Can a president jump the line for an organ transplant?
Not with Blockchain !
If you watched the season 4 of popular Netflix series House of the Cards, President Frank Underwood was shot through the abdomen and needed a heart transplant to survive. In this fictional series, President's right hand man strong arms a cabinet secretary to move the president to the top of a waiting list for a transplant. The president gets his liver, and a man he jumped in line dies.
Whether in real life, this is even possible can be debated. It seems certainly possible in other countries where rich and powerful always get preferential treatment.
Some of my students at San Jose State University computer engineering department have explored application of blockchain technology to prototype a solution to address the problem. IBM Blockchain solution is taking Hyperledger technology to the next level, enabling developers to create solutions beyond its obvious use cases in Fintech industry. Anyone can try IBM Hyperledger fabric the following two ways:
- Build with an IBM-signed and tested image from Docker Hub
- Build, run and manage live in IBM Bluemix cloud
OrganDonation-Chain - According to UNOS which manages Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network(OPTN), 115,873 people are waiting in line for lifesaving organ transplant. Even though the system is designed to be impenetrable to tampering, the system is opaque. If UNOS assigns an organ to someone, we just need to trust UNOS that it assigned the organ to the person at the top of the list. This calls for an increase in transparency.
This project, Organ Chain, is a prototype application that tracks an organ from its donation to transplant with blockchain technology. It was also selected as one of the finalists project in the 2017 Silicon Valley Innovation Challenge.
Take a look at the Github project and reach out to the students if you are interested to collaborate with them. In the past, my students have also implemented a blockchain transaction network called BloodLine on the supply of blood using Hyperledger project, which drew attention from few Non governmental organizations (NGOs). One thing is sure that, blockchain technology is bringing opportunity to apply IT on the problems of mankind with trust and transparency.