BCinED - News

Presentation StudyBits - Groningen Declaration Network annual meeting, Paris 2018

19/4/2018

April 19th the BCinED consortium presented the StudyBits project on the GDN annual meeting in Paris. This event we also gave a live demo, showing a 4 node Sovrin StudyBits blockchain and the Erasmus+ student exchange process. Please add your comments and suggestions.

studybitssorbonne2018.pdf
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screencast-studybits.mp4
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Technical report TNO StudyBits project

19/3/2018

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Below you will find the technical report for the The StudyBits project.

studybits_-_technical_report_en_v2.pdf
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customer_journey_lisa_-_uitwisseling_rug_naar_ugent_-_self-sovereign_v4_eng.pptx
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Our StudyBits project is one of the winners of the blockchain competition Groningen!

4/12/2017

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The five winners of the blockchain competition, organized by the province of Groningen and the Ministry of Economic Affairs, are now known and our project StudyBits is one of them! The competition 'Small Business Innovation Research' (SBIR) can be called a success, receiving 38 registrations. All came up with different ideas to help solve specific issues concerning care, energy or government services with blockchain technology. The five winners will receive 250,000 euros to further develop their ideas.

Winning ideas

An online platform for the handling of municipal services: HFPRGDEAI from the Foundation Forus
Preventing VAT fraud: TX ++ Blockchain - IPC - Media / Sascha Jafari
'Peer-to-peer' energy trade in kWh: Power to Share - DNV GL Netherlands B.V.
The awarding of certificates in education: StudyBits - The Fieldlab Blockchain in Education, secretary Quintor.
Patient data in emergency situations quickly and reliably in the right place: In Case of Emergency - IT's Privacy

The results of the five feasibility studies will be presented in May 2018. At least at least two ideas will be chosen to go to a next step, to make a working prototype, for which another 250,000 euro is available. A detailed description of the five projects can be found in the attachment (in dutch PDF-file, 258 KB).

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SURF Education Days: Innovation café: Blockchain applications in education

7/11/2017

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The SURF Education Days is organized on the 7th and 8th of November. One of the components is a Forum discussion about Blockchain applications in education. The following experts participate in this discussion: Maarten Wegdam (InnoValor) Martin d'Ullois (Logius) Joël de Bruijn (Education group Tilburg) and Johan Tillema (Quintor).

What will be discussed: Blockchain is seen by many as a revolutionary technology and is particularly known because Bitcoin is based on this technology. Blockchain promises trust, transparency and efficiency, without the need of a trusted third party. However, there are some doubts whether these promises are feasible. In the financial and government sector, there are numerous initiatives that want to use blockchain. And what are the applications in education? For example, can we store diplomas on the blockchain? In this panel we explore applications, promises and in particular the sense and nonsense of blockchain for education.

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Rabobank fulfills a connecting role

9/9/2017

By Kristel Kleijer

The pianist was only needed once. The various speakers at the conference Blockchain in Education had prepared themselves to perfection and abided the strict time limit. If they happened to take a bit too long, the piano music sounded kindly yet urgently in the auditorium of the academy building in Groningen.
The applications for blockchain in education are endless; this is evident from the conference. In other countries, such as the United States, applications are already ready for use. In the Netherlands, Groningen takes the lead in the field of blockchain in education. The local Rabobank is directly involved.

“A pressure cooker stuffed with short speeches” is what Oetse Wijma, the director of Private Individuals & Private Banking at Rabobank Noordenveld West Groningen calls the morning session. National and international experts came together and the possibilities of blockchain in education were discussed by the speakers with the audience. “Very inspiring”, he adds. “Groningen has set up a great initiative, whose usefulness and necessity are widely recognized.”

Groningen and Rabobank are also very involved in education and developments within education. “There are many students in the city of Groningen. Rabobank has a strong relationship with them and with the educational institutions as well”, says Mark Gerdes, Senior Investment Specialist at Rabobank, from ‘Stad en Midden Groningen’. “The province is very active with practical education as well”, his colleague Wijma adds. “We are very closely involved from Rabobank.”

The involvement in education matches the social character of the bank. “It is great that talented people come to Groningen to study”, says Wijma, “and it is our goal to keep them in the region afterwards. Our economic vitality and employment could benefit from it.” Rabobank wants to compensate the undervalued reputation of the northern region by optimizing the residential and living environment for talents. “Therefore we pay a lot of attention to innovative developments, such as blockchain.”
“Rabobank wants to be known as being innovative”, Gerdes also agrees. “We want to participate in the new technological developments.” To inspire people, the bank organizes quarterly customer meetings with the name ‘Vision on the Future’. A few months ago, blockchain was the focus of such a meeting. This is when the ball started to roll. “one thing leads to another”, says Gerdes. “'We decided to form a consortium consisting of various companies, which will study the application of blockchain in education.”

Collaboration in such a consortium is the key to success. The bank's mission is therefore to play a connecting role. A conference like this contributes a lot. “'Such a consortium is not a closed club”, explains Gerdes. “A new party can suddenly decide to join in.” While still in the research phase, it is important to bring the know-how of various parties together. Soon, when the research phase is over, the subject of money will also be put on the table. “It is also convenient to have enough enthusiastic parties in the club, so we can finance the next step together.”
Locally, Rabobank Groningen does not have the capacity to provide technical input, but centrally Rabobank has a lot of blockchain knowledge and experience at its headquarters in Utrecht. This includes knowhow about digital identity, security and verification, which is often referred to by the term self-sovereign identity. “This is an essential issue in blockchain”, says Gerdes, “and Rabobank can certainly play an important role on this topic.”

Blockchain in Education Conferentie: BCINED 2017

5/9/2017

With over 250 participants and Blockchain experts from the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Spain, England, Australia and the United States, the conference 'Blockchain in Education' (BCINED2017) was held at the University of Groningen on Tuesday the 5th of September, 2017. At this conference, the initiative of a first 'Fieldlab Blockchain in Education' was launched by a cooperative association of organizations from the north of the Netherlands organizations; an ICT laboratory for inventing, creating and trying out blockchain applications in (higher) education.

A lot of knowledge in Groningen
Deputy Patrick Brouns, initiator for the Groningen blockchain competition, is proud of the quality of the entries. “This proves once again that there is a lot of enthusiasm and knowledge about the new blockchain technology available in Groningen. The benefits are twofold. As a government, we face a number of societal challenges and we would like to see what blockchain solutions can mean for us. For IT entrepreneurs, this is a unique opportunity to further develop their ideas.”

Blockchain Meetup Agenda

1/9/2017

1st Meetup @ Big Building
2nd Meetup @ IBM
3rd Meetup
4th Meetup @ Let's Gro
5th Meetup
6th Meetup a New Year's meeting @ Hanzehogeschool (January 16th, 2018)

Learning Blockchain Together