All About Blockchain

The History of Black Writing project is an excellent example where an internationally renowned source for information converted from a distributed online database to a blockchain. A conversation with English Professor Ayesha Hardison, the Director of the History of Black Writing, and Engineering Professor Drew Davidson who implemented the technology.   We explore this unique collaboration between University of Kansas faculty that resulted in applying blockchain to better expose students, instructors and audiences to reading literature by Black authors and further building the community to engage in dialogue about the history and future of the books, recovery and preservation. 

Continuing our conversation about using blockchain on our global path toward sustainability.Listen to this rich discussion with Soheil Saraji, University of Wyoming's Associate Professor of Energy and Petroleum Engineering in the College of Engineering and Physical Science. Audience will learn how we are utilizing blockchain for potential forward focused blockchain applications in the energy industry.  You can deepen your understanding with Saraji's latest book titled Blockchain Technology in Oil and Gas Industry.

We have the technology to improve payment terms, without the use of selling invoices to 3rd parties, for millions of small trucking firms. Tokens can return 100 cents on the dollar to these businesses and improve economies for more than just profits and growth.Catch this  rich discussion on how small businesses can take better control over their finances with Coffee & Crypto podcast host, Dr. Jimmie Lenz, an experienced executive, lecturer and scholar in the field of banking and capital markets.    

Are you following the most critical, vital, existential fight of our planet? The potential application of blockchain to decarbonize our economy and our world so that we can avoid catastrophic temperature rise is happening. Discover along with others in our field how blockchain, may actually be a suitable technology.A compelling conversation between Ripple's Carbon Market Product Manager, Peter Rosberg and Berkeley PhD candidate, Ando Shah. Audience will learn how we are enabling blockchain for the carbon credit use case; modernizing carbon markets, accelerating high quality carbon removal and contributing to global climate goals. For every dollar of economic value we create, we destroy one dollar of nature value -> This is a rich discussion on how companies are responsible for more than just profits and growth and how they can make a positive impact on the environment and society to give back.

Proving something about yourself in a digital world should be fast, easy and secure. How are blockchains useful in managing verifiable credentials, decentralized IDs and other tokenized assets?Nick Dazé, founder and CEO of Heirloom, discusses the no-code toolshis team is creating for a trusted and tamper-proof environment for identity verification protocols.Combining blockchain technology identity management gives us complete control over our identities, high security to our personal information and a way to store and share our identities across multiple platforms.

How does highly personalized FinTech change how institutions, markets, & societies run? Columbia Professor, Agostino Capponi, explores how crypto and blockchain are altering the financial industry while expanding observations beyond finance to how transitions are taking place in society with the personalization of finance in a deep conversation with top 10 global influencer in the "Fintech Power50",  Emmanuel Daniel.

How much fun would it be to become a stakeholder in your favorite athlete? Sports lovers can now interact with chosen players and get rewarded. Join UPenn scholars Arham Habib and Arpan Bagui talking about their journey creating an NFT Marketplace for athletes and their fans; VO2. This blockchain start-up that advanced through the Cypher Accelerator, builds community engagement with an engage to earn model that gives pro athletes a way to directly participate with their fan community. This is one more way we are seeing blockchain become mainstream, generating interactive communities.  

We are at the very beginning of NFT's becoming a meaningful percentage of art, collectables, gaming, and community markets and yet NFT's are already a multi billion dollar market. It can be intimidating for first-timers to  invest in NFT's as an alternative investment class. This is why Co-Founders Mahan Fathi and Aristotelis Charalampous have created a start-up called NFT Valuations  out of the University of Nicosia, to help investors make more informed decisions. Hear how NFT Valuations provides access to some of the biggest historical data in the market  and provides valuation tools and a space for collectors, investors, manager, and even artists, to narrow down the search, and look at different NFT's.

Whether you are just dipping your toes into Web3 and looking to take a free MOOC to advance your understanding or interested in diving all in to get a Master's degree in Digital Currencies and Blockchain Technology - University of Nicosia Institute for the Future is a great resource. They not only entered into teaching and researching blockchain early on but are now fully participating in the on chain environment with offerings like the Open Metaverse Initiative - the first university course delivered exclusively on the blockchain. Professor Klitos Christodoulou discusses this along with how cryptographic tokens stored on the blockchain network bring us into the world of credentialing with NFTs.

