Blockchain is arguably the next big thing after the emergence of electricity and the internet. It has started transforming businesses at an unimaginable rate, and those who have not been using the technology are now trying hard to get acquainted, master, and apply it to their organizational processes.

Blockchain is very critical to the 21st-century business because it is a foundational technology with the potential to be tweaked in many ways to suit diverse business operational needs.

Recall, just at the infant stage of the internet, blockchain started to propel the lives of people and businesses alike.

READ: Crypto: Large investors transfer over 700,000 Ethers

Blockchainis a digital ledger where transactions are processed. The name originated from its concept, where records known as Blocks are connected to a single linear pattern, known as Chain hence, Blockchain.

Adebayo Juwon, Marketing Lead, FTX Africa, in an exclusive note to Nairametrics, spoke on the efficiency modules the technology brings to businesses on a global scale;

Business owners are always seeking for means to scale their businesses, getting a competitive edge over others while being profitable at the same time. Recently, many of the top companies across the globe have been working towards achieving their goals with Blockchain technology.

READ: Where to invest your N5m to N500m safely and securely

Corporations need to understand how to work efficiently. Blockchain has proven that collaboration is possible. It has empowered people to freely send, receive, and verify data transactions with less trust.

Data on blockchain is verifiable and secured with the use of advanced Cryptography, which makes it resistant to unauthorized changes and hacks. Cost of intermediaries is also eliminated, making transactions more efficient. Using Blockchain technology for business transactions is almost instantaneous, which I believe most entrepreneurs will find welcoming.

READ: PenCom should pay 50% of workers pension at retirement TUC

Chimezie Chuta, a leading Blockchain expert and founder Blockchain Nigeria User Group, spoke on the reliability the technology propel to businesses worldwide;

Blockchain technology solves the problem of trust in business transactions, whether it has to do with the exchange of money, records, or even goods and services. With Blockchain, code is law within an environment devoid of trust.

When there is a need to have a public immutable record of transactions, blockchain is the answer. When there is no benefit, it doesnt make much sense to use a blockchain. When this is the case, standalone Cryptography is the solution to the problem.

READ: Sterling Bank gets CBN approval for restructuring

Chike Okonkwo, Business Development Manager, OKEx, spoke to Nairametrics on how the technology brings security to businesses;

Through protected Cryptography, it secures the data ledgers which helps promote trust and prevent fraud.

After a process of maximum trust verification, transactions/data are stored in blocks contained in millions of computers participating in the chain, and these transactions are recorded in chronological order in all the blocks.

READ: Bitcoin mining difficulty reach an all-time high

The data stored on the blockchain can be verified from their point of origin. With the help of smart contracts, businesses can pre-set conditions on the blockchain.

Blockchain technology is currently being experimented in sectors like agriculture, banking, healthcare, education, e-commerce, property, mining, retail, transport and logistics, media and entertainment, automotive, and the list goes on.

READ: Blockchain technology expected to tackle Africas challenges across industries

In a report credited to Pricewaterhouse Coopers, it stated that Blockchain technology would lead to substantial gains by pooling processes through a shared, encrypted database. Goldman Sachs considers that the consistent and coordinated use of Blockchain technology in banking could save the industry between US$ 3 billion and US$ 5 billion a year in KYC and anti-money laundering (AML) costs.

Explore Data on theNairametrics Research Website

Some of the advantages of Blockchain technology in businesses include;

READ: Has petroleum product deregulation finally come to roost?

Finally, it is important to note that Blockchain will assist in curbing global complexity by combining decentralization, security, and transparency.

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The benefits of using Blockchain technology in your company - Nairametrics

40 firms have used Shanghais blockchain-powered notary platform to handle over 3,000 cases since its launch in January.

According to Jiemian, the "Hui Cun" platform (which is managed by Shanghai Xuhui Notary Public) is a blockchain-based electronic data storage protocol that exercises notarization functions. It stores pictures, videos, and screen recordings on the platform via a blockchain network. These files are then preserved for use inlitigation.

Shanghais Xuhui Notary Public Office claim that the platform allows them transparently preserve evidence, and drop notarization costs by an average of 44%.

Pan Hao, director of the Xuhui Notary Public Office, commented on the blockchain platform:

Back in June, authorities of Suzhou, China alsoannounced a blockchain-powered pilot program that will provide the region with notary services. The program allegedly aims to help millions of citizens access legal and government offices via the internet, and covers services related to personal freedom, life, health, property rights, and more.

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These China-based notaries are using the Blockchain to manage their clients cases - Cointelegraph

Blockchain technology offers a way to 'see' the supply chain and its participants' conduct

Increasingly, automotive companies are utilising blockchain technology to gain transparency on supply chain issues such as CO2 emissions and the source of cobalt (which can comewith ethical questions surrounding the mining of precious minerals).

Mercedes-Benz, working with a blockchain specialist called Circulor, tracks the emissions of climate-relevant gases as well as the amount of secondary material along the complex supply chains of battery cell manufacturers.

A blockchain-based system maps the production flow of the materials as well as the associated CO2 emissions. In the long term, Mercedes-Benz is pursuing the goal of a circular economy and is working to close material cycles. For this purpose, the mapping of the material flow also records the amount of recycled material in the supply chain. Furthermore, the network also displays whether Mercedes' sustainability requirements in terms of working conditions, human rights, environmental protection, safety, business ethics and compliance are passed on to all companies involved. Mercedes says such a system can drive transparency in the supply chain beyond its direct contractual partners.

Mercedes says blockchain technology offers numerous advantages for the documentation of product and contract data. It links digital data records through encodings ("cryptography") and cannot be altered unnoticed. All participants in the supply chain are able to trace the integration, transmission and confirmation of information at any time. At the same time, confidential information remains protected. This is of particular relevance for complex and highly dynamic global supply chains, such as in battery cell production.

