Your Data Isn't Yours — How Nova Fixes That | Julian Carbonnell

About this video

Julian Carbonnell is a tech entrepreneur with a PhD in urban science who's spent years working across real estate, smart cities, governance, and machine learning. His latest project, Nova, is a decentralized file sharing SDK built on NEAR that lets users upload encrypted data once, control exactly who can access it (humans or AI agents), and revoke that access instantly.

In this episode, we get into:

→ Why Julian believes the current model of data ownership is broken and what self-sovereignty actually looks like in practice → How Nova uses IPFS, client-side encryption, on-chain access controls, and Shade Agents (TEEs) to create a fully secure data layer → The real cost problem with centralized storage — and why paying once to upload beats paying monthly to keep your own data private → A live demo of encrypted file sharing between two sessions using wallet and email login → Federated learning use cases: how hospitals could train better AI models on shared patient data without exposing it to each other → Julian's conversation with a local government official about replacing paper-based bureaucracy with upload-once infrastructure → Why he chose NEAR (scalability, low fees, chain abstraction) and how Nova evolved organically from a music sharing app for independent artists → What Estonia's digital nation taught him about building citizen-first infrastructure → Where Nova goes from here: hackathon sponsorship, SDK adoption, and early business development

Nova SDK: nova-sdk.com NEAR Docs: docs.near.org

Timestamps: 0:00 — Intro & Julian's background 1:03 — What led Julian to NEAR and Nova 3:29 — What is Nova in Julian's own words 5:15 — Nova vs Dropbox, S3, and centralized file sharing 7:46 — Uploading once to IPFS — what that means for non-crypto people 9:36 — Why decentralized storage matters for AI and ML 10:48 — Data quality, garbage in garbage out, and immutable datasets 12:18 — The black box trust problem with AI training 13:11 — Companies leaking data to external AI providers 14:41 — Federated learning: hospitals training AI without sharing patient data 16:07 — Nova's tech stack: client-side encryption, IPFS, on-chain access, TEEs 17:00 — How the architecture evolved organically 19:11 — Shade Agents, off-chain key storage, and bulletproof security 21:07 — Practical design vs opinionated design 22:23 — Why TEEs? Using the latest NEAR tech 23:43 — The real threat model: self-sovereignty over fear of leaks 24:36 — Why NEAR as the blockchain 27:50 — What "AI ready" actually means for Nova 29:18 — Nova as an SDK — the vision for embedding it everywhere 30:36 — Not all data belongs on decentralized storage 31:15 — Local government use case: replacing paper administration 33:23 — The recurring cost trap: privacy tied to monthly subscriptions 35:41 — Adoption strategy and what people might build with Nova 37:26 — Origin story: Nova was born from a music sharing app for artists 39:38 — Nova as agnostic infrastructure 40:28 — What Nova's success would signal beyond business 42:04 — Data privacy regulation, GDPR, and how Nova fits in 45:27 — Inspired by an academic paper from Taiwan on blockchain privacy 46:55 — Estonia's digital nation and citizen-first design 50:45 — Live demo: encrypted file sharing with Nova 56:24 — Mass adoption, non-tech users, and the pay-once model 58:19 — What's next for Nova and Julian

#NEAR #Web3 #DataPrivacy #DecentralizedStorage #AI #SelfSovereignty #IPFS #Nova