Interview with Navjit Dhaliwal, CEO, Iagon.com

REDDIT AMA EVENT: (ongoing) Join Navjit in an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session on Reddit starting Friday, June 22. He’ll answer all your questions about Iagon. Join the event or post a question here.

Whether you work in the technology industry or not you’ve probably heard of the “cloud” by now. Industry leader Amazon Web Services grew by 50% in 2017 with an annual revenue of 20 billion. So, it’s a very profitable, high-growth market to say the least.

The idea of cloud services may seem confusing at first, but using them will soon be as common and important as visiting your family Dentist. Like them, the cloud acts as a support system, working behind the scenes to improve your performance. The only drawback is that you may experience a bit of pain — in your wallet.

Now there’s the Blockchain which makes it possible to drastically reduce the cost. A new cloud startup named IAGON can cut the cost of using Amazon services by as much as 80%. I spoke with Navjit Dhaliwal about why he became a Blockchain cloud trailblazer, how his solution works and how you can make money as a cloud miner.

Why Did a Dentist Become a Blockchain Cloud Innovator?

“I got into the Blockchain space early because I was curious about Bitcoin. My questions were probably the same as what most people ask. You know, is it real or a scam? I invested some money in Bitcoin in 2014 after the crypto exchanges became more relevant.

Then I heard about data leaks that were happening and became more interested. I started thinking about how a data leak might affect the health industry and what kind of services would help Dentists and others to secure patient files.

Some health practitioners are liable for their client’s files and there’s now more risk they’ll be leaked online. We saw this happen in 2017 when the National Health Association (NHS) in the UK was hacked. Hospitals were blackmailed into sending money to a bitcoin address or they’d lose their most sensitive patient files.

So, at first Iagon was just about securing health records. But as I talked to Dr. Elad Harison, our COO & Chief Architect, the idea expanded to include machine learning, and by June 2017 we’d pulled together a team. We wrote everything down in a white paper and our thought process just grew from there. We did market research to learn about our competitors, then kept improving on what was out there and polishing our idea.”

How is Iagon Better Than AWS for Certain Niche Markets?

“IAGON can help different businesses depending on their industry and need. For example, if you have sensitive data, then your focus may be on security. A common example is an AI startup. These firms typically pay AWS up to one million a month for computing power. IAGON can cut their cost by 80%, which of course would be a huge advantage for a startup.

While Amazon profits from SME’s, that doesn’t mean there’s no risk involved. For example, in March 2017, AWS was down for a few days, costing companies $150 million. This can’t happen with IAGON because it’s a decentralized network. If one point is down, another is up. So, in addition to improved reliability and cost reduction, there’s better performance.”

How Does Iagon’s Decentralized Blockchain Cloud Solution Work?

“What we’re doing is taking the computing resources from nodes and miners then joining them into supercomputer in the cloud. This is run by Artificial Intelligence that’s constantly learning.

Meanwhile, the performance of miners and nodes is continually evaluated for latency, bandwidth and availability. Over time we’ll give them a score based on how much their computing resources contribute to the network. We’re calling this their “Cloud Score.” With a higher score you’ll get a bigger reward. On the other hand, if you’re score is lower you’ll get fewer rewards and your resources will be used for clients needing less computing power or efficiency.

As a client you can access our computing power to store your data. We then shard this and spread it across our network. What we’re storing on the Blockchain is not the data itself, but the hashes and private keys. This shows where that data came from and where it’s stored. Only the client has the private key that reveals where those shards are at any time.

If your company needs more processing power, we can provide that too. Again, an AI firm would be a typical use case or a company selling scientific solutions. IAGON can offer very flexible solutions, too. A client can use our services in whatever quantity or time frame is needed.”

Does IAGON Work for Relational and Non-Relational Databases?

“While we don’t yet have a working solution for relational databases, we do have a partnership with Oracle and we know this is a problem that needs to be solved. And it can be, too. Two of our competitors, Sonm and Golem both have decentralized super computers already on the market.

Our current focus at IAGON is security. This gets into the more technical issue of homomorphic encryption, which is what we’re planning to use for processing. But this can be improved and we’re looking at a way to decrypt and encrypt on the user end as well. We’re working on a hybrid encryption we know will work because the math says it’s possible.

I think the database issue is much easier to solve than AI. Decentralized processing will take more time because we’re busy improving encryption. Our startup plan is to target the decentralized space with storage and processing power which can halt the more pressing problem of data leaks. Our Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for processing will be ready before our Pre-Sale.

AI companies that are paying a lot to AWS will want to cut their costs as soon as possible and they can just jump on our platform and start using those resources. Even if the overall performance isn’t comparable to the best cloud solution out there, it’ll be worth it for the massive cost reduction.

If a company is already set up with AWS, it’ll be harder to help them because of the headache of switching over. Also, it depends on how they’re set up on AWS. But using the processing power on our platform will be very user friendly. With just a few clicks of a button you’ll be able to use the resources. So, I recommend a company chooses us first.”

What Makes IAGON Unique from Other Blockchain Cloud Solutions?

“There are some competitors in our space, but what makes us different is the amount of thought we’ve put into business planning, value creation, company direction, product development, etc. Our senior leadership team members are not just coders or programmers. We have a solid track record and industry experience, innovating and disrupting markets. It’s common for a startup to focus on the product development and forget about the business, but this is obviously a mistake, since so many products get started but few succeed due to the lack of company vision and leadership.

Business planning and strategic thinking prepares you for what might happen a few years down the road. I know it’s hard to predict, but at least you’ll have a plan and scenarios for benchmarking your progress and adapting to change. I haven’t seen a more detailed business plan in our space than ours, and we have a more versatile and industry experienced team too, to cover all our business needs and bases.

Not only do we have our prototype for decentralized storage ready, our prototype for decentralized processing will be ready and tested before the Pre-Sale. I say this because some ICOs are trying to raise funds with little work completed or a non-viable strategy. This is a risk for investors.

Before you invest, you should check Github to see how much of the development has been completed. While our cloud isn’t yet active, we do have initial adopters interested to use our platform once it’s ready for initial tests in July, and companies like these are getting special pricing, too.”

What’s in the Future for IAGON and How Can Investors Get Involved?

“Let’s face it. Multi-Billion dollar companies like Amazon aren’t going anywhere. While IAGON can’t compete with them in the short-term, we’ll be competitive eventually because of our constant value creation and cost cutting benefits. We believe Blockchain must become mainstream technology before that’ll happen and a lot of people still don’t understand Bitcoin or Blockchain technology. If they do, they don’t see the difference between Blockchain as technology enabler for new Internet services versus Blockchain a cryptocurrency fintech platform, focused primarily in Bitcoin

When Blockchain does become mainstream, more businesses will be looking for these solutions as an alternative to traditional, centralized cloud services. We aim to be the top player in our space when that happens. Our goal in the first two years is to become the go-to decentralized cloud service platform in specific niche markets. If you’re a longer-term investor then IAGON is a smart investment for you.

The Distributed Storage aspect of our platform will be accessible in July, and our Token Sale will begin on July 7th. While we won’t be open for business, but we will be ready in July and will be offering services after our ICO is done in September. Investors can learn more about Iagon by visiting our website at Iagon.com”

Please Note:

When writing this article I was not swayed by the fact that Iagon is holding a promotional contest to give away a Lambourghini.

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