With "Ambition2039", Mercedes-Benz Cars aims for a carbon neutral new passenger car fleet in less than 20 years. This transformation, it says, requires detailed knowledge of all climate relevant processes associated with the entire vehicle value chain.

Last year Mercedes commissioned the development of a blockchain prototype for the supply chain. The aim was the consistent and transparent documentation of contracts across all tiers.

The placement of contract clauses in the blockchain creates a sustainable transaction book.

The placement of contract clauses in the blockchain creates a sustainable transaction book. The disclosure and confirmation of the Mercedes sustainability requirements can be retraced by all participants in the supply chain. Confidential information is not visible. The prototype creates trust in the integrity of the supply chain by disclosing sustainability-related information, without revealing competition relevant information. Should one of the sub-suppliers deviate from the contractual obligations, this becomes visible in the blockchain, similar to a secure accounting system.

Markus Schfer, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG and Mercedes-Benz AG, responsible for Group Research and Mercedes-Benz Cars Development, Procurement and Supplier Quality, said: "With Ambition2039, Mercedes-Benz Cars has set itself high goals. We can only get there in close cooperation with our suppliers. The key is transparency: It is our aspiration to make all processes transparent and traceable. We are the first manufacturer to use blockchain technology to map CO2 emissions in the global battery cell supply chain. In doing so, we are laying the cornerstone for effective improvements for the environment and for our businesses".

Geely-owned Volvo Cars is also working with Circulor. Circulor's blockchain technology is used throughout Volvo Cars' battery supply chain, which it says will achieve 100 per cent traceability of cobalt used in the XC40 Recharge P8, its first fully electric car. Production of the XC40 Recharge P8 will start later this year in Ghent, Belgium.

Volvo Cars has reached an agreement with its two global battery suppliers, CATL of China and LG Chem of South Korea, and leading global blockchain technology firms to implement traceability of cobalt. The agreements between Volvo Cars, CATL and LG Chem cover the supply of batteries over the coming decade for next generation Volvo and Polestar models, including the XC40 Recharge. In this particular case, data in the blockchain include the cobalt's origin, attributes such as weight and size, the chain of custody and information establishing that participants' behaviour is consistent with supply chain guidelines.

Volvo says it wants both companies to expand their focus beyond cobalt, for example by looking at increasing traceability of mica, a mineral used as isolation material in the battery pack of electric Volvos.

Volvo Cars and Circulor are also investigating the possibility to expand their blockchain technology cooperation to other areas, for example tracking and reducing CO2 footprints, helping Circulor to potentially set standards for ethical sourcing in automotive and other industries.

How does it work?

The original blockchain concept, as the name suggests, is a chain of time-stamped blocks or records (block = digital information; chain = the public/community database). Blocks store information about transactions. When a block stores new data - a transaction - it is added to the blockchain and, once verified by a peer-to-peer network of computers, anyone can see it (or it may be subject to the permission of a private network such as an OEM's supply chain - the 'distributed ledger').

However, all parties only have access to the information they have permission to see. Each computer in the blockchain network has its own copy of the blockchain. In principle though, the idea is to create a highly transparent system with zero transaction costs between the two parties creating a block.

The foundation of the Circulor platform is a distributed ledger - it's a private network, governed by a single entity.

The foundation of the Circulor platform is a distributed ledger - it's a private network, governed by a single entity. Circulor says complex business logic is coded and is supported by machine learning algorithms to verify the chain of custody, as well as other information necessary to demonstrate ('solve') requirements of responsible sourcing, verify chain of custody or underpin sustainability goals.

As material evolves through the supply chain, the Circulor system collects and verifies that the material flows follow the rules defined by its customers - eg sustainability or ethical sourcing. The blockchain database - or distributed ledger - is continually updated and resolved for its rules, copies on all computers in the network.

We can expect to see more automotive companies adopting blockchain processes - especially of the distributed ledger (ie private network) type - as a means to mitigating the risk of supply chain 'breaks' and understanding strengths and weaknesses along the chain, but also as a way to demonstrate increasing demands for compliance in regulatory areas such as sustainability.

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Blockchain technology on the rise for supply chain transparency - just-auto.com

Colleges and universities from small, local schools to elite research heavyweights perform a number of vital functions in American society. These institutions, because of their size and resources, are often fertile ground for new technologies and research advancements.

Blockchain technology benefits massively from university influence, and much of the evolution within the field has roots in institutions of higher education. As the space matures and finds a foothold in public consciousness, it is worthwhile to ask which schools are leading blockchain development.

To find out, CoinDesk researched and assembled a ranking of universities impacting the blockchain space in 2020.

The sample

We conducted an in-depth analysis of 46 of the top colleges and universities in the United States, evaluating their blockchain presence and leadership.

The methodology

Our primary goal was to create the most nuanced, rigorous and defensible blockchain university rankings to date. We used a mix of quantitative and qualitative data, relying on existing databases, university-provided information and public archives. We factored in more than 550 individual responses to a survey (sent out over the last few weeks), looked at more than 12,000 employees at more than 100 blockchain companies and pored over pages and pages of online search results. Ultimately, we organized all of our data into one of four umbrella categories, weighted as follows:

Of course, each category includes several subordinate subcategories. Each additional metric is designed to target a specific, unique facet of the value that universities are capable of bringing to the blockchain space. Some of this data was broken down even further, often for the purposes of normalization or to draw out additional nuance.

For those who are interested, a more in-depth explanation of our methodology is available here, but the chart below gives an abbreviated visual of the weighted breakdown within each of the umbrella categories:

The top schools on our list display a combination of academic strength, community respect, and measurable positive outcomes. These schools are located across the country and are held in high esteem for everything from their prowess in engineering, business, arts or the social sciences, to their political connections, to the quality of life afforded to their students and faculty. In most cases, it is a combination of factors.

