Ep 244. - Are We Ready For a Digital Caliphate? With Chris Abdur-Rahman Blauvelt
Are we ready for a digital Caliphate? This is the intriguing question Chris Blauvelt asks in a world where technology has decentralised economic and political power. Chris is the CEO of Lanchgood, a premiere Muslim tech company – he argues we need to think more about creating an alternative ecosystem to the prevailing hegemonic order.
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Transcript - This is an automated transcript and may not reflect the actual conversation.
Introduction
0:00
I'm here with Chris Blild who's the CEO of Launchg Good. He's here to talk to us
0:05
about a digital caliphate. If you look at where AI is going, it is absolutely
0:11
going to change the way the world works. It has its biases. You just ask it about Israel versus Palestine, you'll see it.
0:17
Gaza has brought the Muslim community together and we've achieved some level of tactical success, I suppose.
0:23
But Muslims, we have a strong value system that unites us. You know, we've seen Sudan, we've seen issues in China.
0:29
No Muslim country can stand up to China. We have to create trust between people first. But what we don't realize yet is
0:35
our collective power or even to have our own platforms and products. Like what if we had something like a digital Muslim
0:42
nation state?
0:48
We're at the Koala Lumpa Prophetic Strategy Summit and I'm here with Chris Blaut who's the uh CEO of Launchgood and
0:56
alhamdulillah he's here to talk to us about the digital caliphate an alternative economic ecosystem I suppose
1:04
Chris for the Muslim um now I'm very interested in this subject uh Chris but uh I I I would say that I probably know
1:11
very little about it so you're going to have to sort of explain uh what you mean by a digital caliphate or an ecosystem.
1:19
But maybe firstly asalam alalaykum and welcome to the thinking. Yeah, I'm really happy you finally got a connect.
1:25
I'm surprised it's in Koala Lumpur, but that was I suppose written for us. That's right. And as it's really
1:31
fortuitous that we we've been able to meet because I think for a long time I've wanted to talk to you about what
1:37
you've achieved already. Alhamdulillah with launch good as well as uh some of your ideas about how we as a Muslim
1:44
ummah can leverage the expertise the the knowledge that we have within our communities to build something a bit
1:50
better. I mean let let's probably Chris start with you know Gaza. I mean Gaza has brought the Muslim community
1:57
together and we've achieved some level of tactical success I suppose you know
2:02
in in the last couple of years. Uh but I suppose you would argue well let's talk
2:07
about that tactical success but also how we can potentially improve and leverage
2:13
some of what we've done already. So let's you know what has been achieved on an economic I know it's so obvious what hasn't been
Gaza - what we achieved?
2:19
achieved right that we haven't been able to stop a genocide we haven't been able to stop a bomb really from dropping um
2:26
but the silver lining is look we got McDonald's to buy back every single
2:34
franchise in Israel because Muslims were boycotting McDonald's right you know we got Starbucks to fire their
2:41
CEO because they lost 11 billion ion dollar in market cap because Muslims were boycotting Starbucks and this was
2:48
you know no governments involved and I think that was really eye opening for me that you know we may not be equipped yet
2:55
to operate effectively at the governmental level. Yeah. But we can exert economic pressures and
3:03
a lot of the world uh does work on that system and and that might actually be able to
3:09
achieve some results for us. Um that could go beyond Palestine by the way. Like inshallah like maybe there are ways
3:14
we could actually bring an end to this genocide there. But it's not the only place we're having
3:20
issues. Yeah. You know, we've seen Sudan, we've seen issues in China. Um and China, how long
3:26
has the issues with the oeers been happening in China? And no Muslim country can stand up to
3:32
China. You know, if Malaysia tried to stand up to China, they'd be crushed. Yes. But what if all the Muslims and the
3:39
Muslim consumers out there started really uh making their position known
3:45
through their economic choices? Yeah. Could we have the same sort of impact uh
3:51
that we did with McDonald's in in Israel? I think so. Yeah. I mean this is interesting. I I
How to unite Ummah?
3:57
want to explore this ecosystem idea. But let's talk about the potential of the Muslim Ummah because I have to say every
4:04
time we we talk about the successes you will find that Muslims would suggest
4:09
that uh we're disunited. Yeah. Our inability to even on a very basic
4:15
level stop drinking Coca-Cola. Yeah. You know, if you go to a shop 5 minutes
4:20
from here in, you know, at this convention venue, you will see Coca-Cola being sold. you know on a very very
4:26
basic level although alhamdulillah we've managed to come together sustaining that
4:32
and achieving sort of greater goals even in on the boycott front seems to be
4:37
quite difficult how are we going to unite as an ummah on more more on a more higher platform if we can't do the very
4:43
basics it's a great question obviously um I don't think it takes a lot right
4:49
you know if you look at tipping points uh I'll use a a dumbed down version of tipping points from Malcolm Gladwell. It
4:57
comes to down to three things. You need a viral idea um or product. You need super spreaders
5:06
of that virus and you need the right conditions for that virus to spread,
5:12
right? Um I think we live in a world today where the conditions are absolutely
5:18
right for something. um we have the super spreaders. In fact,
5:24
you know, when I talk to let's say leading uh religious figures, cultural
5:29
figures, leading businesses even um within our Muslim community, if there
5:35
was an idea to back, they are so ready to back that idea. I think what we we
5:40
lack is a clear understanding of what could that idea be um that allows us to get unified.
