Blockchain

Modex is a data security company that specializes in delivering cutting-edge solutions to make blockchain technology affordable, fast, and easy to adopt for companies in need of a zero trust infrastructure, data protection, and an extra layer of security. Thanks to its team of experts, the tech company constantly innovates and offers software solutions for the data management ecosystem. Over the past few years, the digitalization process and the need for a new kind of data protection infrastructure capable of securing sensitive information created a new market. Also, cyber threats are witnessing unprecedented levels of activity, and emergent technologies offer the best solutions. As a result, companies have begun taking notice of the technology's potential to act as an infrastructure that guarantees unprecedented levels of trust concerning data authenticity and integrity. 

For over two years, Modex has been carefully analyzing the market's pulse, which led to the creation of its unique software offering. The offering can be split into three categories: utility, education, and custom solutions. 

Utility: A new technology is always viewed as the new kid on the block. However, when it comes to innovation, most companies and people have a limited understanding of its true potential. To solve this issue, Modex has created a full-fledged ecosystem where organizations and people can benefit from data security and log immutability, integrity of information, and cybersecurity solutions that combat ransomware attacks without requiring users to know or to understand how this technology works. With a different approach at the enterprise level, Modex offers a good to run new product based on blockchain’s technology advantages for every single entity which operates or benefits from a database system. This product is Modex BCDB, where BCDB stands for Blockchain Database and includes all the necessary ingredients required for the cybersecurity market.  

Education: As blockchain is still a relatively new technology, the market demand far exceeds the current offering. Modex Academy was created as a learning hub for people who want to expand their horizons and learn more about this technology. In 2020, Modex opened a blockchain laboratory at the University of Economic Studies (ASE) in Bucharest, where its team of tech experts helps students develop their digital skills. The company will also hold a blockchain course in partnership with the Politehnica University of Bucharest. These two CSR projects run in the homeland of the IT co-founders of the company, Dragos Rautu (CTO) and Alin Iftemi,  Chief Product Officer.  

Custom Solutions: The suite of services is wrapped in a single package, representing the company's biggest innovation, Modex BCDB, a patented technological offering that fuses blockchain with a database engine. The BCDB hybrid has a plug-and-play approach, which enables companies to integrate a blockchain back-end to their existing applications seamlessly regardless of their business logic. It also brings trust in the enterprise sector by facilitating data immutability and data integrity. Also, the tech company has launched its custom development branch tasked with building a comprehensive suite of banking and fintech products designed to enhance the interaction between banks and their customers with future proof solutions that target three areas: mobile banking, internet banking, and company banking suite. The London-based company innovated in this sphere with the immutable KYC mechanism based on its patented technology. 

 

Committed to deliver new levels of quantifiable trust 

Launched in 2017, Modex started with the mission to make blockchain adoption fast and affordable. But today, thanks to the software solutions it brings to the industry, the company aims to make blockchain 'invisible' and as easy-to-use as the Internet for organizations and people. One of the company's main pillars is innovation. With offices in London, Bucharest, Silicon Valley, and Washington DC (upcoming), Modex provides philosophy quantifiable trust to SMEs as well as to businesses that still operate with legacy IT infrastructures. Distribution, immutability, integrity, data traceability, and selective encryption are features and functionalities that set the foundation for a new type of data infrastructure designed to deliver quantifiable trust through its tech architecture and complex cryptographic techniques.  

 

A Pragmatic Leader Demonstrating Quality Leadership 

Mihai Ivascu is the Co-founder and CEO of Modex. He says collaboration and teamwork are keywords at Modex. The company currently has offices in London and Bucharest, where the tech team is based. The newest addition is the Silicon Valley sales office, but Modex intends to expand its reach in the US market by opening a second one in Washington DC. A global company is difficult to manage and coordinate. This is where Mr. Ivascu’s leadership skills and entrepreneurial spirit comes in. Mr. Ivascu has been recognized on the Forbes 30 Under 30 and is a finalist of Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year. He is an experienced speaker and entrepreneurship mentor. Normally, his position requires him to constantly travel between offices to ensure an optimal operational flow and to develop and explore new expansion strategies in the area. As a charismatic individual Mr. Ivascu knows how to manage a diverse and multicultural team of experts and unite them towards a common goal - delivering the next big cybersecurity solution. 

 

Delivering Dynamic Solutions to Cater to Market and Society 

The impact of Modex on the global Blockchain industry can be divided into two categories: technology provider and education. 

According to Mr. Ivascu, the societies are lagging in the digitalization of critical areas, such as public services, government, and administration. This is mainly owing to the dependency on a traditional IT infrastructure that is no longer capable of operating at an optimal level. Modex BCDB positions itself as an ideal solution for sparking a new wave of interest for blockchain implementation at the governmental level. Thanks to its design, Modex BCDB acts as a blockchain enabler as well as an augmenter, a mechanism through which existing software solutions can access valuable blockchain-powered characteristics such as data integrity, immutability, and traceability. At its core, Modex BCDB is designed to offer an infrastructure with quantifiable trust that streamlines the internal workflow of enterprises. It can access all of the advantages that come with a highly transparent, decentralized, and distributed system. Further, Modex BCDB offers an extra layer of security against a series of vulnerabilities and attack vectors. As ransomware is the most common cyber attack, the solution thwarts this attack by combining complex cryptographic techniques and hashing algorithms. Besides its work in the field of cybersecurity, Modex made a significant step towards digitizing public services by using its BCDB solution to lay the foundation of a voting platform with a blockchain-based infrastructure. From an education standpoint, Modex is slowly making a strong presence in the academic environment by collaborating with universities. Through these initiatives, the company aims to create a new generation of professionals versed in blockchain development that will push the technology even further. 