The rankings

Six of the schools are public, 14 are private. Each institution is an excellent place to study and offers a litany of intangibles well beyond what can adequately be put down on paper. We hope that our final rankings will stimulate discussion, raise awareness of blockchain in the university setting and, above all, add value to the existing body of data surrounding this important topic.

Of course, these rankings paint an accurate but necessarily incomplete picture of the current state of blockchain in higher education. A targeted look at each individual school or even at our data set in full will provide a richer picture that can be obscured by a reductive ranking.

Each data point serves as a building block, helping to flesh out a complete and complicated image. For example (one of many we could proffer), our rankings consider but dont explicitly single out the two blockchain-related certifications available at two schools placed on our list (the minor in blockchain technology from USC and the fintech MBA specialization from NYU Stern). While rankings distill a large amount of data into an easily digestible list, the broader landscape is both complex and fascinating:

Please be sure to check out the rest of the CoinDesk 2020 University Package. As always, our commitment is to transparency, integrity and advancing the blockchain space. If your favorite school wasnt considered this time, we appreciate your patience while we work to expand our research to cover more schools both in the U.S. and globally.

A more in-depth look at our methodology is available here. We encourage thoughts, comments, criticisms and questions. Stay tuned for the 2021 CoinDesk University Rankings and other educational content in the future.

Link:

The Top Universities for Blockchain - CoinDesk - Coindesk

First blockchain-based EVGI Standard tackles energy and climate challenges by enabling a decentralized, electrified mobility future

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 6, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI)'s member-led Electric Vehicle Grid Integration (EVGI) Working Group created and launched the automotive industry's first global standard incorporating blockchain technology into a decentralized vehicle charging system.

The EVGI Working Group released its first technical design specification, which covers the system designs and data schemas required for three core use case areas: Vehicle to Grid Integration (V2G), Tokenized Carbon Credits (TCC), and Peer to Peer (P2P) applications. While MOBI's EVGI Standard does not prescribe any particular application or underlying distributed ledger technology (DLT), it ensures that pertinent data attributes and functionalities of each use case are available for organizations to utilize in creating their own applications.

"Implementing the EVGI Standard will provide a variety of benefits for players on all sides of the electric vehicle and charging ecosystem," said Tram Vo, MOBI's COO and Founder. "Electric vehicles, chargers, and electricity producers can have a secure identity, communicate with a standard messaging format, and automatically record transactions such as charging, generation, and exchange on a distributed ledger."

Created by a group of global automotive leaders, startups, and large technology companies, the EVGI Standard is a foundational step toward solving some of the most pressing climate and mobility challenges. MOBI's EVGI Working Group is chaired by Honda and General Motors (GM), with support from Accenture, CPChain, IBM, the IOTA Foundation, Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), Politecnico di Torino, and R3.

"Today's energy markets are undergoing a massive transition from centralized power generation in big power plants, towards more distributed and volatile power generation. Decentralization and the concept of direct P2P interaction is set to become a key factor in leveraging this new market and building meaningful tools for energy-conscious end customers. The goal is to enable scalable, user-centric energy communities. The EVGI Standard represents one of the first essential building blocks for founding such an ecosystem," said Christian Kbel, Senior Project Engineer at Honda R&D Europe.

MOBI's EVGI Standard enables a set of core network data services that will provide significant value to EV owners, charging infrastructure and grid operators by enabling secure, decentralized communication and immutable recordkeeping between data generating peers. This supports data transparency, trust, coordination, and automation among mobility service providers, consumers, utilities, and government stakeholders.

"Bringing together organizations from all sectors of the mobility industry to align on what the future of electric vehicles and their interaction with the grid looks like is no small feat. The work done by MOBI and the EVGI working group is a promising step, laying a strong foundation for the intersecting industries to align around and build on to accelerate the future of sustainable mobility and energy," said Mathew Yarger, Head of Mobility and Automotive at the IOTA Foundation.

In addition to the working group, formal verification experts thoroughly reviewed the EVGI Standard, assuring developers that their implementations adhere to the best practices in cyber security. MOBI hopes that applications enabled by this Standard will ultimately help lower carbon emissions, improve road safety, reduce traffic congestion, and support a host of other socially and environmentally beneficial outcomes.

About MOBI

MOBIis a nonprofit alliance of many of the world's largest automakers, along with many startups, NGOs, transit agencies, insurers, toll road providers, smart city leaders, and technology companies working to accelerate adoption and promote standards in blockchain, distributed ledgers,and related technologies.

MOBI is creating simple blockchain-based standards to identify cars, people, and businesses in order to securely exchange and monetize data, and pay for mobility services, with the goal of making transportation more efficient, affordable, greener, safer, and less congested. MOBI itself is technology and ledger agnostic. For additional information about joining MOBI, please reach out to Griffin Haskins ([emailprotected]) or visit http://www.dlt.mobi.

Media Contact:Kelly Clark, MOBI Communications ManagerEmail: [emailprotected]| Twitter: @dlt.mobi

SOURCE MOBI

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MOBI Announces the First Electric Vehicle Grid Integration Standard on Blockchain in Collaboration with Honda, PG&E, and GM Among Others - PRNewswire

Many people who have increasingly despaired at the adverse effects of changing climate have probably mused: Why cant we go completely green? Why are fossil fuels so hard to quit? The answers, as usual, are legion: Renewable energy is too expensive, too unreliable, too undeveloped and fossil fuels lack a suitable substitute. All of these reasons contain a modicum of truth. But our biggest challenge remains lack of political will because lowering our reliance on fossil fuels requires dedicated investments that provide uncertain, long-term benefits.