Buying or selling a home? Blockchain cuts the transaction process and cost of buying a single family home down dramatically. Welcome to the next-generation  for real-estate investments.Real Estate experts Geoffrey Thompson and Sanjay Raghavan from Roofstock share their revolutionary journey with this web3 PropTech leader.  We also hear how they benefitted from attending Cypher, Wharton's Blockchain Accelerator program.*Shortly after we recorded this episode the first NFT home sale was announced!

Learn about new ways of storing documents, multimedia, sensor telemetry (all kinds of data) on the internet to never lose it again and new ways of sharing it through real-world objects as digital twins online (mirrored NFT tokens with attached data).Dr. Eric Falk, Co-Founder of Filedgr, talks all about this Digital Twin Datahub

Many humans on our planet remain DIGITALLY excluded. Those who are excluded can be limited or unable to participate fully in society. This divide between those with digital skills and those with barriers to access and use continues to widen. Co-Pierre George, who holds the South African Reserve Bank Chair in Financial Stability Studies, and his talented team at University of Cape Town, see this as a call to action for innovative products and services that close this social and economic gap. In the last year, these XRPL Grant winners developed Nautilus Wallet  which provides universal access to digital rights assets without needing a smartphone. This episode leads us through a start-up experience of solving challenges of financial exclusion.  This concludes our Season 4. We will resume with Season 5 in the fall. Special shout out to THE WEBBY AWARDS for honoring All About Blockchain as the best of the internet!

You want to jump on the hot new tech wave. Maybe you are starting your career or are thinking about changing industries to join the blockchain revolution. How do you prove your acumen in this fast moving space?A conversation with Arno Pernthaler, co-founder of the DEC Institute, an association launched and backed by leading academic institutions with strong focuses on Blockchain Technologies. They aim to shape the certification landscape for professionals working with Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) and Digital Assets. This episode aims to educate listeners on chartered certifications, as well as the movement to support quality education and professionalism in this young and growing industry. "Continuous learning is a commitment for professional excellence"

CELEBRATING EARTH DAY 2022 * Sustainability is an increasingly important topic of conversation and we'll dive into how the rise of new technologies like blockchain can help.What about blockchain technology makes it so appealing for addressing challenges related to climate action? Hear all about this from Computer Scientist Iván Salvador Razo Zapata, lecturer and researcher at The Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). His main interests are in smart grids and blockchain and he works with a group of both undergraduate and grad students like Emiliano Gutiérrez at ITAM. They are busy working on the design and development of a proof-of-concept to manage renewable energy certificates for clean distributed energy resources. The proof-of-concept will be deployed using tools from different organizations such as the Energy Web Foundation, Ripple's partner on decarbonized blockchains.

Digital Asset regulation is a controversial subject, but most experts argue that a framework is necessary to protect investors and outline clear guidelines for innovation.Rutger's Law Professor, Yulia Guseva, guides us through US crypto-regulation, and sheds light on global environments to navigate various legislative positions toward cryptocurrency.  Leading her through this juicy, in-depth conversation, whether you have a predilection for the law or not, is Ripple's Head of Public Policy and Vice Chair of Blockchain for Europe, Susan Friedman. This session gives us an understanding of what the current challenges are with the United States catching up to other countries' crypto policy.AND Thank you Feedspot for the Top Blockchain Podcast nod.

We've been hearing of all the benefits to using blockchain across various sectors. How can companies who know nothing about blockchain implement this technology into their business? Blockforce Founder/CEO André Salem has a solution for sellers to easily use blockchain without any previous knowledge.  Learn how merchants can accept digital assets like XRP, and also issue and offer NFTs. André and his start-up advisor, Professor Eduardo Diniz from Fundação Getulio Vargas, are XRPL grant winners. They discuss the rise of their Brazilian consulting group offering B2B Saas models for wider infrastructure  adoption..

