Why Global Standards Drive Digital Innovation - The Digital Economy Weekly #8

This week, our team at the Blockchain Research Institute (BRI) was excited to welcome the InterWork Alliance (IWA) to our global network of blockchain experts, researchers, and innovators. Over the years, the blockchain ecosystem has moved from explorative interest, to experimentation and pilots, to a new era where companies are grouping together to categorize these latent technologies and develop industry standards. This new phase of digital disruption is vitally important, because without global standards, industry transformation on a global scale will remain out of reach.

The InterWork Alliance is one such association pushing for global standards: an independent, technology-neutral, cross-industry association determined to simplify and standardize how multi-party interchanges are accomplished across technology platforms. Organizations like these are a requirement for any emerging technology looking to capture the minds of global industries, and lead towards meaningful implementation.

Without standards, any new technology is liable to splinter off into a thousand siloed communities of innovation. This is an important part of any innovation cycle, at least in the beginning, however, if these communities become too entrenched, we end up with a network of technologies that need each other, but can't talk to each other, or be easily integrated by the legacy systems that are long overdue for an update. Each of these communities have their own languages, special tools, and specialized developers. It becomes a nightmare for enterprises looking to experiment with new technologies, let alone implement them in a meaningful capacity on the industry level.

The pursuit of standards allow us to bridge the gap between these incredible communities of innovation, and the enterprises that would benefit from using their solutions. They allow us to translate a diverse set of innovative tools into a framework that legacy systems can understand. With proper standards, communities of innovation can understand and build off of each other. More importantly, enterprises will be able to work together to transform their industries, and realize new avenues of untapped value, by collaborating to implement technologies like blockchain on a global scale.

Partnerships with companies like the InterWork Alliance highlight the importance of standards in the blockchain ecosystem, and for emerging technology in general. In the words of Ron Resnick, President of the InterWork Alliance, “This is a time of great opportunity. Companies want to be able to create token-based business models without having a platform technology in mind. Collaborating through affiliate membership provides more opportunities for our organizations to work more closely together as the Alliance works to deliver a proven, standard approach that is required to bring consumer trust into this space.”

I hope you enjoy this week's newsletter and I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

-Don

News from the Blockchain Research Institute

InterWork Alliance Joins the Blockchain Research Institute as an Affiliate Member

We are excited to welcome the InterWork Alliance (IWA) as our latest Affiliate Member. As a Blockchain Research Institute Affiliate Member, the IWA will join our global community of blockchain technology experts, researchers, and innovators.

The IWA's global membership includes leaders, adopters, innovators, developers, and businesses representing the best practices for every use case the token-powered ecosystem has to offer. Learn more about the partnership here.

Upcoming Webinar: Avalanche and the Internet of Value

• Join us for our upcoming webinar with the team from Ava Labs where we will discuss the Avalanche protocol and the Internet of Finance! The webinar will stream on Tuesday, August 25th, at 1PM EST. Register here.

Our Research in the News: Blockchain for Recycling Sustainability

Cointelegraph featured some of our research in a recent piece authored by Rachel Wolfson, which focusses on how blockchain can help manage waste and improve transparency in the recycling sector. Read the research here.

Featured Public Research: Distributed Artificial Intelligence

Take a look at our free-to-read research report about the intersection of blockchain and AI. Co-written by Anjan Vinod and I, this report explores blockchain as a tool to improve the reliability of AI training data, via smart contracts and on-chain governance. The project further examines the differences among centralized, decentralized, and distributed AI, the utility of autonomous agents, and current scalability and governance challenges. Read the report here.

Blockchain and Pandemics: Read the Freely-Accessible Report

Our report exploring the challenges, opportunities, and recommendations for blockchain technology during the COVID-19 crisis is free to access. Read our report here.

Blockchain Online Courses in Partnership with INSEAD and COURSERA

Discover how blockchain is transforming business, government, and society with our suite of online courses. Anyone can enrol in our Blockchain Revolution Specialization, which includes four courses taught by Alex Tapscott and I. Produced in partnership with INSEAD Business School, the Blockchain Revolution Specialization covers everything you need to know about the disruption, opportunities, and implications of blockchain across industries and business sectors. Register here!

Blockchain Revolution Book Series

Starting with our book Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World back in 2016, Alex Tapscott and I have since authored a number of books on the topic of blockchain, and its disruptive impact on sectors like supply chains, and the financial services. These critically acclaimed books have been used by global leaders to help them survive and thrive in this era of economic and technological disruption. The books are available on Amazon below, and are best bought in bulk!

• Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World
• Supply Chain Revolution: How Blockchain Technology Is Transforming the Global Flow of Assets
• Financial Services Revolution: How Blockchain Is Transforming Money, Markets, and Banking

News from the Digital Economy

• Our event partner for Blockchain Revolution Global, MCI, has announced a new virtual event centred around pandemic preparedness called PANPREV. The event will be live on September 2nd and you can register here.
• The California Energy Commission (CEC) has awarded a $9 million grant to the firm EVShare, a blockchain energy startup who are working to improve energy access in partnership with UCLA.
• JP Morgan is on the cusp of investing $20 million into the ethereum development studio ConsenSys, who could take over the assets of the Quorum project and lead a majority of blockchain development at JP Morgan going forward.
• Huobi has joined the Japan Security Token Offering Association (JSTOA), which features 6 major brokerage firms, including SBI and Rakuten.
• South Asia Gateway Terminals (SAGT) has joined the TradeLens platform co-led by Maersk and IBM. The initiative will help SAGT modernize their aging paper-based administrative processes and bring them into the digital era.
• StreamBed President Michael J. Casey wrote an article for The Startup on Medium, discussing how StreamBed will help users better integrate web3.0 technologies with artificial intelligence.
• Honeywell recently announced an update to their GoDirect Trade platform, which will enable them to start storing digital aircraft record on the blockchain.
• The Japanese government has announced the development of a blockchain consortium for ASEAN trade. The movement is slated to feature 18 members in the consortium TradeWaltz, including Mizuho Bank, ONE and Toyota Tsusho Corporation. 
• China’s Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN) has just introduced an official international website, allowing global developers to build Dapps and run nodes through 6 public chains including Ethereum and EOS at overseas BSN data centers.
• Facebook revealed a new product group led by Libra’s co-creator to pursue payment and commerce solutions for Facebook's ecosystem. The group called Facebook Financial (F2) aims to run all payments projects, including Facebook Pay, with the goal of integrating them into Facebook’s ecosystem.
• In an effort to promote continuous learning during the pandemic, schools in the UK have embraced virtual reality technologies to enable 3D virtual classes. The use of VR should help reduce the spread of the virus, further enabling schoolchildren to experience learning spaces and meet teachers while staying at home.
• The Australian Government has announced a pilot to fight counterfeit cash using blockchain.