Indeed, scientists have continued making remarkable progress in ironing out one of the biggest kinks of clean energy: The intermittent and unpredictable nature of renewable energy.

Now, researchers have come up with yet another solution to make renewable energy more dependable: Renewable Energy trading platforms that leverage AI and blockchain technology.

Dutch scientists have successfully developed Distro, a solar and battery storage-based microgrid trading platform underpinned by blockchain distributed ledger technology and AI.

Distro is both good for the goose and the gander: The platform has demonstrated double-digit reductions in energy costs for customers as well as comparable revenue improvement for renewable energy producers.

High-frequency energy trading

The Distro Platform, developed by S&P Global Platts and Blocklab Rotterdam to support energy trading at very high frequencies, uses blockchain smart contracts to ensure all transactions are validated and immutable.

Distro is a high-frequency microgrid energy trading platform that leverages AI and blockchain by optimizing supply and ensuring it meets consumer demand in a highly granular manner. This is reflected in rapid changes in local energy prices. In other words, Distro incentivizes lower consumption during periods of low energy generation by lowering prices during high generation periods.

Related: The Geopolitical Power Of The Shale Revolution Is Fading

During the trial, Distro enabled an 11% reduction of energy costs for end-users while also boosting revenues by 14% for energy producers as well as increasing battery storage returns on investment by 20%.

Yet another benefit: Distro is able to significantly lower wastage, with 92% of all solar power generated in the dock consumed by local businesses.

In other words, everybody wins with Distro.

AI Powering a Clean Energy Revolution

Distro is not the first platform to demonstrate that cutting-edge technologies such as AI and blockchain can be deployed to significantly improve the reliability of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.

From utilities employing AI and machine learning to predict power fluctuations and cost optimization to companies using IoT sensors for early fault detection and wildfire powerline/gear monitoring, here are real-life cases of how these bleeding edge technologies continue to power an energy revolution even during the pandemic.

#1. Innowatts: Energy monitoring and management The Covid-19 crisis has triggered an unprecedented decline in power consumption. Not only has overall consumption fallen but there have also been major shifts in power usage patterns, with sharp decreases by businesses and industries while domestic use has increased as more people work from home.

Houston, Texas-based Innowatts, is a startup that has developed an automated toolkit for energy monitoring and management. The companys eUtility platform ingests data from more than 34 million smart energy meters across 21 million customers, including major U.S. utility companies such as Arizona Public Service Electric, Portland General Electric, Avangrid, Gexa Energy, WGL, and Mega Energy. Innowatts says its machine learning algorithms are able to analyze the data to forecast several critical data points, including short- and long-term loads, variances, weather sensitivity, and more.

Related: The Energy Sectors Most Threatened By A Biden Presidency

Innowatts estimates that without its machine learning models, utilities would have seen inaccuracies of 20% or more on their projections at the peak of the crisis, thus placing enormous strain on their operations and ultimately driving up costs for end-users.

#2. Google: Boosting the value of wind energy

A while back, we reported that proponents of nuclear energy were using the pandemic to highlight its strong points vis-a-vis the short-comings of renewable energy sources. To wit, wind and solar are the least predictable and consistent among the major energy sources, while nuclear and natural gas boast the highest capacity factors.

Well, one tech giant has figured out how to employ AI to iron out those kinks.

Three years ago, Google announced that it had reached 100% renewable energy for its global operations, including its data centers and offices. Today, Google is the largest corporate buyer of renewable power, with commitments totaling 2.6 gigawatts (2,600 megawatts) of wind and solar energy.

In 2017, Google teamed up with IBM to search for a solution to the highly intermittent nature of wind power. Using IBMs DeepMind AI platform, Google deployed ML algorithms to 700 megawatts of wind power capacity in the central United States--enough to power a medium-sized city.

IBM says that by using a neural network trained on widely available weather forecasts and historical turbine data, DeepMind is now able to predict wind power output 36 hours ahead of actual generation. Consequently, this has boosted the value of Googles wind energy by roughly 20 percent.

A similar model can be used by other wind farm operators to make smarter, faster, and more data-driven optimizations of their power output to better meet customer demand.

IBMs DeepMind uses trained neural networks to predict wind power output 36 hours ahead of actual generation

Source: DeepMind

#3. Wildfire powerline and gear monitoring

In June, Californias biggest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, found itself in deep trouble. PG&E pleaded guilty for the tragic 2018 wildfire accident that left 84 people dead and, consequently, was slapped with hefty penalties of $13.5 billion as compensation to people who lost homes and businesses and another $2 billion fine by the California Public Utilities Commission for negligence.

Needless to say, its going to be a long climb back to the top for the fallen giant after its stock crashed nearly 80% following the disaster despite the company emerging from bankruptcy in July.

Perhaps the loss of lives and livelihood could have been averted if PG&E had invested in some AI-powered early detection system.

One such system is being worked on by a startup called VIA, based in Somerville, Massachusetts. VIA says it has developed a blockchain-based app that can predict when vulnerable power transmission gear such as transformers might be at risk in a disaster. VIAs app makes better use of energy data sources, including smart meters or equipment inspections.

Another comparable product comes from Korean firm Alchera which uses AI-based image recognition in combination with thermal and standard cameras to monitor power lines and substations in real-time. The AI system is trained to watch the infrastructure for any abnormal events such as falling trees, smoke, fire, and even intruders.

Other than utilities, oil and gas producers have also been integrating AI into their operations. These include:

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:

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How AI And Blockchain Are Driving The Energy Transition - OilPrice.com

Blockchain, with promise of immutability, transparency, security, interoperability, etc., allows us to exploit otherwise unused resources, trade the un-tradable, and allow new ecosystems that were not possible before.