5:48
uh you know I am playing around with this idea of like what if we had something like a a digital Muslim nation
5:56
state right um and it it's still opaque I'm not sure what that would mean I it has
6:03
to definitely be bigger than me or launch good like it it can't be limited to that
6:09
um but I think about like this global Muslim community have we it it is tremendous right and we saw what
6:16
happened Tik Tok remember like all of a sudden they're Oh, like Tik Tok is being bias against Zionists. It's like no,
6:22
there's just like a lot of, you know, we have two billion Muslims and and hundreds of millions of them on Tik Tok.
6:28
Like we are going to drown out voices at the end of the day if we start speaking up.
6:33
But what we don't realize yet is our collective power or even
6:40
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Turn your compassion into hope. So, what's stopping us? I mean, I I often um uh Muslims will site our lack
What is stopping Muslims?
7:50
of expertise within the Muslim community. And so of course if you look at the big names the CEOs the directors
7:56
of a lot of the uh tech companies I know you're in that space in in the mainstream tech companies uh they're
8:03
mostly non-Muslims right a lot of them from are India Indian non-Muslims right so you have a uh there there is a
8:12
failing there apparently where Muslims don't have that expertise and and and
8:18
currency in that tech space I mean am I reading it right So I I look at it as
8:25
a phase we're going through. Right. Right. I I do believe first of all like you know when when I became Muslim 24
8:32
years ago Subhan Allah. I mean all we were were like at least in America like taxi drivers and doctors and engineers,
8:40
right? Like we were that was our expertise. No actually here we are in 2025 and subhan Allah I find Muslims
8:45
everywhere, right? You know leading athletes, leading media figures. we, you know, political
8:52
figures, legal figures, like we, alhamdulillah, we are everywhere. Maybe, you know, we're not fully represented yet.
8:57
Yeah. But we can find ourselves at every level in every industry. I think what we don't
9:04
have is an awareness that um we could or should even be using those skills for a
9:09
larger project like the UMAH. Yeah. You know, we were we were talking before this about, you know, are we building an
9:16
LLM for the UMAH, right? If you look at where AI is going, yeah,
9:21
it is absolutely going to change the way the world works. Yeah. So these are large language models.
9:27
Sorry. Yes. Large language model. And you know our children will just ex they
9:32
will use AI the way that we use Google, right? And they just will okay the chat
9:38
GPT told me this uh you know is halal, you know, and you're like what chat GPD
9:45
like how does that know what what is halal? We used to joke about Sheh Google. Yes. Right now we're going to have like I
9:50
don't know what you call it MUIBT but um it has its biases and they're very
9:56
apparent. I mean you just ask it about Israel versus Palestine you'll see it. If you ask Deepseek the one in China
10:03
about the OER situation, you'll see it very transparently. Yeah. Who's building the LLM the large
10:09
language model that's based off our values? No one's even thinking to ask that question. That's the problem. And
10:15
why why are we not thinking about you know when I look at the um I think our parents' generation and their
10:21
parents they really faced genuine barriers.
10:27
Um and the example I like to give is that of a a a baby elephant. M
10:33
you know if you st a stick in the ground and tie it a rope between it and the leg
10:39
of a baby elephant that baby elephant will not be strong enough to pull the
10:45
stick out and it will uh remain in place and it gets trained to that.
10:51
Yeah. And this was like our parents or grandparents generation like there was a real constraint that was holding us back
10:56
and no matter how hard we tried we couldn't pull out of that constraint. But we're not a baby elephant anymore.
11:03
I'm not going to say we're a full-size elephant, but you know that baby elephant that's trained that way, even
11:08
when they become a giant elephant, they they still think that they are constrained by that rope. They could
11:13
easily just yank it out, but they don't. And I think this is the situation of our um today. Like we are bigger than we
11:18
used to be. We have more uh capabilities, powers, resources,
11:24
but mentally we're thinking we're still constrained. We're thinking that, oh,
11:29
like I can't get out of this, you know, or pull this steak out of the ground.
