201 Blockchain Technology: Programmable Scarcity

Blockchain technology is foundational for the expansion of the Internet, economy and industry into the next age of digitalisation. The first blockchains were based on the intersection of cryptography, economy and game-theory, but the original innovation of an anonymous (probably) cryptographer has had unforeseen consequences and applications within areas way beyond currency or finance. From supply chain to start up funding, from identity management to decentralised energy trading, blockchains solve many problems where trust in third parties like notaries, banks, etc. was previously required. The disintermediation of trust that blockchain technology provides may be the push into the next age of computers, all we have to do is understand how it works and apply it to the right things.

Blockchain is a collective term for distributed ledgers, the tech behind most cryptocurrencies and decentralised data storages. It is a relatively immature technology with a fairly small amount of people developing the core technologies, but with a very large amount of people using it. The market capitalisation of the existing and ever increasing ca. 1200 cryptocurrencies is about 143 billion Euros as of October 2017 and they aim to solve various issues like anonymous and/or traceable payments, secure communications of Internet-of-Things devices or decentralised applications. Bitcoin, the largest and first blockchain cryptocurrency solved the classic problem of double-spending, how to avoid a digital asset to be distributed to several parties at the same time. It did this by incurring a cost for voting on which the "right" version of the history of transactions was, by forcing the solution of an energy-consuming computation. Since the emergence of hundreds of blockchains, the development of meta-blockchains like Polkadot or Multichain aim to connect the various blockchains and create an ultimate source of truth.

For the future development of blockchain technology, it is important that the core of blockchain is branched and developed in many directions. Proof-of-concepts have been deployed, consortia have been formed and the industry is booming. But to start applying blockchain in your setting, a certain set of tools need to be acquired. This course aims to give you the necessary background knowledge and skills to understand and develop blockchain technology within you organisation.

This course will go through the technological, economical and societal impact of blockchain technology, starting with the basics, going up to the latest events and movements in the industry.

This ambitious two-day class will bring you up to speed on the entirety of the topic. In the largest track, Technology, we will see why blockchain works in the first place, what the challenges of current and future solutions are. In the Business-track we will look at why C-level executives should care about blockchain, what makes it interesting for different industries and how it holds the potential to be a disruptive or foundational innovation. In the Societal-track, we will try to cover the multi-faceted impact of blockchain on society and how the technology can change the way we interact with each other as well as with companies or governments.

Questions and interactiveness is planned for and encouraged throught the entire course.

This course is aimed first and foremost at professionals (experienced and inexperienced) wanting to understand how blockchain technology can be applied in their organisation.

A technical background will help in understanding the details of cryptography and computer science involved, but is by no means a requirement.

Bring with you an understanding of the problem your organisation is facing that could be addressed with blockchain technology.