Lo­cal en­tre­pre­neur, Pe­ter George, has been ap­point­ed as the chair­man of a US-based blockchain tech­nol­o­gy firm, whose pri­ma­ry goal is to pro­mote the is­suance of dig­i­tal ti­tle to in­for­mal­ly held land, a mis­sion that the Unit­ed Na­tions has called one of the most im­por­tant mis­sions of the 21st cen­tu­ry.

George, who is the own­er of the Trot­ters Group, was ap­point­ed as chair­man of Medici Land Gov­er­nance, a pri­vate com­pa­ny, two weeks ago. He owns 17 per cent of the com­pa­ny. His re­cent ap­point­ment fol­lows his four-year tenure as chair­man of Bar­ba­dos-based Bitt Inc where he over­saw the launch of the dig­i­tal East­ern Caribbean dol­lar.

Medici Land Gov­er­nance is lo­cat­ed in Mid­vale, Utah, and lever­ages blockchain and oth­er tech­nolo­gies (such as cryp­tog­ra­phy, AI, blockchain, and ge­o­da­ta col­lec­tion) to sup­port land gov­er­nance, ti­tling, and ad­min­is­tra­tion with a se­cure pub­lic record of land own­er­ship.
The com­pa­ny is al­ready work­ing with gov­ern­ments in the Caribbean and Africa and has a spon­sor/part­ner­ship re­la­tion­ship with the Unit­ed Na­tions Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­gan­i­sa­tion and the World Bank.

Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian asked George about the im­pact of MLG’s work not just glob­al­ly but specif­i­cal­ly for the Caribbean and Trinidad.

Q: Why is MLG and its work in land gov­er­nance im­por­tant?

A: MLG work in land gov­er­nance is cru­cial for a mul­ti­tude of rea­sons:

• Re­source al­lo­ca­tion: Prop­er land gov­er­nance en­sures fair and ef­fi­cient al­lo­ca­tion of land re­sources, pre­vent­ing dis­putes over land own­er­ship or us­age. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly cru­cial in dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed ar­eas or re­gions where land is scarce.

• So­cial Sta­bil­i­ty: Clear­ly de­fined land rights re­duce con­flicts among in­di­vid­u­als, com­mu­ni­ties, and even na­tions and it is par­tic­u­lar­ly im­por­tant in the cur­rent world­wide con­text where most of the con­flict be­tween coun­tries are land re­lat­ed (Ukraine-Rus­sia, Gaza-Is­rael, Guyana-Venezuela). This sta­bil­i­ty is es­sen­tial for peace­ful co­ex­is­tence and so­ci­etal har­mo­ny.

• Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment: Clear land gov­er­nance frame­works en­cour­age in­vest­ment in land, pro­mot­ing eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment through agri­cul­ture, in­fra­struc­ture, hous­ing, and in­dus­try. MLG’s ex­pe­ri­ence in Africa has shown that peo­ple will be more ea­ger to start their own home busi­ness know­ing that their land is safe.

• Ur­ban Plan­ning: In ur­ban ar­eas, land gov­er­nance is cru­cial for ef­fi­cient ur­ban plan­ning, en­sur­ing prop­er zon­ing, in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment, and the pro­vi­sion of ser­vices like hous­ing, wa­ter, and san­i­ta­tion.

What in­no­va­tions is MLG bring­ing to the land ad­min­is­tra­tion sec­tor?

MLG utilis­es blockchain, AI, re­mote sens­ing, and oth­er in­no­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies to im­prove land ad­min­is­tra­tion. Some of the key in­no­va­tions they bring in­clude:

• Blockchain in Land Records: MLG em­ploys blockchain tech­nol­o­gy to cre­ate im­mutable, trans­par­ent, and se­cure land reg­istries. This en­sures that land records are tam­per-proof and ac­ces­si­ble to rel­e­vant par­ties, re­duc­ing fraud and dis­putes over own­er­ship.

• Digi­ti­sa­tion and Map­ping: MLG us­es drones with high-res­o­lu­tion cam­eras and Li­DAR tech­nol­o­gy to cre­ate an ac­cu­rate dig­i­tal ver­sion of the ge­og­ra­phy which is used for dig­i­tal map­ping and Ge­o­graph­ic In­for­ma­tion Sys­tems (GIS) to cre­ate ac­cu­rate and up-to-date land maps. This tech­nol­o­gy in com­bi­na­tion with ma­chine learn­ing al­lows for bet­ter land par­cel de­mar­ca­tion and man­age­ment and sup­ports re­source man­age­ment and plan­ning.

• Smart con­tracts for land trans­ac­tions: MLG in­te­grates smart con­tracts in­to their sys­tems, en­abling au­to­mat­ed and se­cure land trans­ac­tions. These con­tracts ex­e­cute au­to­mat­i­cal­ly once pre­de­fined con­di­tions are met, stream­lin­ing process­es like buy­ing, sell­ing, or leas­ing land.