Ready for the new web3 content experience? Look to the minting of derivative NFTs. You can exclusively view The Walking Dead's final season and  join the drop of limited edition NFTs of Dolly Parton's new album!Learn how the Entertainment Industry is turning to Blockchain for Content Ownership with Eluvio CEO Michelle Munson. She discusses how Eluvio is being used to provide owner-controlled storage, distribution, and monetization of digital content at scale, powering the NFT marketplace.*This episode is being launched on International Women's Day in celebration of one leading woman pushing this technology main stream. We hope this story inspires more women to join the blockchain revolution.

How do we lower the barriers to people of color having access to strong education on blockchain? How do we train people to better qualify for this space flooding with job opportunities? Holding annual competitions like "Battle for Crypto” that actively teach students how to buy, sell, and trade digital assets in an engaged learning lab is one step forward.A discussion between Ripple software engineer Nathaniel Rose and Dr. Ali Emdad, Executive Director of The National FinTech Center, developing expertise in blockchain. You'll hear how committed both are to education equity and making a difference in the diverse workforce of the future.

A conversation between Navin Gupta, Ripple's MD, South Asia & MENA, and Finweg's CTO, Wladimiro Navarro.  Finweg went through NYU Abu Dhabi's StartAD FinTech accelerator program and came out a winner.  Audience will learn about blockchain through this emerging start-up in Spain and Latin America and dive deeper into tokenizing assets.

How does Fintech and blockchain drive the economy toward more sustainable development?A conversation with Dr. Thomas Puschmann, Director of Swiss FinTech Innovation Lab, University of Zurich. He has studied hundreds of global start-ups focused on  sustainability and financial technology,  providing solutions for environmental, social and governance topics. We  identify major trends in the financial sector future and discuss how the FinTech revolution plays a major factor in driving our sustainable development goals.  

Can we trust blockchain? How can we be more confident interacting with the developing digital economy? Anchain.ai is a start-up passionate about facilitating legitimacy and security in the crypto industry. Co-founder and CEO, Victor Fant, works with a wide variety of public and private chains so that industry stakeholders can be secure AND we share the dedication of educating future innovators! Hear a lively conversation on how Victor raises money through the Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator, VC's and the XRPL Grants for developers to create innovative solutions to secure blockchain. - crucial and timely to this industry reaching maturity!

When it comes to financial regulation systems, how can we make recording the flow of information more clear? How can we keep up with the expense of self-regulating, especially when there are monthly changes?Newly emerged electronic trading practices call for new auditing protocols - why not build them with tech advances that help enhance market transparency?UCL's Guy Vishnia is doing his PhD thesis around AuditChain, and built a proof of concept to connect all the data and automate trade execution practices.

The pandemic disrupted supply chains. Constraints will affect delivery of goods around the globe this upcoming holiday.  How do we fix this?Nikhil Vadgama, Deputy Director of UCL's Centre for Blockchain Technology, reviews ten sectors and hundreds of projects over the last decade that incorporate blockchain to provide better supply chain systems. Learn how challenges with traditional supply chains are solved using blockchain and what we can expect to see in the next ten years.

How do you engage students to brainstorm ideas about how they might use a cryptocurrency on campus? Ariel Zetlin-Jones, Associate Professor of Economics at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, has been teaching courses on blockchain like “Developing Blockchain Use Cases”.  He engages all background of students to discover why a Distributed Ledger Technology might be an improved solution over what currently exists today. In this episode you can learn about leading examples of developing applications for the CMU Coin.

Blockchain has far-reaching disruptive potential often focused on charitable works.   Explore the humanitarian efforts of SFSU students leveraging  this emerging technology for multiple blockchain projects, all related to blockchain for social good; applying blockchain technology to promote volunteer participation, and food safety monitoring for healthier food donations to hunger-relief charities. In a conversation with Leigh Jin, Professor of Information Systems and Director of Technology in Business Education Initiative at San Francisco State University, we discover their design thinking methodology that went into building these application prototypes.

What if we could increase voter participation and election credibility via secure, verifiable online voting for elections?  Researchers are building systems to utilize the immutability, transparency and distributed consensus properties of blockchain.  We are finding that a blockchain based voting system could solve many of the current day election challenges.Arnab Ghosh is a recent Electrical & Computer Engineering  graduate of University of Waterloo and budding entrepreneur.  Find out why he made the design choices he did on his prototype and how it improves upon existing tech-start up systems currently available. To learn more, you can read his master's thesis  and stay tuned for his code going public on GitHub.