11:34
Yeah. But it's just not real. I think what's missing is
11:39
success stories, right? You know, there's a saying in Arabic
11:44
that success begets success. And it's hard to believe that, you know,
11:50
something could happen until it does. Uh but once it happens, you know, it can
11:56
happen very fast. And I think the the example of Syria is the one that's just most prevalent. A year ago today, uh I I
12:03
don't think you nor I are Syrian, but a year ago today, all of our Syrian friends, you said, "Hey, what are the chances that we'll have a next summer
12:09
you'll be vacationing in Damascus, I mean, they would have thought we're crazy." Yes. You know, and yet here we are where all
12:17
of our friends are going back to Syria now. Yeah. That's incredible. So let's talk about the potential then of the Muslim Ummah.
Potential of Ummah
12:23
So I I know that you're developing the contours of this idea of digital ecosystem, digital caliphate I think you
12:30
controversially called it. What what is that potential like? How far can we go in the absence of a government sponsor?
12:38
It's a it's a great question. I first started getting interested in this idea just as a tech person in general. Yeah.
12:44
and watching this trend in Silicon Valley of people especially from the cryptocurrency world saying hey if we
12:51
can have a digital currency why can't we have a digital digital citizenry right and it really started picking up steam a
12:58
few years ago um when some white papers came out and and then people decided you
13:03
know what are we're going to have a goal by you know 2050 to have a rec legally recognized
13:09
digital nation state and there's kind of like three um uh
13:15
pillars to the concept. One is a shared value system. Two is uh an economic um
13:23
uh ecosystem that's connected and a third is some sort of mechanism for citizenry and govern governance.
13:30
Yeah. The thing is when I look at and there are many um examples like I think
13:35
practice practice is one of them and there's a number of them out there. when I look at the value system like
13:41
what is truly connecting these people other than I hate to say it but greed because you can make a quick buck on
13:48
crypto and so if you joined that digital nation state that was you know uh became
13:54
very popular and you were invested in early then you would have made a bunch of money and this is um to me these are very
14:01
shallow values and they won't last the test of time but Muslims we have a
14:08
strong strong value system that unites us today across the world you know if
14:13
we're here in Malaysia if you talk to Malaysians or Indonesians anyone in this region about Palestine their heart
14:19
bleeds close you know even though they could never even visit that land and that's true whether you go to South Africa or Chile
14:26
or North America or the UK our hearts truly are connected as a global Muslim ecosystem
14:33
we're also very rapidly developing economically I think of the two billion
14:39
Muslims in the world about one billion half of them live on like a dollar a day. Yeah. Um but you know a good 350 million of
14:48
them are actually very well educated with high earning power and their kids are going to college,
14:55
going to university. Uh the economic shifted like there's a reason why Starbucks lost 11 billion dollars of
15:01
market cap. That's a serious number. Yeah. Um, so you know, interested to I don't have
15:08
the the it worked out yet, but one thing I'm just trying to raise awareness of is that we as a global Muslim community do
15:15
deserve our own platforms and our own products and we have a value system that
15:20
can really support uh support them as well. How much um how affected are we by
Greed of capitalism
15:29
uh I I suppose the greed that comes from capitalism here? Because of course a lot of our our young uh entrepreneurs
15:38
uh they tend to uh graduate go into industry and uh it's all about um you
15:44
know what we're taught from this neoliberal world is that uh we need to
15:50
focus on ourselves and focus on our lifestyles and focus on and and deregulate even if it's if there is an
15:57
um thing in our mind the um is very far away and and the um serves our
16:03
interests. I mean is there a need for ideiational you know reconfiguration
16:08
here when it comes to building the contours of this sort of digital Muslim community.
16:14
You know that's actually a really uh apt observation. The first thing that came to mind was that hadith the prophet said
16:20
that you know in the day there will come a day where the nations of the world pick at you like food to play.
16:26
Yeah. And the Sahabah asked is it because we're few in number? Yeah. He said, "No, you're much in
16:33
number, but you're like the, you know, foam of the sea. There's no substance to
16:38
you." And it's because of these two diseases that you you love the world and they
16:45
hate that. So, it's actually as long as you know it's driven by love of capitalism. We're thinking about oh
16:52
this we can make money out of this. No, that is actually it would be it would always actually prevent us from see
16:58
achieving the success that we are seeking in the first place. Yeah. And so it is one of the reasons like
17:03
personally I've been had have had this lovehate relationship even with the cryptocurrency itself where
17:09
you know when I discovered it in 2013 and got into it, it was like oh this is amazing borderless permissionless
17:15
payments like something you know we could create currency that unites the UMA etc. Yeah. and and I left it completely in
17:21
2019 because I saw actually it's, you know, being manipulated. Uh people are
17:26
losing their livelihoods with this thing. They're falling into g gambling habits. Like this isn't something that
17:33
um I really believe reflects our values as Muslims. Yeah. Um
17:38
the second part, you know, related to what you're saying, I think it's important too, how much are we ready to sacrifice?
