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Daniel Shin

Daniel Shin is a venture capitalist and senior luxury fashion executive, overseeing corporate development at MCM, a German luxury brand. He also teaches at Korea University.

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Daniel Shin

Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs: power of generating value from digital assets

By Daniel Shin Intellectual property (IP) is a powerful tool to give a sense of ownership to the original creator. Hence, intellectual property has to be well protected by law. Oftentimes, small ventures lack the resources to effectively protect their intellectual property. Even if the modern concept of intellectual property has evolved since the 17th century, primarily in Europe, intellectual property law could date far back. In medieval Europe, for example, guilds or associations of artisans were granted authority by governors to regulate their respective industries. NFT.NYC held in New York City in late June was a great success. NFT.NYC is the largest and most respected conference for the non-fungible token (NFT) industry. Amid the cryptocurrency crash, the NFT.NYC conference could have been a disaster. But it received over 20,000 attendees. As some said, NFT.NYC has grown into the Super Bowl of NFTs. Out of the flood of party invitations for NFT.NYC, ApeFest, in its second year in a row, received the most attention. ApeFest only allowed people to enter who hold Mutant and Bored A

Jul 17, 2022By Daniel Shin
Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs: power of generating value from digital assets
Daniel Shin

Longing for higher power and spiritual values

By Daniel Shin Nothing is certain but death. People increasingly respond to their deepest human needs. We have a natural need to feel connected to the world, to others and religious traditions. Anthropology, philosophy or neuroscience can't simply answer the question of whether a higher power really exists. We tend to look for patterns, structures and causes for everything. But there is no single right answer for our divine purposes and our hopes for a higher power.Religious belief has deeply influenced human society. Many people could claim that they have grown out of religion with their accumulated assets, knowledge and social influence. But, even today there are a lot of people who are not generally content with their lives. People do not appreciate the purpose of their limited lifespans on earth. They hardly find profound connections between their lives and other societal endeavors. The power of religion helps us to shape our vision of the world and actions toward each other. Hence, there is an urgent need for a more sophisticated understanding of religion beyond any discipline.

Jun 19, 2022By Daniel Shin
Longing for higher power and spiritual values
Daniel Shin

Be aware: Singularity is near

By Daniel ShinArtificial intelligence will exceed human intelligence. Elon Musk once said that AI would grow vastly smarter than humans. Musk pointed out that AI would overtake the human race by 2025. In contrast, some experts say the rise of artificial intelligence will make most of us better off, not replace us, or make us go extinct.The singularity is a conceptual and meta-physical term. When it comes to technological jargon, the singularity is often described as a point in time when innovation reaches critical mass. At critical mass, new innovation must be widely adopted. Technological growth explodes and shall be kept self-sustained at the singularity.This implication, of reaching the singularity, is sometimes articulated as a negative. For example, some say that technological growth becomes so great at the singularity to the extent that technologies become uncontrollable and irreversible. AI would have many positive impacts, but it could also result in unforeseeable negative changes to the human race.We have to cope with AI. There is fear, uncertainty, and mixed feelings. AI, r

May 29, 2022By Daniel Shin
Daniel Shin

Cum-ex affair: Tax with greed

By Daniel ShinIn Germany, following the financial crisis, scandals around banks and financial institutions have almost become a norm. The cum-ex affair, for example, that was revealed a few years ago, overshadowed all previous controversies. It is reported that more than 100 banks are currently under investigation in Germany alone in relation to cum-ex deals. These deals involve illicit tax refunds which may have cost the government billions in lost revenue.Cum-ex (meaning “with-without” in Latin) is a massive stock trading scam. The cum-ex affair is the name given to a huge volume of transactions that involved exploiting a tax loophole on dividend payments that enabled a number of parties to claim the same tax refund. This loophole was technically closed in 2012 although there are still disputes in the courts over whether or not the practice of short selling, the brief loaning of stocks aimed at confusing tax authorities, was ever legal. Cum-ex trading schemes were first revealed by Correctiv, a German non-profit consortium of investigative journalists who helped bring t

Apr 17, 2022By Daniel Shin
Daniel Shin

Ecole 42: Learning how to learn

By Daniel ShinEcole 42 is unlike any other school in France. When it first started, people laughed about it. Ecole 42 now has more than 15,000 students in over 25 countries with 42 campuses. It is ranked as one of the top coding schools in the world. Ecole 42 operates as a tuition-free, non-profit computer coding school. Applicants aged between 18 and 30 get admitted through a competitive entry process as only four out of 100 applicants are admitted. It could take two to four years to complete the program. However, most of Ecole 42's students can't finish the program because they land a job before they reach the end. Good quality developers that employers really need are in short supply and there is a huge digital skill gap that Ecole 42 tries to address. Ecole 42 aims to inspire and educate the future digital generation with an innovative, accessible and affordable learning experience. Ecole 42 is motivational and entertaining for people who have an appetite to learn. The learner's reaction has been very positive. Now, it operates globally and tries to keep up with the same level of