Modex also provides a mobile banking solution that features an enhanced account creation mechanism, allowing for transparent blockchain-based KYC with instant registration, multi-currency money transfers with bank-grade currency exchange, utility payments, and more. Its immutable KYC mechanism is based on its patented technology, BCDB stores all requests and all responses that the KYC mechanism provides. 

 

Blockchain to Influence Technology and Innovation 

Mr. Ivascu observes that in the tech industry, innovation propagates more innovation. It sets in motion an unstoppable chain of events that lead to discovering new technologies or applying existing technologies in new and out of the box ways. For instance, blockchain represents the amalgamation of pre-existing technologies and concepts to form a new type of technology that far surpasses the capabilities of its composing elements. 

By challenging businesses' perceptions of data storage mechanisms, blockchain can complement other innovative technologies, such as AI, Big Data, and cloud infrastructures. The ability to ensure data immutability has profound ramifications on the cybersecurity dimension. AI technologies require a secure medium for the logs generated by the system. By storing them on a blockchain ecosystem, companies can ensure log immutability, integrity, and traceability. Big Data technology analyzes voluminous amounts of data from multiple sources to detect data patterns that are extracted, processed, and stored. By redirecting the processed information to blockchain infrastructure, companies can alleviate a series of cybersecurity threats while enhancing audit processes through the augmented data traceability. 

Moreover, cloud infrastructures have always been the target of hacking. There are endless examples that support this claim. Blockchain is known for its resistance to tampering. So if businesses bring blockchain to the cloud, the number of attacks will see a significant decrease. 

This is why blockchain is a highly sought-after technology. It can act as an ideal storage mechanism that can complement other technologies with its core characteristics: immutability, integrity, transparency, traceability, and distribution. 

 

Solidifying Business Dynamics with Key Alliances 

Innovation stems from Modex's approach to blockchain technology. The BCDB solution was designed to intervene in a company's existing IT architecture by positioning itself as an additional layer between the application and database engine to give access to a blockchain back-end. Since early development, Modex BCDB was built with an agnostic take on the blockchain and database it can connect to. The solution offers companies that rely on legacy systems the opportunity to upgrade their IT infrastructure by unlocking data immutability, integrity, and distribution, without requiring a complete system overhaul. Mr. Ivascu expresses that each company has different business requirements, and the ability to choose components that fall in line with the business logic of a company is essential. Modex's team of experts offers consultative services for companies to determine what blockchain and database are best suited for their sphere of activity.  

Modex is constantly working on expanding its technological reach through new partnerships and integrations. In this regard, the company has entered the Microsoft for Startups program, which gives Modex access to products and services, as well as startup-focused resources to leverage Microsoft networks and expertise. Modex is also an Elastic partner, which enables it to validate the BCDB solution at a large scale and increase its product's database agnosticism, allowing the company to address more customers. Through this partnership, Modex provides customers with access to valuable premium features and world-class Elastic support. To solidify its position as a log immutability provider, the company has integrated Modex BCDB with Logstash and Elasticsearch, key elements from the Elastic Stack. 

In early 2020, Modex partnered with UiPath, a leader in robotic process automation (RPA). The collaboration is intended to push the boundaries of innovation even further by combining the BCDB solution with UiPath's RPA systems to provide immutability to the activity logs of the software robots. 

 

Adaptive Strategy is Key to Success 

Just like other businesses, Modex also faced numerous challenges. However, through determination and hard work, the company managed to leave them behind. On the other hand, Modex is grateful to have had some amazing opportunities, which resulted in meeting amazing people, creating interesting events, and setting up meaningful projects related to blockchain and FinTech. Regardless of the challenges faced so far, the company has become better and more powerful, ready to face the future with passion and determination. 

 

Incredible Credits and Accomplishments  

In 2019, Modex BCDB (Blockchain Database) received the 'Seal of Excellence', a quality label awarded to project proposals submitted to Horizon 2020, the EU's research and innovation funding programme. The Seal of Excellence recognizes the strength of Modex's proposal and the added value it brings to the industry as well as to society. Unique and safe, the 'Seal of Excellence' is digitally sealed against fraud, as is the project proposal and evaluation summary report. In the same year, Modex BCDB won the Tech Innovation Award at CCIFER Gala and has been recognized by CIO Review magazine as one of the 10 most promising blockchain consulting/services companies to watch in 2019. 

Further, in 2020, Mr. Ivascu was chosen as "CEO of the Year 2020 for the United Kingdom" by CEO Monthly. 

 

The Future is Brighter Ahead 

The current pandemic is posing great challenges not only from the health point of view but also from a business standpoint. Many organizations have been affected, and they have to respond on the go to this threat. However, Mr. Ivascu is optimistic and believes that once this major crisis has been dealt with – hopefully, sooner rather than later! – the blockchain and FinTech industries will emerge stronger and with a different, better view of their priorities. He emphasizes that Modex is fully prepared for the challenges that lie ahead and ready to embrace the opportunities that come along.