17:44
Right. Right. And I think there's a little bit too much of us wanting to have our cake
17:50
and eat it too. And so I see it um you know we we say we really care about the um we want to do
17:56
good for the um but like God forbid you ask someone to actually dedicate their talents to the um and it it's strange to
18:04
me probably because I'm a convert. I mean we're all a little bit quirky as converts but you know like I was ready
18:11
to give it all up as a convert. Right. Yeah. And when I look at some of
18:16
my role models, you know, one of the biggest absolutely is Malcolm X lawyer.
18:24
When he died, he didn't own anything. He didn't own a house. He didn't own a
18:30
car. He didn't have, you know, a life insurance policy for his family or
18:36
savings in the bank or retirement fund. Really, he had nothing.
18:41
He didn't have time to build that wealth in this life. Yeah. Because he was on a mission.
18:47
And I look I think when we look at a lot of our our teachers and our role models, you know, I I think one of mine is uh
18:53
for example, Imam Zade Shakar, you know, he he gave up a prominent professorship
18:59
to go sit with school children in Damascus to properly learn his dean. And
19:04
he was already an imam and he was a growing man. and he he gave up all that to properly learn his dean so he could
19:10
come back and teach that dean and and give his career to this. And I think when we look at Muslims today,
19:17
I don't find that zealousness as much even though like the hearts are
19:24
in the right place. Yeah. But the idea that like I would live on, I don't know, $30,000 or $50,000 or
19:31
something um and pursue a a more meaningful path in life. I I'm not seeing it as much as
19:38
I feel like I saw it when I first became Muslim 24 years ago. Yeah.
19:43
I mean I don't know am I am I imagining that or do you think that might be true? No, I think I think there is certainly
Sacrifice
19:48
there's a very strong strain of that, you know, and um we are I think we've become more conscious of our ummah for
19:54
sure and about the plight of our um and I think Gaza has helped in building that
20:00
collective consciousness but the next step is to sacrifice. Yeah. And I think that's probably you're right
20:06
there. Are we willing to sacrifice uh for our ummah? Well, you know, as a I'll say some
20:14
interesting stuff as a tech CEO. Yeah, I remember we're we're we're always hiring of course and um we're getting a
20:20
lot of people since October 7th from Meta, from Google, Muslims, from Microsoft. Yeah.
20:27
But the the drop off they have to make is incredible. And we're talking about in some cases 80%.
20:34
And are they willing to do this? Um so what's surprising for the
20:39
majority? No. No. That's the quick answer. Yeah. And I don't think it's just that they're not willing to do it. I I think they
20:45
literally can't do it because they have built a lifestyle, have a mortgage, certain things that
20:51
like they would have to declare bankruptcy if they took a job with Launch Good, right? Yeah.
20:56
And and we're not paying peanuts, but we're not paying Microsoft level, right? But subhan Allah, I mean, we just had
21:01
someone uh just, you know, last uh month sign from Microsoft and she's taking, I
21:06
think, a 70% pay cut to be with us. So, it is happening. Um, of course it is,
21:11
I'd say, the the exception, not the rule. Right. Uh, back to this idea of of building our own ecosystem. I mean, how
Building our own ecosystem
21:19
how independent could it really be? I mean, how dependent are we still on tech infrastructure that belongs to the big
21:26
uh tech corporations, you know, AWS, Google, uh, Meta. U, can we really free ourselves from
21:34
from that universe? Not immediately. Definitely not. I mean, it's interesting. And um we ourselves
21:40
are just looking at like god forbid what if AWS wanted to kick us off, right? And we're trying to right now build our
21:47
own like alternative uh servers or get a backup for them. And it's on one level it feels ridiculous to me that we have
21:53
to do this. Um on the other level, it really shows the need for something. And what's
21:59
interesting about it, I do believe that if we Muslims build according to our
22:07
values and systems, it's something that the whole world will benefit from. So I look at the space I'm
22:13
in a lot is payments. Yeah. Um Muslims face the worst discrimination I believe uh when it comes to payments.
22:20
It's it's crazy, right? So, uh, to give some numbers to it, about 65% of Muslim
22:25
businesses and nonprofits in America will have their bank account shut at some point in their life,
22:32
right? So, that's not that means like over 50% like the majority, right? Like if it never happens to you, you're
22:37
lucky, right? Versus non-Muslim businesses and and uh charities face
22:43
that problem about 10% of the time. Yeah. You know, one out of 10. And for Muslims, it's like six or seven out of
22:49
10. Um now uh when we look at building
22:55
how do we get to this question? Why did I bring that up? We were talking about building alternative systems. Oh, so
23:01
discrimination. So Muslims face this discrimination the worst. Yeah. But we're not the only ones
23:07
by the way. You know what the discrimination in payments? This might be interesting tidbit. It's not that
23:13
intentional. M it's not that there's these bankers and people in payments companies said we hate Muslims and we just want to shut
23:19
them down, but they use software that is very like uh built for a white western audience um
23:26
and it's not used to Muslim names. So there's a guy literally in Michigan, his name is Ali Khan. Just think about how
23:33
many Ali Khan you know, okay? Yeah. There's a terrorist alleged terrorist in Pakistan named Ali Khan.