By Sanjay Pathak

Blockchain today is still in its infancy, and its mainstream value is yet to be realised. While, its for sure that blockchain will disrupt the existing solutions, not only in industry and commerce but in almost all aspects of our day-to-day lives, it cannot do so just by itself. Same holds true for Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The underlying fact is that to get the real value new-age emerging technologies such as blockchain, AI and IoT have to work in tandem. As we begin to understand the new normal in the midst of the corona pandemic, it will be important to draw value from any digital transformation that firms undertake. Businesses will have to think beyond their domain and scope to provide services which are of actual value to consumers.

How can this happen? IoT has brought new and cheaper ways to communicate with things which was not fathomable in the past. Blockchain, with promise of immutability, transparency, security, interoperability, etc., allows us to exploit otherwise unused resources, trade the un-tradable, and allow new ecosystems that were not possible before. The new entrant AI (inclusive of machine/deep learning, vision, NLP, robots or autonomous machines etc.) has already started to deliver great value to many industries, so much so as to reduce or even replace the human element. Further advancement in 5G communication is a positive catalyst to this ecosystem.

However, these technologies, with a disjointed ecosystem or industries siloed approach towards them, may not reach their full potential. In the above combination, data becomes the common driving factor. While IoT is producing data from new sources and sensors, blockchain is safeguarding and ensuring immutability, and the AI layer on top is helping deliver new business meanings and outcomes in almost real-time. In summary, data value chain comes from new technologies enabling collection, sharing, security, immutability, analysis, and automation of decisions with minimal human involvement.

Lets run this model on a practical consumer problem of provenance the classic Farm to Table use case. The big questions that need solutions are with respect to quality, credibility, genuineness, safety, increase in efficiency and warranting correct distribution of revenue. IoT takes care of conditions maintained in farms with respect to temperature, humidity, soil nutrients and growth progress, and also conditions at processing centres and logistics. All this information can be stored on blockchain-based smart contracts. AI-based engine on top of this, with feeds from weather systems, etc., can trigger and automatically execute smart contracts and take required action based on pre-agreed rules, including payments, etc. In an adverse event like an outbreak at any stage, the source could be easily traced and isolated. Next, this can be extended to insurance and forward commodity trading using a trade setup, thus bringing real value from agriculture, supply chain, financial services, insurance and other industries combined.

IoT has come a long way in improving the type of sensors, size and cost and even their usage in some industries; the real consumer centric benefits can be manifold. AI faces the challenge of accuracy, trust and confidence over replacement by the human cognitive mind. Building such ecosystems without regulatory pressure, is not easy if not impossible. This is one of the primary factors for blockchain and other similar transformative technologies not gaining mainstream acceptance or adoption.

Lets also keep an eye on Quantum Computing breakthroughs, as this not only threatens the key features of these emerging technologies, but will severely impact best of encryption, security and cryptography that exists today. Which means any industry, digital ecosystems, IT infrastructure will have to evolve at a rapid pace before they get negatively impacted.

The writer is head Blockchain, Healthcare & Insurance Practice, 3i Infotech

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Future reality: Triad of Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence & Blockchain in action - The Financial Express

Editors Note: While the writer filed this story before the magnitude of the global pandemic was known, the subject matter is even more vital now. Because if living with COVID-19 has brought to light anything, it is the importance of an unbroken fresh food supply chain. What follows are seven supplychainindustry experts weighing in on blockchain, sharing their unique perspectives regarding challenges and adoption, with a focus on the fresh food supplychain.

On Jan. 4, 2011, President Barack Obama signed into law the Food and Drug Administration Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). One provision of the Act was that theFDA will have access to records, including industry food safety plans and the records firms will be required to keep documenting implementation of their plans. The intention of this mandate was clearly to safeguard the health and safety of the American public.

But there is a problem here. These records are stored all over the country on paper, in file cabinets located in thousands of places. So when there is a serious problem of contamination with, say romaine lettuce as there was in November 2018, and again in November 2019, this explains why it can take the FDA 45 to 60 days backtracking just to locate the records, with potentially thousands of farms under review for contamination. If these records were accessible through blockchain, the potential contaminated farms would be whittled down from thousands to less than 10, and identified within a matter of seconds.

Reasons like this make a strong use case for blockchain; it is why so many food supplychainindustry leaders are focused on establishing a universally accepted blockchain platform, with particular focus on the fresh food supplychain.

Building a blockchain ecosystem for the fresh food supplychain, by bringing manufacturers, distributors, retailers and suppliers together is a seemingly insurmountable challenge to many of us involved in the industry. Let alone factoring the entire supplychainfor food and beverage, and all consumer goods.

Luckily, there are those people who do have a keen perspective on blockchain, with not only an optimistic view of it, but solutions as well. I had the opportunity to interview seven key supply chain thought leaders on the subject of blockchain and the fresh food supply chain. These were: John Haggerty, vice president, Business Development, Burris Logistics; Steve Tracey, executive director, Center for Supply Chain Research at Penn State Smeal College of Business; Kevin Otto, senior director, Community Engagement, GS1 US; Rick Stein, vice president, Fresh Foods, Food Marketing Institute; Rick Blasgen, president and CEO, Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals; David Shillingford, CEO, Rising Tide Digital & Team Member, Resilience360; and Stephen Rogers, vice president, Blockchain Initiatives for Supply Chain, IBM.

Their viewpoints were diverse, reflecting their respective roles in the industry. And their responses were incisive and broad-reaching, with a very practical perspective on what is expected to realize a universal blockchain platform.

