Blockchain This Week: A Blockchain Project From India Selected For Paris Peace Forum

Inc42 recently caught up with IBM blockchain strategy and ecosystem development vice-president Janine Grasso for a quick fireside chat to know her views on blockchain development across the world. Grasso feels that blockchain hasn’t become mainstream yet.

“Establishing governance among various stakeholders to bring their data together and get them to trust one another might take its own time. So, I would say it hasn’t really been mainstream yet,” Grasso said.

According to her, 2016 saw a lot of blockchain pilot projects across sectors, then a lot of experiments happened in 2017, and 2018 is witnessing implementation of theses technologies in production.

“A few years down the line, we will see blockchain in media, retail, agritech…the way we buy our cars, the way we get our licenses, the way we interact with government agencies. Having blockchain as its foundation, these are going to be much more pervasive,” Grasso said.

India is headed towards a similar path, where blockchain technology is being applied in many sectors, from finance to health to tracking frauds or to even issuing birth certificates, and more.

Here’s a curated rundown of important and related developments on Blockchain Ecosystem.  [November 7 – 13]

Let’s take a look at this week’s block.

Important Developments In The Indian Blockchain Ecosystem

Logistics Marketplace BlackBuck Piloting Blockchain Projects

Online logistics marketplace BlackBuck has said it will pilot a few blockchain projects to allow customers to track the product and trace the whole chain of product manufacturing.

“Blockchain use cases are already being discussed in logistics and we are right now pioneering implementation of a few. The real impact would be seen in a few years from now when they gain scale,” BlackBuck founder Rajesh Yabaji, recently told Inc42.

“Blockchain will have its first wide use cases from logistics. Logistics has the largest number of handovers, and authentication of these handovers results in a huge amount of noise,” he added.

A Blockchain Project Included In The Five Projects Selected For Paris Peace Forum

Paris Peace Forum has selected five innovative projects from India which tackle global challenges and problems. The three-day forum, which has been inspired by the COP 21 model, will commence on November 11, this year.

The selected projects from India include the ACT project by Earth5R which seeks to reduce plastic waste, a climate resilient zero-budget natural farming system by the Andhra Pradesh government, a decentralised electricity network based on solar energy over blockchain by NIMRAY-Solar, academic forum Network of Southern Think Tanks, and STAR C that has built a network of technical training and research centers on solar energy.

A total of 120 projects from 42 countries will be showcased at the forum, categorised into five themes: peace and security, environment, development, new technologies, and the inclusive economy.

Blockchain Developments From Around The World

GBV Launches $100 Mn Fund for Blockchain-Focussed Startups

US investment firm Global Blockchain Ventures (GBV) has announced the launch of $100 Mn blockchain technology-focussed venture capital fund —Global Blockchain Ventures Fund.

“My partners and I truly believe and understand this (blockchain) technology as it has vast potential for beneficial and practical use cases for economic growth and positive social impact,” GBV chairman and general partner Al Weiss said.

According to report, GBV will not only provide capital, but will provide their portfolio companies with a supportive ecosystem to position them for long-term success.

Accenture Deploys Blockchain-Based Software License Management App

Global consulting firm Accenture completed its first transactions using a blockchain-based application that delivers enhanced enterprise software asset management capabilities.

The new application uses a smart contract language DAML, built by a US financial technology company Digital Asset, which simplifies tracking, usage and audit functions.

“This new software asset management application shows that DAML and DLT can deliver significant operational efficiencies to use cases beyond financial services,” an official statement by Digital Asset CBDO Chris Church as saying.

Salesforce Wins Patent That Tackles Email Spam Using Blockchain

Cloud-based software company Salesforce has won a patent to trace and prevent spam or other unwanted emails through the use of a blockchain-based platform. The platform provides an email messaging system containing first email message server, a second email message server and a blockchain system is provided.

When the first email message server receives an email, it records a selected component of the email message into a block of the blockchain. When the second email message server receives the email message from the first email message server, it determines whether a component from the received email message matches the selected component that is stored in the block of the blockchain.

If the components match, the email will be sent to the inbox, whereas if there is a discrepancy, the email will be marked as spam.

[Stay tuned for the next edition of Blockchain This Week]