IPv6 Forum President Latif Ladid talks promoting IPv6, 5G and blockchain on CoinGeek Backstage

IPv6 is an emerging technology that is almost synonymous with blockchain—in fact, events discussing the convergence of IPv6 and blockchain technology are taking place around the world, including the IEEE Future Networks World Forum in Montreal.

IPv6 Forum President Latif Ladid, a key organizer of the event, said they started in 2018 in Santa Clara, where most 5G companies are working on promoting the technology and how to roll it out as quickly as possible. In 2022, the IEEE flagship conference took place in Montreal, Canada.

“The event here was virtual obviously because of COVID, and so on this time we came back again to Canada because it has a very vibrant 5G ecosystem,” Ladid told CoinGeek Backstage, explaining how they came up with the name for the event to include the 5G and 6G technologies as well as blockchain and IoT.

“We were thinking about what should be the next name of this conference, to address not only 5G and 6G but also other things. So that’s why we called it Future Networks. We are going to look at how to integrate all kinds of technologies together. That’s why we created the symposium for optical networks as well as v2x or autonomous driving and also for horizontal applications, especially solutions for security, and one of them is blockchain,” he said.

“I think in the session, we did combining IPV6, 5G and IoT and blockchain. We had an excellent session with some very important leaders from the U.S.,” Ladid said.

When asked how the IPv6 forums help with the challenge of pushing IPv6 in the U.S. because of the reputation of Bitcoin being confused with BTC, Ladid answered:

“That’s a really fundamental question, and we have to be very keen at promoting the right thing to the right people,” he said. “And you know, maybe we should not antagonize that much with the other guys. Let them do whatever they do. But we have to focus on the longer term, and I think BSV, as we have seen in the other countries where we have been promoting this one, is really a great value because you want to empower every citizen. It’s different from the other model, which is basically just making money.”

In closing, Ladid confirmed that they are planning to return to the Gulf States and have something in place for South Africa sometime in May.

Watch: IEEE Future Networks World Forum highlights