John Haggerty Vice President, Business Development, Burris Logistics

Burris Logistics operates an expanding network of temperature-controlled warehousing and distribution centers from Florida to Massachusetts, also expanding west to Oklahoma. The company provides leading-edge logistics, transportation and supply chain solutions coast to coast through four distinct business units: Custom Distribution, PRW Plus (Public Refrigerated Warehousing), Trinity Logistics (transportation and freight management), and Honor Foods (a redistributor of frozen, refrigerated and dry food service products).

There are systems of data exchange already in place in the fresh food supplychainthat support blockchain.The GS1-128 barcode, for example, used in the meat industry, provides a global standard for exchanging data between different companies, enabling serialization and expiration to be encoded. Some seafood products, such as scallops fished in the North Atlantic, are tagged with GPS coordinates, recording location, date and time when harvested. Like the data acquired from the produce inspection capability and our customer portal, GS1-128 information is readymade for integration with the blockchain.

We are constantly testing ourselves and readying ourselves to partner with those vendors and customers who want to integrate with blockchain. But as a solution provider, we are a participant in the process. We are blockchain ready, but those suppliers producing the products and those retailers receiving the products need to be the initiators of blockchain.

Utilizing blockchain to validate temperature-controlled services and product integrity is an extremely valid and attractive option. But only a small percentage of participants in the fresh produce supply chain, such as Dole and Driscolls, provide continuous tracking of products from producer to the retailer via blockchain.

The challenge with blockchain in temperature-controlled foods, and indeed for the entire supplychain, is more fundamental than integrating blockchain-enabled companies, it is system standardization.Establishing a universal language with developed and managed standards from a recognized independent standards agency, which enables the openness like we enjoy with the Internet is where we need to focus our efforts. A uniform standard for blockchain is still a long ways away from being ready and effective across multiple channels.

Steve Tracey Executive Director, Center for SupplyChainResearch,Penn State Smeal College of Business

The Center for SupplyChainResearch connects researchers and professionals from leading organizations within a community that is shaping the future of the supplychaindiscipline. It is member strong and intellectually active in many facets of supplychainmanagement and the enabling technologies used for collaboration, visibility and integration.

The underlying technology of blockchain is a distributed ledger technology and encryption, which has been around for a while. It got popularized with bitcoin, and although it uses the same underlying technology, it is almost completely the obverse of how it is used for bitcoin. In a bitcoin use case, the trans-actors are anonymous, and the transactions are public, across a large network base. In a supplychain, the trans-actors are public, and the transactions are private, across a very small network base. You might have 50,000 or more network nodes around a bitcoin transaction, and in a supplychainuse case you are talking about much smaller numbers, maybe 10s or 100s.

Where I see blockchain being applicable in the long run are things like smart contracts. Blockchain could potentially speed up procure-to-pay systems, which would make the velocity of money and the speed of transactions go much faster, and significantly reduce administrative overhead.

Another great use case is chain of custody in the food business. Being able to track and trace chain of custody from point of origin to point of use. This is another case where you could have big data streams managed with data integrity, creating a high trust value.

From a data security perspective, one of the myths about blockchain is that it is perfectly accurate. It is not. If you put bad data into a blockchain, the only way to correct that bad data is to go back and append that block with the correct data. So blockchain doesnt eliminate data quality issues. What it does do is encrypt data in a way you can trust the data. The combination of the encryption technology, the blockchain itself, and the distributed ledger system, where you are actually verifying the same data on multiple nodes in the network, creates a high level of data trust. As long as you put the right data in, and it is verified from the nodes in the network, you have a high level of trust that the data as input is trustworthy.

The wide adoption of blockchain, in particular use cases, is going to come from pilots through networks of different organizations figuring out actual data sustainability models, and getting all the right players onto the network where they all have buy-in, and actually have a vested interest in having the data. To work, I believe it will need to be a win-win scenario, with the ability for everyone in the network to see value in both contributing and drawing data from the system.

Kevin Otto Senior Director, Community Engagement, GS1 US

GS1 US is a not-for-profit information standards organization. With more than 300,000 members, GS1 standards are the most widely used supplychainstandards in the world. GS1 US administers the Universal Product Code (U.P.C.) barcode, as well as other information standards and data carriers.

In our cross-industry blockchain discussions encompassing healthcare, food service, retail grocery, apparel and general merchandise, supply chain visibility is the first use case that companies are looking at to see how blockchain can fit into their operations. Because GS1 already has universally accepted standards in place for visibility that can be used in blockchain, and other data sharing mechanisms, we are in a unique position to foster interoperability between blockchain users. Essentially, GS1 Standards are fundamental to the evolution of blockchain.

Because of consumer demand to know more about the quality and origin of the foods they are purchasing, we are seeing a considerable increase in discussions around the ability to constantly monitor the quality of food products as they go through the supply chain, and then feed this information into a blockchain. This need is making it less practical to record and maintain this information paper-based, while at the same time it presents a barrier to getting participants onboard to record this data digitally, like at the farm level where they may not be electronically equipped.

In food, companies in the supplychaindefinitely have to know where a product came from and where it went, per FDA and USDA guidelines. Since GS1 Standards are broadly adopted in the food industry, these standards are being shared electronically, by and large. The challenge of getting smaller upstream suppliers (farmers and other producers) to use GS1 Standards for identifying, capturing and sharing information is therefore a first-step and prime concern, while the challenges of adopting blockchain are being discussed and evaluated. One-hundred percent supplychainvisibility cannot be achieved without all participants in a blockchain ecosystem on-board with the same standards of capturing and reporting data. I think it is necessary to have bigger players come forward to push and facilitate smaller participant companies to come to the table.

Essentially, the food industry, as well as other supply chain sectors, is engaged in utilizing other systems to achieve supply chain visibility, until they figure out exactly the best way to leverage blockchain technology.

