(lively music) >> Narrator: Live from San Juan, Puerto Rico. It's The Cube! Covering Blockchain Unbound. Brought to you by Blockchain Industries. (lively island music) >> Hey, hello everyone. I'm John Furrier. We are reporting on the ground here in Puerto Rico for Blockchain Unbound, a global conference of leaders from around the world who are coming into Puerto Rico with the local entrepreneurs, with the local ecosystem, to talk about the future of the digital nations in the world, digital transformation, also cryptocurrency, Blockchain...all the people are here, The Cube is here, as part of our 2018 kickoff of all the crypto Blockchain shows. My next guest here on The Cube is Gustavo Diaz Skoff, who is the founder and president of the Young Entrepreneurs in Puerto Rico's society, also heavily involved in the ecosystem. Thanks for speaking with me. >> Thank you. >> John: So, what's going on here in Puerto Rico? Also, we just talked with Michael Angelo, who is the co-founder of Edublock, but we're talking about a whole transformation going on in Puerto Rico. What's the young culture like? What's the old guard say? I mean, are people... What's going on? What's the mindset? What's going on in Puerto Rico? We know the hurricane that hit, but, again, looking past that, what's the cultural vibe right now in Puerto Rico? I think the cultural vibe right now is that there's a little bit of a hesitation, but, at the same time, there's a lot of excitement. Events that, like, for example, the one that were hosted yesterday, Law 23, that brought the local and the vicinity communities together to actually clear up and like lowered those stations and actually bonded and brought more energy into the whole push. I think that is the overarching vibe here in the island, it's just like awesome. There's...something's happening. We don't know quite yet what it is, but there is a historical narrative of the island, and there is definitely a very bullish view of the island. So what's really going on here is that the people are excited, but you got the whole world descending upon Puerto Rico. We grabbed a lot last night with the party. >> Yeah. >> We put out a nice sizzle reel this morning, but the vibe was awesome. People were dancing, a lot of people smiling. >> You were there? >> We were there! We just put some up on our telegram channel. >> I was the organizer of it. >> Congratulations, really awesome. >> Thank you. >> John: Outside, nice weather, things were great, but it really is about the cross-pollination. It's about the culture of Puerto Rico, maintaining the culture in Puerto Rico, seems to be the top story that we hear from folks here. Yes, we like to bring in the industry, but don't tell us what to do. We're Puerto Rico (laughing) you know, don't stomp on our land! I'm not being...but I mean there's kind of a vibe like 'look it, Puerto Rico's proud.' But that's got to translate into execution... what's the young guns doing? >> So, this is the reality in terms of what the young guns are doing, and, sadly, sometimes they're a very sad story, and the reality is like when you look at the world economic forums competitive reports, we have the sixth-largest conglomeration of trained scientists and engineers in the world. Holy shit! That's insane. But, at the same time, we have 90 percent of them being unemployed or underemployed, because we don't have like technology companies that are actually requesting and demanding that type of knowledge. And so, that's where we're actually failing in terms of execution, because we're going to end up working for a bank or for a government agency, and so there's not that many opportunities to actually go and build that. And now, just looking at the whole shift and how the world has basically come into our shores, it's like, wow. There is an opportunity to actually use this human capital and work together and just start developing and challenging ourselves locally to keep building, either as an entrepreneur or as an intrapreneur. >> John: You know, Brock Pierce, I thought, said it great today on the keynote he gave here at the Blockchain Unbound Conference, "It's a global 'we' going on; it's a 'we,' not a 'me.'" >> And I think, you know, someone who's seen many waves in my life, this is the biggest wave ever, because it's creating essentially a flat world, it's global, so it's not like the old guard, gatekeeper, migration paths up, so the migration for up the ladder, if you will, in society for a young individual was kind of structured in the past. >> Now the ladder has fallen. It's flat. (chuckling) >> Peter Thiel, who at one point was looking at paying people not to go to school, literally the world is your oyster with this new technology, because now it's a global fabric. There's no central authority. You have access to open source software. It's fully connected. So now's the time to make it translate. What do you hope for for the community in Puerto Rico to make that connection in the actual