea.  For those who are not totally familiar, here’s how it works.
There are 4 steps.
Step 1: Someone wants to make an exchange.  Lets say Jacob wants to buy a banana for 1 bitcoin.  That makes it a very expensive banana, but lets just use this as an example.
So Jacob initiates the transaction by clicking a button.
Step 2: Little does Jacob know, many other people around the world are making payments at the same time.  So the records of these different amounts get bundled into a package, which we’ll call a block.  The block has a special mask, so its secret, and a unique mathematical puzzle is attached to the block.
Step 3: This block of records is sent out to all of the computer machines in the public network.  
These machines compete against each other to solve the mathematical problem that was attached to that block.
And just like miners in the gold rush days, these computers dig and dig away at the puzzle until one of them figures it out.  Once its figured out, the other machines confirm that its right.
Step 4: Now that the network has come to an agreement on the puzzle, the block is attached to the top of the entire history of records.  And this is what’s known as the blockchain.  And this blockchain is stored and updated on every single machine in the bitcoin network.
Luke Lombe
Huffington post
Imagine we're a group of five friends and we each have a record book that shows how much money we each have. If I want to send $10 to you, I send a text message to the group and ask them to check their record book to make sure that I have $10 in my wallet. Once everyone agrees that I have $10 to send you and they record the transaction in their books, only then will the transaction be approved. Now you have $10 more and I have $10 less. If our friends agreed that I didn't have $10 then the transaction would be denied.
No physical cash needs to change hands and we don't need to use a bank as we are relying on each other to keep tabs on who has what. This cycle continues and if there is a discrepancy in our records we can simply trace the transactions back and see what went wrong as we should all have the same information in our record books.
Now imagine that this group consists of millions of strangers and the record book is on computers spread all around the world in what is called a distributed ledger.
Conclusion
And so, just like the paper money, the blockchain is simply just a record keeping system. But what else could this accounting system be used for?  What are the sorts of problems that you have in your work that could be helped by a tool like this?  And what does it say for the future of how we record certificates and diplomas? (Like Paper, What about You?)
The thing that keeps me thinking about this idea and keeps me watching it develop, is not that it’s a perfect technology.  Because its far from perfect.  And its certainly not going to solve every problem.  Just like the internet in its early days.  But its my wonder is the power of the idea.  And the potential for empowering individuals in new ways by changing the way we think of trust. (Not perfect, but the Idea)

10. Package
Agree
Initiate
Chain

12. Time
Person
Amount

13. Time
Person
Amount
Yesterday
Jacob
$10

14. Time
Person
Amount
Yesterday
Jacob
$10
Today
Sarah

15. Time
Person
Amount
Yesterday
Jacob
$10
Today
Sarah $0