23:39
Yes. because of that guy who has no relationship to the guy in Michigan. Of course, this Ali in Michigan get has had
23:45
three times his business bank accounts shut down. Wow. You know, he's gone to like change his name legally twice now and just didn't
23:51
have like he felt too ashamed um to change his god, you know, his his his
23:57
birthgiven name, but it's like that bad. And so I was on a call actually with the Department of Treasury and Ali Khan.
24:03
This is how I even know this story is like there was a few of us invited to this call with the department of treasury in America. Um and the I don't
24:12
know if it's the FBI guy or investigator or something. He's like hearing the story. He doesn't believe him. So during the call he looks up Ali
24:19
Khan's name on his director. He's like okay I do see there's this terrorist in Pakistan but clearly it's not you. The
24:26
banks shouldn't be shutting you down. And Ali Khan is like incredulous. He's like don't tell me that. Like you know
24:31
go tell the banks that. But what's happening just to give you a sense of what's actually happening the compliance software these banks use these payment
24:38
processors use say oh here's Ali Khan there could be a terrorist transaction
24:43
flag it so now the bank has to h has to pay someone a real human being
24:48
to spend two minutes looking at that and whitelist the transaction and so what happens is if you have a
24:55
Muslim client you have too many false flags requires too much intervention and it this client just becomes too
25:01
expensive to service. And so Muslims face this the worst, but we're not the
25:06
only ones. Colombians face it, Mexicans face it, people with Russians names face it. So if we can build a payments
25:12
platform that doesn't discriminate against Muslims, in it wouldn't discriminate actually against all these
25:18
groups of people. And that could be something that could benefit the global south. It could benefit actually the majority of the
25:24
world population. Yeah. And I think I I I'm saying that from a payments perspective, but that's true for so many different platforms out
25:32
there like AWS. Like someone could build alternate AWS. Someone could build an
25:37
LLM that is um non-discriminatory and nonbiased in these political matters
25:43
like Israel and Palestine and the whole world will benefit from that. I mean back to the the role of
25:48
government uh in in all of this. Of course uh we know that governments they
Government and people
25:54
uh subsidize they nurture uh research and development within their nation states and um so many of the the tech um
26:04
uh breakthroughs have somewhere down the line come through government interventions right and so
26:11
yeah we have a situation unfortunately in the Muslim world uh that our governments are certainly not aligned
26:18
with us with the population on ISS issues like Gaza, right? At least if they are, they're they don't have the
26:25
ability to, you know, to to to really make any meaningful moves in this area. So, in the absence of government, I
26:31
mean, can we really make a difference? I suppose what I'm asking is that I I know Yeah, I know what you're asking
26:37
and I've been asking myself the same question. There was an article
26:42
by Thomas Freriedman. I'm not actually a big fan of Thomas Friedman, New York Times. Yes. But he said he his
26:48
article was called I saw the future and it's not in America and he had gone to China
26:55
course and he'd visited the Huawei like the I want to say Huawei headquarters but uh it's actually like a
27:02
city that they built. Yes. And in this city, it's an R&D city. Like
27:08
can you imagine it's a research development city like literally they built they have multiple buildings, residences, everything just for why did
27:15
they build this city? Yeah. Actually because the US decided to sanction China and block them from
27:21
getting the chip technology that we have in America. And China decided, okay, what we're
27:26
going to do is just heavily invest as a of the government. Yeah. Um invest to figure this stuff out
27:32
ourselves. And now they're like ahead of America because they did that. And so
27:37
when I read that article, I was like just the same question I asked him like who's going to be the government the
27:42
equivalent of what China did that that could fund this for for Muslims? Yeah. And I was like I mean I'll be honest. I
27:49
was like maybe but like I don't even think right I don't think there is a Muslim country
27:56
and that does put us at a disadvantage but maybe this comes back to the digital nation state
28:01
right? You know, one of the things that these digital nation states talk about
28:06
is that they would have some sort of, you know, tax um uh that buys you your
28:13
citizenship in the nation state. Maybe it's a dollar a month, for example. But
28:18
if you had a 100 million Muslims in this digital nation state, all putting in a dollar a month, you now have an annual
28:25
budget over a billion dollars. And maybe this could now start funding
28:31
the type of development companies research that's needed to really free
28:36
ourselves uh from systems outside of our control. So let's talk about I mean I think we
28:41
haven't quite fleshed out I know it's you know in your mind it this is a
How to build alternative ecosystem?