Are you captivated by the endless possibilities of how we can interact with money? Students are creating real world solutions using fintech tools to provide additional capacity in under resourced communities. There are industry programs that help turn their visions into reality by providing resources that advance their prototypes, apps and ideas to significantly advance them.Ishaan Hiranandani is a rising Junior at University of Michigan, leader in the Blockchain@Michigan (BAM) student club, entrepreneur and DeFi addict. He and his teammates dream of saving small businesses and won awards and support for their particular product MeldX which creates founder friendly method of raising capital. Listen to hear the roadblocks they encountered along the way and what the future holds.

Decentralization puts power in the hands of the consumer*Let's bring in the Enterprise Blockchain Award winner who has brought more  transparency to the Real Estate sector and beyond Named Canada's top tech titan, Dr. Atefeh Mashatan, is the Director of the Cybersecurity Research Lab and an Associate Professor at Ryerson University.  This renowned cryptographer found a way to reduce fraud in the real estate sector as well as the insurance marketplace and in supply chain management with eSURe.   This application that was built to solve one challenge ended up having applicability in several other business use cases. She also discusses her work on Mosaïque - a purpose-built digital wallet that interacts with blockchain applications, and enables secure transaction workflows as well as identity management services.  

How do we amplify the positive effects of blockchain innovation? Influencing policy makers on technological capabilities and wider implications on society is a good place to start.Camille Crittenden, Executive Director of UC Berkeley's Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), envisions many possible use cases where blockchain will make a difference in the next 5-10 years.  She had the opportunity to Chair The California Blockchain Working Group that created a roadmap to recommend potential public applications for government legislation.This conversation leads you through considerations for appropriate applications and defining blockchain characteristics that make it fit for certain areas in Vital and Health Records, Supply Chain, Property, Utilities and Finance, Commercial Business  and Education

How do we increase availability of capitol to small and traditionally disadvantaged borrowers? How can we invest in businesses we care about while purchasing products/services we want, especially during pandemic closures?Carnegie Mellon Professor Goldstein has been investigating the interaction of technology, work and money with his computer science students to overcome several long-standing problems of established lending markets.By utilizing a public blockchain-style ledger they have created an equal access funding mechanism, BoLT: Building On Local Trust, that can reduce poverty and inequality. Learn about the interesting deep technical problems they faced to bring solutions to people today.  

We are seeing more and more applications being built on blockchain. And there are thousands of blockchains for developers to choose from.  What do you look for in a blockchain to support your application development? Chief Scientist Dr. Radu State and his team from University of Luxembourg’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust are busy building Dapps on the XRP Ledger. We learn about the key features and advantages that make this blockchain favorable for growing developers.

How can blockchain help the construction industry? Think blockchain as your back office, matching purchase orders with actions, a system that generates a payment automatically without accounting approval. Or a single source of truth, created by all the participants on a given project, that’s plain for everyone to see. Blockchain keeps everyone honest.What if the dozens of companies that depend on each other on a construction site could easily align? How nice would it be if construction projects were more efficient; stayed on budget and schedule? Civil and Environmental Engineering Expert, Professor SangHyun Lee, leads the Dynamic Project Management Laboratory at the University of Michigan.  He engages us in how blockchain technology will change the way construction is done. We learn exactly how blockchain adds value to one of the oldest and largest sectors in the world economy with increased productivity and transparency.

How can artwork be the blockchain itself?Joey Orr runs the Integrated Arts Research Initiative at the Spencer Museum of Art. He commissioned leading artists Stephanie Dinkins and Simon Denny to explore the emergence of blockchain technology in collaboration with science and humanities researchers at The University of Kansas. They are pushing to think about issues of diversity, equity, access and inclusion through the lens of consensus. Will integrating blockchain into artwork challenge prevailing thought on control or ownership? Can it support communities with a new kind of trust? Tickle your brain with the possibilities for this project.