Rick Stein- Vice President, Fresh Foods, Food Marketing Institute

The Food Marketing Institute (FMI) advocates on behalf of the food retail industry, which employs nearly5 million workersand represents a combinedannual sales volume of almost $800 billion. FMI member companies operate nearly33,000 retail food storesand12,000 pharmacies.

FMI guidance to its members is to work with their supply chain partners and focus on prevention of contamination, increase communication with FDA and supply chain partners, and provide simple and agreed-upon data elements for traceability and flexibility in how those data elements are shared. Our members want to be able to make technology choices on their own, and we fully expect technology to advance as it has done so in the past.

We firmly believe in the importance of the safety of products and the increased use of technology as a tool to share information among supply chain partners. Our members will choose which technologies they adopt but are moving toward the ability to trace their products back to its origins. Blockchain is among some of the technologies used, but its the data within that is critical to the success.

Rick Blasgen President and CEO, Council of SupplyChainManagement Professionals (CSCMP)

CSCMP is a network of more than 6,000 global supply chain professional members worldwide. It is the preeminent worldwide professional association dedicated to the advancement and dissemination of research and knowledge on supply chain management.

To me, blockchain is almost like RFID was some years ago. We have this technology that is probably ahead of business practice. People dont know exactly what to do with it.

There are a lot of pilots and use cases in progress, people trying to figure out how the technology and the business process will work. But at this point, who knows where it will go. It is a bit of a leap of faith, in a way. But, this is how new ways of doing business are accomplished.

As a technology which is enabling movement of data between partners, if blockchain produces productivity and offers a more accurate and secure way of transacting business, it will lend toward being accepted by the supplychain. The question to be asked is: What do I get out of it that improves my business process?

I think the track-and-trace capability will be the main draw for blockchain. Greater visibility into where the inventory has been, and where it is, at any time, in the supplychainwill increase productivity. This will drive supplychainleaders to pilot it, and try to figure out how to best employ it in their supplychain.

David Shillingford CEO Rising Tide Digital, Team Member, Resilience360

Resilience360, was developed in DHLs Global Innovation Center, and has since become an independent company receiving venture funding from Columbia Capital. The company is an innovative supplychainrisk management software platform that helps businesses predict, assess, mitigate and react to supplychaindisruptions and delays.

There are a number of different ways that blockchain relates to supplychainrisk. Ultimately, at the heart of it is having accurate supplychainvisibility that you can trust, and sharing this data with all parties involved. This can be done with todays technology, but in some cases, can be done better with blockchain, because it is data that can be trusted.

This extends to the legality and paperwork associated with product movement. When a container is moving from point A to point B, specific financial transactions relate to what is in the container, who owns it at any particular point on the Earth and having location verification. This permits financial transactions to be initiated through smart contracts, which would be difficult to do without blockchain.

Today, the state-of-the-art of supplychainrisk management encompasses bringing together two sets of data. One relates to supplychainassets, which could be manufacturing locations or distribution centers, or the shipments that are made between them. This, of course, is being mapped or tracked in real-time in the system. But this is then overlaid with future risk indicators or information about an event that has happened that might be a disruption to the supplychain. These can include weather and geological disruptions, labor issues, political upheavals, anything that might disrupt the supplychain.

This level of insight and analytics brings together what a companys supply chain looks like in real-time, combined with what might happen to it given known data. Ultimately what a company wants to know is what it should be concerned about and the actions it should take to mitigate any disruptive events. At its core, a blockchain-enabled supply chain can outperform traditional supply chains because it is powered by accurate data, leading to better evaluation and decision making.

Stephen Rogers Vice President, Blockchain Initiatives for Supply Chain, IBM

Since 2016, IBM has worked with hundreds of clients across financial services, supply chain, government, retail, digital rights management and healthcare to implement blockchain applications, and operates a number of networks running live and in production. The cloud-based IBM Blockchain Platform delivers the end-to-end capabilities that clients need to quickly activate and successfully develop, operate, govern and secure their own business networks. IBM is an early member of Hyperledger, an open-source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies.

The Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain are going to be almost interchangeable because they will be working so closely together in the future. Right now they are viewed as two separate technologies, but they are going to come together. I would even describe blockchain as the most likely operating system for IoT networks because of its ability to provide security.

Food, and its supplychain, is one of those that you really want to make it an industry solution. Because having gaps in your information between the store that is selling it, and the farm that produced it, means you really dont have a solution. You need to have information of where it was grown, where it was shipped to, and if there was any kind of an aggregation point, where that was shipped to for packaging, and where it was shipped for distribution and then shipped to the stores. You want to make sure you can capture all of that information.

Walmart is starting out with a blockchain pilot with leafy greens, because of the past problems that have occurred with recalls. So IBM is out there with Food Trust, the first and biggest blockchain solution associated with food. (Food Trust is an IBM blockchain-based solution that brought together a host of companies in the food industry into a network, including supply chain services companies.)

The technology of blockchain still has a ways to grow. It still needs to be able to support higher levels of transactional throughput. There are a lot of people who describe blockchain as the golden hammer. It is not that. It is a technology. Just like robotic process automation or hybrid cars or AI, it addresses a specific set of problems. Its just that these problems happen to be big intractable problems, so it is really important.

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Jim McMahon is CEO of ZebraCom, Inc. He writes on industrial and technology solutions, and his features have appeared in more than 2,500 trade and business publications worldwide. You can reach him at jim.mcmahon@zebracom.net.

More:

7 Industry Experts Weigh In On Blockchain and the Fresh Food Supply Chain - Global Trade Magazine

Blockchains are less buzzworthy than they were a couple of years ago, and for good reason the price you pay for a blockchain's immutability compared to the price of a database plus human oversight isn't worth it. Jesse Frederik wrote about the decline of blockchains for The Correspondent:

Out of over 86,000 blockchain projects that had been launched, 92% had been abandoned by the end of 2017,according to consultancy firm Deloitte.

