All About Blockchain

Are you captivated by the endless possibilities of how we can interact with money?

Students are creating real world solutions using fintech tools to provide additional capacity in under-resourced communities. There are industry programs that help turn their visions into reality by providing resources that advance their prototypes, apps and ideas.

Ishaan Hiranandani is a rising Junior at University of Michigan, leader in the Blockchain@Michigan (BAM) student club, entrepreneur and DeFi addict. He and his teammates dream of saving small businesses and won awards and support for their particular product MeldX which creates founder friendly method of raising capital. 

Listen to hear the roadblocks they encountered along the way and what the future holds.

Decentralization puts power in the hands of the consumer*

Let's bring in the Enterprise Blockchain Award winner who has brought more  transparency to the Real Estate sector and beyond

Named Canada's top tech titan, Dr. Atefeh Mashatan, is the Director of the Cybersecurity Research Lab and an Associate Professor at Ryerson University.  This renowned cryptographer found a way to reduce fraud in the real estate sector as well as the insurance marketplace and in supply chain management with eSURe.   This application that was built to solve one challenge ended up having applicability in several other business use cases.
She also discusses her work on Mosaïque - a purpose-built digital wallet that interacts with blockchain applications, and enables secure transaction workflows as well as identity management services.  

How do we amplify the positive effects of blockchain innovation? Influencing policy makers on technological capabilities and wider implications on society is a good place to start.

Camille Crittenden, Executive Director of UC Berkeley's Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), envisions many possible use cases where blockchain will make a difference in the next 5-10 years.  She had the opportunity to Chair The California Blockchain Working Group that created a roadmap to recommend potential public applications for government legislation.

This conversation leads you through considerations for appropriate applications and defining blockchain characteristics that make it fit for certain areas in Vital and Health Records, Supply Chain, Property, Utilities and Finance, Commercial Business  and Education

How do we increase availability of capitol to small and traditionally disadvantaged borrowers? How can we invest in businesses we care about while purchasing products/services we want, especially during pandemic closures?

Carnegie Mellon Professor Goldstein has been investigating the interaction of technology, work and money with his computer science students to overcome several long-standing problems of established lending markets.

By utilizing a public blockchain-style ledger they have created an equal access funding mechanism, BoLT: Building On Local Trust, that can reduce poverty and inequality.

Learn about the interesting deep technical problems they faced to bring solutions to people today.
 

We are seeing more and more applications being built on blockchain. And there are thousands of blockchains for developers to choose from.  What do you look for in a blockchain to support your application development?

Chief Scientist Dr. Radu State and his team from University of Luxembourg’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust are busy building Dapps on the XRP Ledger. We learn about the key features and advantages that make this blockchain favorable for growing developers.

How can blockchain help the construction industry?

Think blockchain as your back office, matching purchase orders with actions, a system that generates a payment automatically without accounting approval. Or a single source of truth, created by all the participants on a given project, that’s plain for everyone to see. Blockchain keeps everyone honest.

What if the dozens of companies that depend on each other on a construction site could easily align? How nice would it be if construction projects were more efficient; stayed on budget and schedule?

Civil and Environmental Engineering Expert, Professor SangHyun Lee, leads the Dynamic Project Management Laboratory at the University of Michigan.  He engages us in how blockchain technology will change the way construction is done. We learn exactly how blockchain adds value to one of the oldest and largest sectors in the world economy with increased productivity and transparency.

How can artwork be the blockchain itself?

Joey Orr runs the Integrated Arts Research Initiative at the Spencer Museum of Art.  He commissioned leading artists Stephanie Dinkins and Simon Denny to explore the emergence of blockchain technology in collaboration with science and humanities researchers at The University of Kansas.

They are pushing to think about issues of diversity, equity, access and inclusion through the lens of consensus. Will integrating blockchain into artwork challenge prevailing thought on control or ownership? Can it support communities with a new kind of trust? 

Tickle your brain with the possibilities for this project.

According to the UNs' Food and Agriculture Organization, residents of the US Virgin Islands import more than 97% of their food. Nutritional content is not what it could be farmed locally and sometimes transported food arrives rotten or cannot arrive at all when container ships can't get into port during seasonal storms.  Food quality and shortage is a constant threat. 

Dr. Joanne Luciano, a distinguished Professor of Data Science, at the University of the Virgin Islands, is piloting a project called “The Emerald Archipelago Supply Chain Use Case”.  Her team seeks to significantly increase community access to locally farmed foods by implementing supply chain solutions built on blockchain.  
 
When actualized, this blockchain for good project can decrease dependency on food import while reducing cost and increasing value for residents and visitors. 

All About Blockchain is a Ripple-produced podcast featuring University Blockchain Research Initiative (UBRI) partners to showcase utility of this innovative technology. Host Lauren Weymouth returns for season 2 with global guests discussing how they will use this tech to solve challenges and innovate in farming, art, construction and public infrastructure, climate change and more. Tune in to the first return episode next week!

Why do we want digital assets to represent real world property?

Tokenization of securities is still an area that is early in development and adoption but we can start to learn from enterprise solutions already on the market.

Computational finance expert, Simon Sive, identifies practical challenges and discusses the ecosystem players already solving them using the tools available with blockchain.