property flow, the relationships. What are you guys looking for to have happen? >> Yeah. So the answer is going to be a little bit historical, and that goes back to the question I asked off of the camera, was like, "Do you know where the first special economic zone was built, the first SEZ was built?" It was here in Puerto Rico. And for those that don't know, that was the economic model that we used as a human race in 130 nations in 4300 zones around the world to transition our economy from agriculture to manufacturing. And I believe that, right now, we're building that fabric. We're starting to reconstruct the second generation of an SEZ, and, whatever is happening here, to either build better cities, where people are able to access their food, are able to access capital, are able to access opportunities in a way that it's de-risked. I believe it's being built right now. And I think that is where we're heading. Because we already did it 71 years ago, and this is just the perfect concoction to re-do it. >> John: You know, I talk with a lot of leaders. One of them, in particular, Teresa Carlson, runs Amazon Web Services' global public sector, which is government, schools, and whatever. We're seeing for the first time, and this is what, I think, Amazon sees, and they're the leader in cloud computing, which is phenomenal, which, again, levels a lot of gatekeepers, if you think about it that way. She talks about digital nations, that we are now at the front end of the beginning of a wave where sovereignty, at a national level, with this no-border, kind of digital culture, is a huge opportunity. >> Yeah. >> How are you guys recruiting? How are you spreading the love? How are you spreading the word? Because it's not just developers, it's about the communities. >> Well, first of all, I think it's important to actually say that it's better, I think, Puerto Rico being a free associated states of the United States of America, it's like the best place to actually test this philosophy and push for that. I think that the way that we're actually starting to recruit that is by spreading out into the world and saying, "Hey, this is happening, come back." As I was mentioning, in May, we're going to Washington DC to present over 23 organizations that are working on basically all that's happening, and be able to bring more consciousness, bring more tools into the island and be able to build, essentially, the future of it. >> Tell me about the things that you're working on right now. You mentioned before we came on camera some of the things you were doing in Washington DC. What are some of the things you're hoping to accomplish over the next year in your role, inside the community here in Puerto Rico? >> I hope to, with Edublock, be able to help more students get into this space, be able to leverage better connections and relationships with these corporations that are in need now of Blockchain developers, and be able to have that circle of flow of the people here in the island and the people internationally that are looking for talent. That's my main goal. And if I could put a number of it, it would be amazing to have 500 students recruited, or with an internship, within corporations by the next 365 days. >> As you guys at Edublock are creating a separate event forum for what's happening at Blockchain Unbound to the education community, because it's pretty pricey to come to this conference, it's an investor's conference, it's an industry conference. You're seeing a world coming together, a lot of people coming in from the crypto blockchain community. What are people talking about in Puerto Rico about this migration and this intersection of the two worlds? Is it good, bad, confusing? Are people trying to figure it out? What's the vibe? >> They need more information. They need more data. (laughing) We only have a few articles, and that's it. >> John: Yeah. >> My father, for example... >> John: Articles from centralized news organizations, not trusted news organizations. >> Yes, yes. >> What does the decentralized data say? >> The decentralized data say is that this is a good technology, and we need to be careful, like we need to understand it correctly. And we need to raise awareness around the community, because it can either go really, really, really, really, really well, or we can repeat the past couple of years in the island. >> It could fail miserably or be a home run. >> Great stuff. We certainly want to expose the information and share what the stories of the key things that we're...you're doing a great job. You guys are doing great work. We support you from Silicon Valley with The Cube. >> Our job is open, free content, which we're doing here in Puerto Rico. We're with Gustavo Diaz Skoff, who is the founder and president of the Young Entrepreneur's Club here, Entrepreneurial Society, in Puerto Rico. We're on the ground, getting all the top stories and sharing the data with you. I'm John Furrier. Thanks for watching. (digital music)