What is the prob­lem that you are hop­ing that this tech­nol­o­gy will solve?

First all it will free up debt cap­i­tal. On­ly one third of the cit­i­zens around the world hold ti­tle se­cu­ri­ty of their land. The most af­fect­ed by this are the un­der­priv­i­leged. MLG be­lieves se­cur­ing land rights is a pre­rog­a­tive of all peo­ple and the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the au­thor­i­ties to en­sure.

Why is blockchain the so­lu­tion for se­cur­ing land records?

Blockchain stands out as the op­ti­mal so­lu­tion for se­cur­ing land records due to its in­her­ent char­ac­ter­is­tics. Its im­mutabil­i­ty en­sures that once da­ta is record­ed, it can­not be al­tered with­out con­sen­sus across the net­work, guar­an­tee­ing the in­tegri­ty of land records.

How can MLG’s tech­nol­o­gy be ap­plied to Caribbean coun­tries, specif­i­cal­ly T&T?

There are sev­er­al land-re­lat­ed is­sues in the Caribbean. Trinidad has spe­cif­ic chal­lenges such as in­for­mal set­tle­ments and un­clear land tenure that cre­ate dis­putes and hin­der ac­cess to ba­sic ser­vices, with many re­sid­ing in un­cer­tain hous­ing con­di­tions. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, rapid ur­ban­i­sa­tion strains in­fra­struc­ture due to in­ad­e­quate plan­ning, urg­ing the need for sus­tain­able ur­ban de­vel­op­ment strate­gies and im­proved zon­ing reg­u­la­tions.

Fur­ther­more, in­ef­fi­cient land ad­min­is­tra­tion sys­tems im­pede ti­tling process­es, com­pli­cat­ing for­mal land ac­qui­si­tions for in­di­vid­u­als and busi­ness­es. Out­dat­ed prop­er­ty tax meth­ods and en­force­ment dif­fi­cul­ties af­fect rev­enue gen­er­a­tion for lo­cal au­thor­i­ties.

These changes can stream­line ad­min­is­tra­tive process­es, re­duc­ing bu­reau­cra­cy and in­ef­fi­cien­cies in land trans­ac­tions, ti­tling, and prop­er­ty tax sys­tems.

MLG’s tools can aid in map­ping and valu­ing ecosys­tems, guid­ing sus­tain­able land use and con­ser­va­tion ef­forts to pro­tect Trinidad and the Caribbean rich bio­di­ver­si­ty.

You spoke about a po­ten­tial ‘eco­nom­ic ex­plo­sion’ Can you ex­pand? And is it per­ti­nent to the Caribbean?

It is per­ti­nent to the Caribbean. Pe­ru­vian econ­o­mist Her­nan De So­to, whom Bill Clin­ton called the most im­por­tant econ­o­mist of the 21st cen­tu­ry, the­o­rised a con­cept, called “dead cap­i­tal”. This refers to prop­er­ty that is in­for­mal­ly held and not legal­ly ti­tled and there­fore can­not be used as col­lat­er­al or se­cu­ri­ty or even ex­changed and thus de­creas­es the val­ue.

He went on to sur­mise that should these prop­er­ties, which, in many cas­es were gen­er­a­tional­ly trans­ferred over sev­er­al decades, be legal­ly ti­tled and signed the un­lock­ing of that cap­i­tal, will cause an “eco­nom­ic ex­plo­sion“. Fur­ther, there’s a two-prong de­fect as these prop­er­ties will now have the le­gal ca­pac­i­ty to be as­sessed by the state there­by caus­ing a dual ben­e­fit sce­nario.

This char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion fits the Caribbean, and by ex­ten­sion Trinidad al­most per­fect­ly. It is this type of fi­nan­cial em­pow­er­ment and fric­tion­less ad­min­is­tra­tion that makes the blockchain the most po­tent tech­nol­o­gy in the his­to­ry of man. What MLG is em­bark­ing up­on, is of im­mense fi­nan­cial and so­cial ben­e­fit to de­vel­op­ing and de­vel­oped worlds.

Do you see adop­tion in the Caribbean?

This is al­ways the chal­lenge. Adop­tion! Too many times in the Caribbean we have seen late-stage adop­tion of key tech­nol­o­gy. I hope that when re­gion­al gov­ern­ments tru­ly un­der­stand the sym­bi­ot­ic po­ten­tial of this tech­nol­o­gy and more over the so­cial em­pow­er­ment that it brings, they will be as ex­cit­ed as we are about this tech­nol­o­gy.

Hav­ing been the seed in­vestor in Bitt and lob­by­ing gov­ern­ments from (Trinidad) to Ja­maica, I am ful­ly aware of the chal­lenges and dif­fi­cul­ties in se­cur­ing gov­ern­ment sup­port, but we have made sig­nif­i­cant strides in Guyana, St Kitts, and Bar­ba­dos, and will con­tin­ue to ag­gres­sive­ly pro­mote the crit­i­cal im­por­tance of our mis­sion.