According to the UNs' Food and Agriculture Organization, residents of the US Virgin Islands import more than 97% of their food. Nutritional content is not what it could be farmed locally and sometimes transported food arrives rotten or cannot arrive at all when container ships can't get into port during seasonal storms. Food quality and shortage is a constant threat. Dr. Joanne Luciano, a distinguished Professor of Data Science, at the University of the Virgin Islands, is piloting a project called “The Emerald Archipelago Supply Chain Use Case”. Her team seeks to significantly increase community access to locally farmed foods by implementing supply chain solutions built on blockchain. When actualized, this blockchain for good project can decrease dependency on food import while reducing cost and increasing value for residents and visitors.

All About Blockchain is a Ripple-produced podcast featuring University Blockchain Research Initiative (UBRI) partners to showcase utility of this innovative technology. Host Lauren Weymouth returns for season 2 with global guests discussing how they will use this tech to solve challenges and innovate in farming, art, construction and public infrastructure, climate change and more. Tune in to the first return episode next week!

Why do we want digital assets to represent real world property? Tokenization of securities is still an area that is early in development and adoption but we can start to learn from enterprise solutions already on the market.Computational finance expert, Simon Sive, identifies practical challenges and discusses the ecosystem players already solving them using the tools available with blockchain.

How can we individually improve our energy consumption? We might think about reducing our carbon footprint, but to improve our behavior, we need to effectively measure our individual usage.Architect Dorit Aviv is doing just that with a distributed energy monitoring and environmental sensing network using blockchain technology, which she is leading together with Professor William Braham at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design. Specializing in energy and ecology, they are experimenting in this project with an opt-in data system for performance tracking and reward system. She shares how this not only creates conscious energy usage but incentivizes good performance. We are getting a peak at the beginning stages of a sustainability resource that can quickly scale. Further info is described on Dorit Aviv's Thermal Architecture Lab website.

How does blockchain help assets maintain their value?Senior Research Scientist, Vishwas Patil, discusses LandCoin: A Simple Asset Management Protocol. He helps us understand that blockchains provide methods to encapsulate transfer of not only a value but any asset class that can be digitally represented. The use case discussed is an asset-transfer system for land management that the public can query in a simple and expedient manner for land records validated by regulators, registrars and notaries. This is a victory over current systems that are often broken, inefficient, corrupt and inaccurate and will help people across the world dealing with the land they have, and the assets on that land like crops and livestock.

A deep look into how researchers in Brazil can create value out of biodiversity by connecting it to advanced technological innovation. Engineering Professor Marcos Antônio Simplício Júnior, from the Polytechnic School of University of São Paulo, talks us through the concepts with a high level technical perspective of the applied research architecture. At the heart of this project, listeners learn about our opportunity to develop a green economy; how using this modern, smart blockchain technology leads to sustainable economic and social developments.

Q Have an idea to solve a unique challenge?A Build a demo on blockchain SDKs (Software Development Kits) are open source tools available to developers, students, and anyone who wants to learn to build prototypes for their ideas.  Nathan gives real life advise on how to get plugged into blockchain, describes the cool  use cases that landed him a job in the industry and sheds light on the impact it will have on our futures.

Scott Chamberlain is keen to solve all kinds of challenges using blockchain technology—including digitizing cows to make meat production more efficient and consumers better educated.

We care more and more about clean energy, but challenges still exist with how it is being tracked, bought and sold. How can blockchain help the energy sector? Energy consultant Kate Tomlinson has experience across the energy value chain, including working as a wind turbine engineer in China, advising energy clients at McKinsey and leading multiple pilots with state and national utilities. She shares how technology will positively impact this sector and help us understand the current landscape of energy blockchain use cases.

How can blockchain help homelessness? What special features of blockchain technology make it better for storing patient data than current systems?Join Director of Data Integration at Dell Medical School’s Department of Population Health, Dr. Anjum Khurshid, discuss overcoming the practical challenges for homelessness with a blockchain-application for identity management. He openly shares learnings from that project and how his team went on to design a patient-centric health identity management system called Medlinker.  This episode gives insight into the very beginning stages of how the healthcare industry is evolving with blockchain technology. 

All About Blockchain is a Ripple-produced podcast featuring University Blockchain Research Initiative (UBRI) partners to highlight what is being built on this innovative technology. Host Lauren Weymouth shares a sneak peek of topics and guests...