28:46
developing idea and I think it's really important and I think Gaza has taught us that um we are not using our money
28:54
wisely. uh for sure. Okay. But let's flesh out. Imagine we had an ideal world where we could build these platforms and
29:02
build a alternative ecosystem. Let's just paint that picture for me. What would it look like in your mind?
29:08
You know, selfishly I wanted to be on your podcast to to use this time to think for myself. Like I I haven't
29:13
figured it out. But you know, let's let's imagine like if we had a 100 million Muslims around the
29:20
world paying let's say a dollar a month to be part of this digital nation state,
29:25
which is plausible, right? 100 million is not is a, you know, impossible. Yeah. You know, it seems crazy, but it's
29:32
also not crazy. Yeah. You know, um I mean Launch is not that big, but we have a couple million users, right? I think
29:38
Muz has maybe 10 million users, right? Um I don't know how many how many
29:44
listeners or views how many views have you had in this podcast uh this series so far? We so so far I mean a month we get
29:50
around 2 million views a month. 2 million views a month. So in light of that you know give it 5 10 years 100
29:55
million. Yeah it doesn't sound like a lot. Yeah. Um I think there
30:00
you know there are questions I have of like how do you define and accept people into this group?
30:06
Um, how do you make sure you don't just get suboptive? Like let's say all of China
30:12
decided that bunch of non-Muslim Chinese people want to sign up for this like do they control voting and you know uh I
30:19
don't have questions but I I think let's go back to your original question. Imagine if it was best case scenario I suppose
30:25
what that would mean to me is that you have Muslims in every country in the world subscribe to this thing.
30:32
They have the real resources available through it. They have a voice in
30:40
deciding where are those resources invested. Uh so in that case almost like a true
30:46
democracy. The
30:52
community has real economic impact. Yeah. So if a country decided to start
31:00
taking actions against Muslims or that were, you know, strongly misaligned with our values, this digital nation state
31:08
could act in unison to really
31:13
put pressure to drive a real change. And and I think not just the punishment,
31:18
not just the stick, but the carrot as well, you know. So, I talked about the 11 billion of market cap that Starbucks
31:25
lost. Imagine if it wasn't just what Starbucks lost, but we were able to create 11 billion of market value for a
31:32
new company led by somebody who's really a value aligned and now they are going to become
31:39
the next Starbucks. That's exciting to me, you know. Um and
31:44
and I think this could create even a means and this is you know again I mean you I'm just going in the fully
31:50
optimistic route. You gave me permission here. Yeah. But could it become a means to start
31:56
building trust between actual Muslim Muslim nation states? M you know the
32:03
there I have really no expectations at all that the heads of states of Muslim countries today would ever vote
32:10
willingly to like let's give I'll give up my power my presidency my prime ministership etc so that we could have a
32:17
one global global globally unified kafa like that's not I don't expect that to
32:22
ever happen but could you have something where it says you know I want the citizens of my
32:28
country to be part of this digital nation state because it's creating ties
32:33
uh economic ties between our countries. It's making us stronger. It's the sum of the sum the whole is greater than the
32:40
sum of parts. Um you know I think we lost a lot when the train lines were
32:47
torn up you know from Mecca through Palestine through Jordan through Syria through Lebanon all the way to Turkey.
32:54
We lost a lot as a community. If you go to a place like you know Europe, you see those train lines do connect across
33:00
countries despite borders. Yeah. Right. And I look at what do we need to
33:06
bring that back as a community. So yeah sure you can have your Malaysia, you have your Saudi Arabia but how can we
33:12
really create uh strong bonds between the people of these countries. Often in
Muslim tech space quality
33:17
these sorts of conversations we can become very western centric and of course a lot of the knowledge production
33:23
for tech entrepreneurs do belong to Silicon Valley and and the west as well but of course you know some would argue
33:29
that real change uh in the Muslim world will come would have to come from the Muslim world. Um, how do you rate like
33:37
the quality of our thinking, our tech expertise in the Muslim world? Like, you
33:43
know, you've traveled around and I I struggled to travel to Malaysia, I have to say before, but you've traveled around and I know you you go from
33:50
country to country. I mean, have you made an assessment of the quality of of,
33:55
you know, the um the the tech space in the Muslim world?