Why are they deciding to stop? Enlightened and thus former blockchain developer Mark van Cuijk explained: "You could also use a forklift to put a six-pack of beer on your kitchen counter. But it's just not very efficient."

I disagree with one of his points about bitcoin, arguably the only successful blockchain application. He writes:

OK, so with bitcoin, banks can't just remove money from your account at their own discretion. But does this really happen? I have never heard of a bank simply taking money from someone's account. If a bank did something like that, they would be hauled into court in no time and lose their license. Technically it's possible; legally, it's a death sentence.

In 2013 residents of Cyprus found that their bank savings had been instantly reduced by 10% when the government decided to take it. And the IRS regularly orders banks to hand over money from the accounts of people who owe taxes. No one can take bitcoin without having the private key to authorize a transaction.

Aside from that quibble, this article foes a good job of explaining all the reasons why a regular old database is almost always better than a blockchain.

Read the rest here:

Blockchain, the amazing solution for almost nothing - Boing Boing

TAIPEI, Taiwan, Oct. 6, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --Maxonrow hosted the closing ceremony of its first-ever Hackathon, MAXathon, on October 3, 2020. People from over 30 countries participated and seventeen pre-selected teams pitched their blockchain for healthcare solutions to a jury of seven people, and five teams won from a 15,000 euro prize pool.

The Winners

There was one winner per each of the five challenges Maxonrow set participants to solve for MAXathon.

For the first track, Physical Distancing, the winner was team "Move-Safe." They created an algorithm that determines a safety score and creates a live map that will allow people to avoid crowded places.

The winners of the second track, Credential, and Certificate Issuance, were team "VeCura '' who came up with a solution using Maxonrow's Blockchain to store test results on the blockchain.

The winners of the third track, Welfare, were team "Well and Fair", an application where anyone can directly apply for a grant or stimulus package that best suits their needs.

The winners of the fourth track, Virtualizing the New Norm, were team 010. The project uses zero-knowledge cryptography to form cryptographic commitments and proofs of identity.

The prize for the final track UI/UX was awarded to team "Med-Chain" a machine learning-powered platform that will provide the best supply chain solutions for medical organizations

World-Class Judges and Mentors

Seven judges were responsible for choosing the winners from a pool of over 40+ submitted projects. The judges were:

Nineteen mentors accompanied participants during the month-long hackathon by having 1-1 sessions to discuss their projects:

What's Next?

MAXathon was a great success at leading blockchain enthusiasts to create solutions for pandemics. Maxonrow will continue planning events that cater to its growing developer community and have a real social impact.

SOURCE Maxonrow

Read more from the original source:

Maxonrow Awards Five Prizes to Innovative Blockchain for Healthcare Solutions - PRNewswire

Proof-of-stake blockchain NEM (XEM) is preparing for a token migration in December alongside the public launch of the Symbol (XYM) blockchain.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, NEM Group CIO and NEM Ventures managing director, Dave Hodgson, revealed that Symbol will host at least two products at launch.

Symbol will host the Wave Financial Whiskey Fund, which offers a tokenized representation of ownership in 25,000 barrels of 2020-vintage bourbon worth more than $4 million. The platform will also host LBCOIN, collectible crypto assets that commemorate Lithuanias 1918 declaration of independence issued by the countrys central bank. Both products were previously hosted on NEM.

Hodgson highlighted the benefits that fractionalization will offer traditional asset classes, noting that Waves whiskey fund will offer investors exposure to an asset class that would traditionally be very hard to access if you couldnt afford to go and buy 4,000 barrels of whiskey.

The executive also predicted that fractional ownership will offer investors in emerging markets like Africa and South-East Asia greater access to equities products, highlighting the efficiency saving blockchain offers to the sector:

[Equities] are ripe for disruption, the current model is too siloed and the mechanisms by which equities are transferred is too slow and too expensive.

Hodgson described Symbol as a hybrid blockchain built for enterprises with a focus on interoperability and security tokens.

Symbol can be deployed as either a public or private chain, offering enterprises guarantees that sensitive proprietary information will not be broadcast across an open blockchain network.

The blockchain facilitates cross-chain swaps between the Ethereum and Bitcoin blockchains, with plans to support additional networks in the future. Hodgson emphasized the importance of cross-chain interoperability among institutions, noting expectations that the future will bring a crypto ecosystem comprising multiple specialized blockchains operating in symbiosis.

XEM holders can convert their tokens into XYM at a 1:1 ratio in December, however, they must opt-in for the snapshot beforehand.

Read the rest here:

Symbol blockchain to host whisky fund and central bank collectibles at launch - Cointelegraph

The Bank of Thailand launched the worlds first blockchain-based government savings bond issuance platform using IBMs blockchain technology.

Within two weeks of the launch, the central bank sold more than $1.6 billion worth of savings bonds, as per IBMs official announcement on Oct. 5, 2020.

The use of blockchain technology is said to have reduced the bond issuance time from 15 days to just two days. The increased efficiency of the process has also reduced operational cost and redundant validation of documents involved in bond issuance.

IBM along with the central bank collaborated with seven other institutions including Public Debt Management Office, Thailand Securities Depository Co., Thai Bond Market Association and four other banks.

The Bank of Thailand may soon extend the use of blockchain technology across all other government-issued bonds for retail and wholesale investors.

The Thai central bank has been actively involved in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space. In June, the bank launched a pilot test for its central bank digital currency the digital baht to test it with large-scale enterprises. The following month, the bank was also reported to be planning to use its digital currency to transact with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.

The Bank of Thailand is also pursuingsmart contracts and decentralized finance use cases for its national digital currency.

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Thai central bank issues $1.6B in government bonds on IBM blockchain - Cointelegraph