Today we use the Global Positioning System everywhere across the world while travelling. What was created as a solution for the US defence department has become way of our daily life now!
Like GPS, Blockchains technology was started to make the financial trading hassle-free, globally.
A decade ago, first cryptocurrency brought this revolutionary idea into the finance and trade market, starting the first tangible application of the blockchain philosophy in the business world. Gradually, it started evolving into other market sectors as well.
Certain sectors where Blockchains technology is picking up fast are,
- Manufacturing Business (Product Inventory and whole of Supply chain Management)
- Export-Import Business (for allowing access and real-time view of documents and updates on the reconciled ledger, e.g., letter-of-credit etc.)
- Education Business (for storing and delivering issued certificates and other student records)
However, there are many debates going on about it’s drawbacks, like the high cost that such a technology infrastructure will incurs or if it is really going to be 100% temper proof and so on. But, despite of these apprehensions, Amazon, Google, IBM, MS, Sony are investing heavily in this technology and providing blockchains infrastructure and services to researchers and its customers.
Technically, Blockchain is a distributed database, spread across many computers with no central control that could transform governance, the economy, businesses and the functioning of organisations.
Blockchain has three layers,
- Data structures based on cryptography
- Consensus protocols that ensure trust in the system
- The smart contracts that create business value which lowers the transaction costs.
The unique properties of the data structure makes it fully secure and tamper-proof, the consensus protocols make these systems function truthfully, and the smart contracts provide the business value at the transactional level. There is a seamless integration of these three layers which makes the backbone of the blockchain infrastructure.
Blockchain can bring in trust, transparency and efficiency into an education ecosystem. It can create secure and connected networks among education institutions, educationists, learners, employers and education technology companies, enabling among these, secure sharing and exchange of data and innovations.
There is also a huge possibility of blockchain helping to shift control of learning from the institutions to the individuals. If that happens, then it offers a potential to transform the fundamentals of an education system. A lot of research, thinking and collaborative efforts is required in this field, from both the education sector specialists and blockchain technology experts to see merits and demerits of such a change.
This looks like a great read.