34:01
I mean, to be honest, it's not great really. It's interesting. I mean, it's not a Muslim world thing. Even in America,
34:07
like it's hard to to accurately
34:13
convey how far ahead Silicon Valley is of the rest of the world. But if you look at like the top 100
34:18
startups in the world, something like 90 or 95 of them are like from Silicon Valley. It's a crazy number. That's why
34:25
it is Silicon Valley. Um but it you know
34:32
even within Silicon Valley a lot of those leaders came from outside of
34:38
uh America even to begin with and a really great example I mean one of his biggest fans is Mjaded Messed. Have you
34:44
heard of this guy Mjad Mess? I have. Yes. You know CEO of Replet. He's from Jordan. He's a you know son of a
34:49
Palestinian refugee from Jordan. Immigrated to America and now he's one of the leading AI CEOs in the whole
34:55
world. Um I don't think he's looking to go back to Jordan anytime soon.
35:00
Yeah. Um but China is is really interesting
35:05
role model for Muslims because we saw Deep Seek come out of China with a budget that was like 1% of open
35:12
AI. Yeah. Able to get equivalent results. And I think what's happening in China is
35:19
there's a certain confidence and conviction that they can play at this game and they can win at this game. And
35:26
that's really missing from the Muslim world at large. Um, but I bring up the
35:32
example Uber. Like Uber doesn't exist in China anymore because people in China realize like, hey, we're big enough and
35:37
we deserve our own platforms. We don't have to have Uber. We can use DD. We can use our own own technology. Um, and
35:43
that's something that's missing from the UMA right now. Uh Chris, I was speaking to Dr. Tarak Suedan uh just earlier
Advice to young Muslims
35:50
today and uh he was pointing out that he sees a tangible material difference in
35:55
this new generation to previous generations in terms of their commitment to the global ummah. Um and and maybe
36:03
that is true. Um I mean have you noticed that and and what advice would you give to a young Muslim uh who wants to do
36:10
good for this um who's been moved by Gaza who doesn't want to just join the rat race and and become a you know a a
36:17
quietest uh and and sell their soul to to one of the big corporations
36:23
uh like how how do they uh maneuver in this space? I mean definitely it is uh it is the
36:30
case first of all I agreed with Dr. then because and I I do believe a lot of that is
36:36
facilitated by technology because we can see those stories now. I
36:42
remember like when I became a Muslim uh again 2001,
36:48
if I wanted a role model of a convert for example or just a Muslim in general
36:53
that I wanted to be like um it was really limited to the religious scholar
37:00
field like okay you got Hamza Ysef and Zachar and Saraj Wahaj and like there those are the converts I could see but
37:06
I'm not a sheh right I have many friends mah that went down that path and they studied did many years overseas, but
37:12
like that's not my strength. Yeah, I'm a strategic thinker. I'm a community leader. I can be a great director or CEO
37:19
inshallah, but I'm not going to be your im leading prayers.
37:24
And there were no other role models for me at that time. I think we live in a very different world today. We can see a
37:31
lot of different examples. You want to look for success in any field, you can find really great role models and
37:37
because of social media, it's so easy to find them. So maybe uh not to connect with them but at least to see them. Um
37:44
and now if I am a young person, I'm saying okay, I see some of these role models. I I I I'm feeling inspired. I
37:49
want to know what to do. My main advice is actually to travel, right? And one of the things I've been very passionate about is bringing
37:56
Muslims from the east to the west and bringing Muslims from the west to the east really
38:01
because I I don't think you know I don't you know I want to be careful of like the whole western or white savior
38:07
complex like hey we have all the solutions. No I think you're right that ultimately we the solutions for the Muslim um have to
38:13
come out of the um but we also have a lot to learn from the west. Um and it's really powerful. One of the
38:20
things that you might even, it's weird. It's not like East London is the Muslim world, but sometimes it feels like it.
38:26
Um, but it certainly is. You know, I've been really pushing for a lot of these Muslims in East London in
38:31
the tech scene to come out to Silicon Valley in San Francisco. Yeah. We we helped host the Muslim Tech
38:37
Fest last year in in San Francisco. And I think it was really eye opening for a
38:43
lot of these Muslim tech entrepreneurs from London because they're like, "Wow, I thought I was ambitious and I came to
38:48
Silicon Valley and I realized like I got to 10x it, 100x it." Um, and we brought entrepreneurs from
38:56
Malaysia, we brought entrepreneurs from Singapore, Indonesia. Um, and then they go back home.
39:02
And I think that that is really important uh that we get this cross fertilization going. so much easier now
39:08
than it was even 10 years ago. Yeah, Subhan Allah. I can see that and I think the tech test is is one really
How to help?
