May 9, 2011 - Monday
The Future of Micropayments
Event Video Available
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In 2003 the DaVinci Institute produced an event called the “Future of Money Summit” and one of the areas we focused on was the future of micropayments.
Micropayments are small electronic transfers of money, usually only a few cents at a time, seamlessly transacted for digital information products like magazine articles, photos, and games.
At the time, several new micropayment companies had sprung to life and many felt the climate was ripe for this kind of enterprise.
But micropayments have a long history of falling flat, and 2003 was no exception. If you do a Google search for “Wired future of money”, there are over a dozen articles stretching back close to 20 years. So there have been a lot of attempts, and they have all run into the same issues.
There is one big problem they’ve all run into - it takes money to move money.
It’s not that the technology is expensive, or that costs scale up with volume: moving $1 between two banks costs about the same as moving $1 billion. The “problem” is that there are so many intermediaries who want a cut, albeit small ones.
Any successful micropayment scheme needs to deal effectively with three challenges:
- Low Friction (Both in ease of use and low transfer costs)
- Ubiquitous (Everyone needs to accept it)
- Handle Fraud Effectively
Even though many past efforts have failed, a recent surge in micropayment activity by PayPal, Facebook, and others are breathing new life into this area of business. And new technologies have emerged that can potentially solve past problems.
Please join us as we take an in-depth look at micropayment and what we feel will become a huge marketplace in the future.
EVENT: Night with a Futurist - MEMBERS ONLY
DATE: May 9, 2011 - Monday
TIME: 06:30am-09:00am
WEBSITE: http://www.davinciinstitute.com/events/505/night-with-a-futurist--members-only-monday-march-14-2011
LOCATION: DaVinci Institute, 511 E. South Boulder Road, Louisville, CO 80027
DIRECTIONS: Driving Directions
COST: $0, Members: Free, SuperMembers: Free
PHONE: 303-666-4133
TOPIC: The Future of Micropayments
SPEAKERS: Thomas Frey, Arthur Brock, Mark Fischer, Rod Stambaugh, Mike Cote
SPEAKER: Thomas Frey
Executive Director and Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute
Thomas Frey is Executive Director and Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute as well as Google top rated futurist speaker.
As part of the celebrity speaking circuit, Tom continually pushes the envelope of understanding, creating fascinating images of the world to come. His keynote talks on futurist topics have captivated people ranging from high level government officials to executives in Fortune 500 companies including NASA, IBM, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, Lucent Technologies, First Data, Boeing, Capital One, Bell Canada, Visa, Ford Motor Company, Qwest, Allied Signal, Hunter Douglas, Direct TV, International Council of Shopping Centers, National Association of Federal Credit Unions, Times of India, Leaders in Dubai, and many more.
Because of his work inspiring inventors and other revolutionary thinkers, Tom has been referred to as the modern "Father of Invention" and the "Dean of Futurists." Before launching the DaVinci Institute, Tom spent 15 years at IBM as an engineer and designer where he received over 270 awards, more than any other IBM engineer.
PANELIST: Arthur Brock
The MetaCurrency Project, Founder/Developer
Arthur Brock builds targeted currencies that are at the core of the emerging post-industrial economy. He has created more than 100 designs for multi-currency systems and his software company has built and deployed dozens of those systems.
Initially, Arthur put his degree in Artificial Intelligence to use at GM, Chrysler & Hughes, but he soon realized he was committed to bringing intelligence to social architectures rather than to computers. He started student-run schools and award-winning, employee-run businesses and discovered that the self-managing feedback loops needed to operate these types of organizations were built on particular patterns of incentives and measurement.
Based in Denver, Colorado, Arthur Brock consults worldwide with organizations which are actively restructuring themselves for the new economy. Contact him at http://LifebloodDesign.com.
PANELIST: Mark Fischer
Inspire Pay and Inspire Commerce, Founder and CEO
Based in Boulder, CO, Mark Fischer has been an internet marketing and e-commerce consultant for over a decade. In early 2008, he founded Inspire Commerce, a "for benefit" merchant service provider. While Inspire Commerce's sales and operational focus is national, you can see partnerships with local conscious business' such as the Boulder County Farmer's Market (where he powers the market bucks program), as well as Open Studios and the Boulder International Film Festival to name a few.
Through his years of consulting and working with hundreds of merchants, he began to see some interesting patterns emerging in the online financial transaction space. With dozens of alternative payment methods emerging, Mark sees a transactional space where friction is emerging even in the most basic of questions, "how should I pay you?"
His answer to a clear problem; Inspire Pay, a remarkably simple way to request, receive and make payments by leveraging the power of choice, putting control and preference back in the hands of the people. Inspire Pay is scheduled to launch it's system in Q3, 2011.
PANELIST: Rod Stambaugh
Mobile Payment Visionary, Founder of Mocapay
In 2006, Rod Stambaugh founded Mocapay, a retail technology company to revolutionize use of the mobile phone as an electronic wallet to execute payment transactions at the retail point-of-sale, where he would go on to serve as the CEO and Chief Strategy Officer.
In 2008, Rod became the Western Region President of Bling Nation, to launch their mobile payment service in the U.S.
He is currently working on an "under the radar" startup in the mobile loyalty, coupon, payment, social media & wallet space.
Rod is widely recognized as one of a few visionaries in the mobile payment, couponing and loyalty industries with a track record of persistence and ability to align major stakeholders around a strategic vision. He currently holds three patents in the mobile payment and loyalty space.
HOST: Mike Cote
Editor of ColoradoBiz Magazine
Mike Cote is the Editor of ColoradoBiz Magazine. He has spent more than 20 years in the media industry as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Florida and Colorado, and now at ColoradoBiz magazine in the metro Denver area. He has also taught reporting and editing at the University of Colorado, where he earned his master's degree in journalism.
Before joining the team at ColoradoBiz, Mike served as both the City Editor and the Business Editor at the Boulder Daily Camera.