Mar 20, 2022By Daniel Shin
Daniel Shin

If Harvard were free to all

By Daniel Shin What if Harvard were free to all? To be specific, Harvard's tuition is literally free to students from low-income families. Harvard University renewed its efforts and announced the plan a decade ago that undergraduates from low-income families would pay no tuition. For families who earn between $65,000 and $150,000, the expected contribution is somewhere between zero and 10 percent of families' annual income. That said, if families earn below $65,000 per year, students won't pay anything. The stated goal is to bring the most promising students to Harvard and ensure that any admitted students can afford their full Harvard experience with no burden on their shoulders.Ivy League schools such as Harvard and Yale have a reputation of elitism, exclusivity and excellence. Attending one of these schools is a dream for many, but the cost of attending is costly. Attending Harvard, for example, costs upwards of $51,000 in tuition and fees per year. In addition, room and board and other university fees bring up the total price to more than $80,000 per year. Yet these fees are not

Feb 20, 2022By Daniel Shin
Daniel Shin

Leading for future: policy entrepreneurship

By Daniel Shin Last year was an unforgettable year. The COVID-19 pandemic has left many of us with a great deal of uncertainty. We're all different in how much uncertainty we can tolerate in life. Do our life and work situations look uncertain? Let's be honest. They always are. We need to look within ourselves to find the certainty we need. Leaders are not born, but made. Leaders need skills in planning for the unexpected. Leaders must demonstrate a spirit of purpose and optimism to reinforce the idea that we could have a better future out of any uncertainty. Leadership cannot be taught. But, leaders must learn how to deal with growing uncertainty and complexity in the world by anchoring the experience in other leaders' personal leadership stories. Developing the next generation of leaders is critical to the success of further education at all levels. Leading for the future can be only achieved from what we learn and practice today.Personal development is the process of learning and self-improvement, which focuses on building up our own awareness, knowledge and skills, as well as an

Jan 16, 2022By Daniel Shin
Daniel Shin

War on tiny screens

By Daniel ShinFive point five inches. That's the size that we're talking about as being the average size of a smartphone. It tends to grow by 0.1 inches each year. The boundary between smartphone and tablet devices might be blurring. The tablet market is seeing modest growth, as a tablet has a much longer refresh cycle than a smartphone, as newer models offer nothing more than minor spec upgrades lately. Mobile game development is a profitable industry. All game developers and publishers are striving toward making the next big success. Developing and monetizing mobile games is getting more complicated. The method of developing games is a complex process. Putting game plays on a tiny little screen requires more simplicity, while customer expectations are high, as they long for more immersive experiences and sophisticated visual impact on tiny little screens. There is no doubt about how advanced mobile apps and the digital ecosystem in China have contributed to setting the nation on the right path toward the swift growth of the mobile internet there. Over 90 percent of digital e-commer

Dec 12, 2021By Daniel Shin
Daniel Shin

All in vain: building ability to adapt like Generation Flux

By Daniel Shin Questions you are asked make who you are. Questions you ask make who you lead. This is how the future of learning is defined. What we learn at school will have very different future consequences of how we live our lives. When the machines replace what we routinely do, we will have abundant freedom and control over our decisions on how to spend our time. We don't compete with the machines, but must figure out how to live with them. Schools will not be restricted to physical locations. As Albert Einstein noted, “The only source of knowledge is experience,” not textbooks. YouTube can be a great teacher, too, accessible 24x7. Teachers will be a facilitator of learning with content derived from many different sources. It is a LEGO approach, but with no specific instructions of what to build. Some could build a castle. Some could build a bridge. Teachers help learners reach their best potential and try to push the boundaries. Students at Harvard Business School read 500+ cases upon graduation. Students are supposed to meet with their learning team with diverse ba

Nov 16, 2021By Daniel Shin
Daniel Shin

Taxing the rich: Would it work?

By Daniel Shin There is growing public debate on a wealth tax. Several market analysts reported that billionaires added more than $4 trillion to their wealth during the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. If you look at the other side of the coin, during the pandemic, the crash in the international tourism industry among the most severely hit industries caused a loss of $4 trillion.The U.S. Congress authorized $4 trillion under the COVID-19 pandemic relief packages. However, the U.S. federal government ran a deficit of more than $3.1 trillion in the fiscal year of 2020, triple the deficit for 2019. It accounts for 15 percent of GDP and is at its highest level since World War II. Globally, $16 trillion in terms of fiscal measures used to pay for the pandemic are about to come due around the globe as public debt surges. But who is going to pay for pandemic-related government losses? Unfortunately, taxpayers will bear the costs of COVID-19 for decades. It is a hard lesson that we have learned from the pandemic, although it will take a while until we realize the real fiscal impact. We all h

Oct 20, 2021By Daniel Shin
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