39:15
good example and and in many ways Gaza has has uh become an accelerant
39:22
uh in in getting the Muslim communities around the world together. So I think that's that's fantastic to see. Um
39:30
we have a a situation where our UMAH is in a very very uh precarious position in
39:38
the world and um you know we have um uh solutions that are being put forward for
39:44
Gaza and solutions that have been put forward for Sudan and and for other places and alhamdulillah but tech
39:49
entrepreneurs like you I know launch could do a fantastic job in in in ch
39:55
channel channeling good money zaka and saddaka to uh to you know uh
40:00
belleaguered Muslims around the world. Um I I'm thinking now about just you
40:05
know someone who's not in that space you know but a Muslim who's made who's wealthy who's made money uh someone
40:12
who's got capital behind them maybe they were you know through property or whatever it may be they developed a u a
40:20
you know a lot of capital and and they realize the need to invest in this ummah
40:26
like how what would you advise them to do in in leveraging that uh that capital
40:33
they have to help build this type of uh independent ecosystem.
40:39
I mean go out there and do it and I know what if they can't do it like you know
40:44
they have the money but they haven't got that expertise where do they go you know it's
40:50
it's one of the reasons uh I started another initiative we call it GMW it it
40:56
stands technically for gathering Muslims worldwide but um I realized that there is this need to
41:02
bring together the people who are doing things and the ones who can support those doing them right
41:08
um And often they can't find each other. Yes, that's my point. I think yeah, I think they struggle to find each
41:14
other. And this is very much an evolving um kind of area. But what I love to see,
41:20
first of all, it has to happen in person, right? I think the the level we're talking about, it can't just be, you know, like
41:26
a dating app where it's like swipe right if you want to invest. Like that's just not going to happen. Yeah. Um we have to create trust between
41:33
people first. Yeah. uh we're doing our own little effort like you know once we have this summit
41:38
in DHA uh may you know god bless it and put baraka in it um I think Muslim
41:44
tacfest is one of those vehicles I think this the prophetic strategy summit is another one in the weekend before we had
41:50
the global Muslim content summit what I love about all these things and I
41:56
know I'm going to get back to to answering your question but what I love about all these events that I'm starting to see happen this is more than just the
42:03
religious like weekend inspirational talks, right? People, these are really people that are trying to use their
42:10
talents and networks to do something for the um and it's like we have a giant flywheel
42:17
for the um and it stopped in the last hundred years. It's really hard when you
42:22
lose the momentum of your flywheel to get it started again. What is key if you're building up that flywheel? Do you
42:28
know what it is? No. Tell me. Have you ever pushed a flywheel by the way or? No, I haven't.
42:34
You know what it is, though? I know what it is. It's It's like really hard to move. Like if you try like we have something like this
42:40
where in my alma mo University of Michigan, it's called the cube and it's like this giant cube and you try to push
42:45
it like you could if you first of all if you punch it like nothing's going to happen.
42:50
You got to put constant pressure on it and you can't stop. But if you put that
42:56
constant pressure on it continuously, actually it will start to move and it'll
43:02
get easier and easier to push and it'll start moving faster and faster until it has a life of its own. And so I see each
43:07
of these events right now, these summits, these conferences are like one push in the flywheel. And I've really
43:14
been thinking about how do we keep the momentum on, the pressure on so we don't lose it. And I was talking to some of
43:21
the organizers, you know, here and and the other ones, and it was like, oh, should we coordinate? Should we bring it all into like one thing? And I'm like,
43:27
no, no, no. It's not us. The the actual constant pressure on it are the people.
43:33
Yeah. How do we make sure that, you know, some of the people here attend the next Muslim techfest, attend the next GMW
43:41
summit, attend the next uh ALF summit. Um and how do we keep in the next um
43:47
conference the people themselves will be the momentum that we develop in this
43:54
flywheel. Uh but anyway getting back to your question now like that person that wants to have money honestly
44:00
there are these type of events I think it's really important that they get out to them great
44:06
and they can find them like you know if anything hit me up on Twitter right we'll we'll direct you uh but it is the
44:14
time to invest Chris I think that's been a fascinating conversation
44:19
Jak I know you've got to now give a presentation to uh to the the summit so
44:25
In we'll have to stop there. But thank you so much for your time. You're welcome. You take comments from people and the YouTube and the Twitter
44:31
and everything, right? Yeah. Yeah. Listen, if the people are watching this, if you have an idea, like I want to see
44:36
those comments. Fantastic. I it really it is a a fresh idea. It's a developing idea.
44:42
Like I said, I know the context is right for this idea. I know the super
44:47
spreaders are ready to spread the idea. But what is the idea? That's the
44:52
question mark. Fantastic. in. So they can they can send you a message on Twitter or Yeah. Hit me ar blavevelt or
44:59
Yeah. If if if they tag you, I'll find it too. Subscribe. But you got to don't you have
45:04
to say like, "Hey, hit that subscribe button. Share." Yeah. I buy our mugs, you know.
45:10
Yeah. My my my the brothers and sisters in the room always tell me I need to do more of that. But I I certainly do.
45:16
Smash that subscribe button. I know you do.
45:22
and I hope to visit you sometime soon in in Michigan. We'd love to have you.
45:27
Thank you, brother.
45:32
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45:37
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