By Xiangqiong Liu
Blockchain technology ensures that all the transactions of cryptocurrencies are recorded accurately, and it also secures business transactions without recourse to any trusted third party. Some experts share their ideas about how blockchain technology can make people’s lives easier and more secure.
Blockchain technology is at a nascent stage, but it goes beyond just the cryptocurrency. Blockchain’s cryptography-supported distributed ledgers use independent computers –or nodes– to record, share and synchronize transactions in a variety of electronic ledgers–instead of keeping data all together in one place, as in a traditional paper ledger. Because it uses distributed ledger technology, blockchain can transform education, food safety, artificial intelligence, gaming and voting.
In this video, Gabriel Melo de Paula and Christian Oertel are co-founders of Tsinghua University’s International Students Blockchain Association, speak about how blockchain technology can possibly be applied to different aspects of our lives, such as mobile payments, AI, voting. It can be used for positive applications, like prevent the fake news.
Daniel de la Fuente, a senior member of the World Education Blockchain Association, a nonprofit organization that focuses on solving the problems of blockchain education and other related issues, shared his perspectives about how blockchain will affect teaching and learning.
How could blockchain technology be used in education?
Daniel de la Fuente: As with any new technological advance, the real goal behind using blockchain in education is to make all the processes in the sector simpler and more reliable.
Do you have any examples of blockchain applications in education?
Daniel de la Fuente: Blockchain solutions have to do with logistics. There are projects like EduCoin that aim to incorporate blockchain into the educational system. Blockchain technology makes tuition more accessible and makes transnational education costs smaller. For example, the university can use the digital token-based payment system to speed up cross-border transactions. It just needs to be confirmed through the blockchain system and make it done one time in seconds.
How can blockchain technology truly revolutionize higher education?
Daniel de la Fuente: The costs involved in education can be, and hopefully will be, drastically be reduced. To make it more concise, there are a lot of approval processes and administrative tasks in education. Blockchain can substitute these processes in less costly and more reliable ways.
How does blockchain technology affect e-Learning?
Daniel de la Fuente: Blockchain will revolutionize the e-learning sector. Let’s go for a very specific example: Speed. Let’s suppose we buy some e-Learning classes in the 4K video—a lot of data. As blockchain is a replicable and immutable ledger, we can get a streaming from several local blockchain nodes, making it faster and more reliable to get those classes in our device.
Here’s another example: We pay for these videos in the last example, using the platform coins, be it Bitcoin, Ethereum or any other. Then, we do not have to rely on third parties like a bank or PayPal to validate the transaction, get a commission, therefore, reducing the costs.
Will blockchain technology disrupt education?
Daniel de la Fuente: When we talk blockchain, we talk about a change of all the underlying technology of what we call now—the Internet. This means blockchain will disrupt everything, not just the educational sector.
How do you see blockchain technology having a big future in education?
Daniel de la Fuente: As I see it, blockchain is not a trend. The blockchain is a well-established set of ideas and protocols where all the big technology companies are investing a lot of time and effort. Anywhere.
Now, the Internet as we know it today is based in many protocols.
Think of the ones you use more, like HTTP and HTTPS to visit websites in your internet browser, FTP to transfer files, etc.
In my humble opinion, the blockchain protocol will replace, and soon, all these other protocols. Some people call it Web 3.0.
How does blockchain change the world’s environment?
In this video, Philip McMaster, co-director at World Sustainability Organization, focuses on “Change Wednesday.” He talks about How the blockchain technology can balance the society and environment, and save the world.
In this video, ArisKnight Winfree, a chief executive officer of Gaelatea LLC, described how blockchain technology empowers artificial intelligence and gives some suggestions for the new investors about how to invest in Initial coin offering.
https://youtu.be/NIWDaOilfAoHow does blockchain improve the food safety?
In this video, Josh Arslan, a video journalist at China International Publishing Group, recently produce one episode about blockchain for his program and it was about food security in China. He shared about he found when he interviewed the marketing manager of one food company. They went to the warehouse to see how the chickens were fed on the farm and how the customer can use the app to trace where the chicken products come from to make sure the food safety. ArisKnight Winfree, Gabriel Melo de Paula, and Christian Oertel also share their perspectives about food safety in blockchain in this video.
How blockchain and cryptocurrencies can change the sports industry?
In this video, Aaquib Mohammed and Clément Galle, both are business development manager at vSport Chain, talk about how to apply blockchain tech to the sports platforms and how blockchain and tokens can change the sports industries and the World Cup.
Xiangqiong Liu, a dreamer and go-getter, is a bilingual multimedia journalist, specializing in video production and visual storytelling. She has elevated her internship experiences for PBS and ABC Television Affiliate WCVB-TV in producing news, talk shows, and documentaries. She also likes to challenge herself both in Marathon and Spartan race. She starts her dream career as a financial journalist and bilingual host for a talk show.