Insights on use cases for Blockchain

While putting together a session on latest technology trends and use cases there was many a choice and healthy debate.

Across the world, There has been a lot interest and talk around Blockchain, Crypto currency and when we were planning the best topic,sessions for the upcoming chapter meetup , Blockchain came up as No.1 on the list.

Of course we had to ensure that we got a great panel and kept the focus around the Technology, Learning about the use cases and whats the real progress and adoption.

India and even ASEAN needs this new technology to solve the many pressing challenges being faced in both private industry and PPP, Govt agencies.

The fact that large organizations are hiring, training and adopting Blockchain is a great sign. In India Coursera offers a very popular course through IBM on Blockchain which has CXO's taking it up.. High validation indeed!!

On 28th March 2018, At the Bengaluru Techinasia chapter, We hosted a very interesting session on Blockchain applications with a very immersive audience and a great panel of knowledge experts.

The full house at One.Cowork were very eager to understand the applications and technology that is making Blockchain the hottest new technology .

The kickoff was by me, Chapter Lead Vijetha Shastry explaining about the TIA Chapter and community building, Knowledge sharing that is the core focus of the chapter being driven by Volunteers.. the outreach and organizing partner Fame Technologies was also introduced to the audience.

The panel had Subir Mansukhani from Clutch.ai and Ashish Agarwal , advisor for Signzy and the discussion was moderated by Vijetha

Ashish highlighted about the strong “ Digital Trust “ that is built around Blockchain which is basically a “ Digital Ledger Technology( DTL).

Subir spoke about how the convergence of various technologies is going to have a massive impact on how we work

Some of the insights and knowledge sharing to put forth to our audience which will be of great use going forward:

-                 The Big tech giants like IBM, Microsoft, Accenture are building this technology and advocating the use of Blockchain technology.

o  What does this mean : There is huge commercial value as more SME's, Large Enterprises , Govt's start adopting Blockchain for documentation, Customs clearances, Payment clearances, Insurance, Creating ids,reducing cost and time for transactions.

o   Other testimonials/ Headlines to prove Blockchain adoption :FDA partners with blockchain for secure exchange of healthcare data

o  Unilever, the multi-billion dollar transnational consumer goods conglomerate, is teaming up with a number of fintech companies to develop a blockchain-based tem that “will track and verify contracts for farmers in Malawi that supply tea to Unilever.” This proves that logistics, Supply chain is going to use Blockchain very effectively over the years.

-         Globally too, The UN agency is using blockchain to ensure seamless payments to refugees.This is of very high impact in Yemen and Syria and will help lessen the sufferings of millions of displaced people across the world.

What are the headlines around Blockchain?

-         The Dubai Govt has announced that by 2020 , Blockchain would be the platform for all Govt services . Dubai will become the first government in the world to execute all its transactions on Blockchain by 2020 And the very compelling reason which is a food for thought to many Govt's ..  The emirate strongly believes using the new technology to conduct its business will make it more efficient and burnish its business-friendly image which is important for Dubai to lead the GCC as the Financial center .

-         In India, CXO’s are taking courses and learning about Blockchain Tech. This is of very high importance and impact..With this greater understanding , growth In adoption will increase among companies across India .

-         There is convergence around AI,  IoT and Blockchain and many industries are driving the increased usage . The very essence of reducing wastage and preventing hacking is the premise of Blockchain.. Blockchains also typically utilize the most advanced and up-to-date data security standards to store data. All of the information logged into a blockchain ledger is automatically cryptographically encrypted. This ledger collects an unbreakable, non-refutable record of data that can be accessed by anyone in the network.

-         Another benefit of using blockchains to power supply chains, versus conventional ‘human-powered’ alternatives, is that blockchains are inherently automatable. By using an algorithm, we can minimize human intervention within a supply chain. Furthermore, we can eliminate antiquated processes, like pen-and-paper, and fully transition to a digital accounting ledger.

-         Increase in workshops organized around sharing Blockchain tech and learning in India is creating a large community of devlopers who are creating stronger platforms and adopting this tech in their startups and Enterprises.

-         Industry bodies like NASSCOM are working closely with the Govt of India , Blockchain leaders to ensure that all queries are being answered around this new Tech and webinars,workshops are on the increase.

-         Another important use case..The distributed nature of blockchain ledgers provide a number of security advantages over typical data warehouses. Given that blockchain networks have no single access point (for infiltration), the threats of hacking is greatly diminished.

-         Healthcare : Blockchains can be used to automatically authorize information exchanged among insurance companies, patients and hospitals.This change will allow all stakeholders within the healthcare system to sync in real-time, as well as greatly reduce the amount of human touch points. Implemented at scale, we can remove the error of human bias and maintain cleaner, more accurate transactional databases.

What this means is that apart from the hype of bitcoins , several sectors/ use cases  including Land title, Insurance payments, Auto Vehicle financing, Secure logistics, Voter Ids, cross border payments, Healthcare etc will see adoption and use of Blockchain technology platforms.

After the interesting panel discussion and Q and A , 6 startups who are using the tech behind blockchain gave a quick 5 minute pitch/ demo about their product and services to the audience.

This was well received and proved that Blockchain is gaining traction in India.

Our insight on whats next : Blockchain Technology will continue gaining a wider rate of adoption. The benefits are huge to reduce wastage, increase efficiency and reduce cost of transactions for Enterprises as well as Govt’s .

An interesting evening and keen interest was shown to get the TIA chapter to put together more meetups soon on emerging new Tech like AR/VR and AI .

Watch this space for many more fantastic meetups and knowledge sessions coming from TechInasia.