NASSCOM Partners With BRI To Fuel Blockchain Adoption In India

As part of its ongoing efforts to develop and nurture an ecosystem for emerging technologies, The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) today signed a MoU with Blockchain Research Institute (BRI), Canada, on the sidelines of the WCIT 2018. As part of MoU, both NASSCOM and BRI will now co-invest to boost activities and develop skill sets for blockchain adoption and deployment in India.

This collaboration includes joint webinars, case studies and other knowledge sharing activities by BRI for Indian organisations and government departments.

As per the MoU, NASSCOM and BRI have also planned to establish a Centre of Excellence in India to provide high-end technology capabilities, expertise, thought leadership, and curated programmes to explore the adoption of blockchain across academia, enterprises, government, innovators and advanced startups.

Commenting on the collaboration, Raman Roy, Chairman, NASSCOM stated, “Our collaboration with BRI will foster greater collaboration between the two countries, focused on the creation of a world-class sustainable blockchain ecosystem in India that will help enhance our vision for a digital economy. We believe blockchain is a transformative technology for businesses. It is imperative that we identify and explain key application opportunities, issues, strategies and approaches that enable companies and governments to capitalize on this emerging technology.”

The Blockchain Research Institute is a think tank, established in partnership with the Government of Canada, other government bodies and private sector companies to build blockchain-based economies around the world.

Don Tapscott, Founder and Executive Chairman at Blockchain Research Institute, said, “We strongly believe that India has the potential to lead the Blockchain revolution.”

Earlier, NASSCOM had also signed MoU with the Telangana government to establish a Centre of Excellence for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (CoE – DS & AI) in the State.

With an initial joint investment of $6.17 Mn (INR 40 Cr), the CoE will catalyse the growth of the deeptech ecosystem in Telangana, by providing the stimulus for innovation and in-depth research in the areas of data science and artificial intelligence.

Having been there for a decade now, blockchain adoption has been quite slow across various segments in India. As NASSCOM is the premier body of India’s IT/BPM industry, it will be interesting to see how does this collaboration help accelerate the blockchain adoption in India.