PHNOM PENH: Cambodia is to host, for the first time, the Black Swan Summit, a global platform designed to explore how innovation through technological disruption can build resilient economies and inclusive societies. The event will take place alongside the 20th Sommet de la Francophonie, which the kingdom will host in Phnom Penh this November.
The National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) will co-organise the Nov 15-16 Black Swan summit, together with the Global Finance & Technology Network (GFTN), in collaboration with the Cambodian Association of Finance and Technology.
The summit will feature high-level dialogues, presentations, roundtables and focused workshops which aim to explore how technology can strengthen financial and economic connections across Asean and Francophone markets, explained an NBC release.
“We are excited to welcome them and all of you who are interested in our event. We will showcase and discuss how technology can allow a developing country to leapfrog its digital transformation journey. Cambodia has done it with Bakong but our journey is not competed,” noted Chea Serey, NBC governor.
“We continue to learn from other countries’ experience and happy to share ours,” she added.
The name of the summits stems from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s concept of rare, unpredictable “black swan” events. The summit series reframes structural disruptions as opportunities for transformation, examining how humanity, machines and money evolve together.
It typically convenes global policymakers, technologists and investors to translate high-level technologies into real-world economic strategies, with real-world experience rather than theories. The goal is to protect economies from sudden, unexpected crises or what are called black swans, using modern technology.
The summit will also allow the NBC to showcase how Cambodia transformed its two largest economic limitations of dollarisation and system fragmentation into highly secure, sovereign-controlled, open-network payment rails, added the statement.
Cambodia’s Bakong system will be a particular area of focus, it explained, with discussions planned that will feature how Cambodia has emerged as one of Asia’s most advanced QR payment ecosystems.
“The objective is concrete: leave Phnom Penh with a blueprint any emerging market can use to build its own,” said the summit announcement.
Interested parties are invited to register, for free, for the upcoming summit. - The Phnom Penh Post/ANN
