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Blockchain and the Financial Service industry:

One of the primary advantages to blockchain adoption for small and medium sized business is the advent of DeFi ( decentralized finance ). DeFi will remove many of the cumbersome barriers to entry for new players in the market.

With decentralized finance, these businesses no longer need to rely on banks and 3rd parties, as these approval prcceses will be replaced by “smart contracts”. This will lead to reduced costs and the complexity of transactions for businesses and greater efficiency. With the adoption of crypo and other digital currencies this will further advance the transitions for day to day operations.

Digital Marketplaces. With smart contracts this will eliminate the need for many middle men such as brokers, instead the smart contract will serve as the replacement between businesses.

This will lead to a reduction in fraud on a large scale vs traditional methods that are not as secure. With private and public keys no one can go in and edit documents without leaving a trace as the document remains immutable.

https://www.finextra.com/blogposting/19770/6-use-cases-for-smart-contracts-in-decentralized-finance

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What could Smart Contracts do for the Financial Services Industry.

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What could Smart Contracts do for the Financial Services Industry.

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Smart contracts come with a range of benefits for the Financial Services industry. As a Compliance Manager, I for one would welcome them, in particular with the changes to the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Act which was updated in March 2021. Smart contracts are tamper-resistant, self-executing, and self-verifying. In the insurance industry in particular, the allure of error-free processing of insurance claims, smooth peer-to-peer transactions, streamlined  processes, transparent auditing, and so on, is enough to make businesses think about moving in this direction. Some businesses globally have implemented these, and there are already a huge range of benefits.

By definition, smart contracts are self-executing programmable contracts that encode an agreement between two or more parties. The terms of a transaction are written as a protocol that exists across a distributed, decentralized blockchain network system.

Unlike traditional contracts, they do not involve any paperwork or third-party validation. The contract is computer-coded, and compliance is ensured using the blockchain technology. Smart contracts validate autonomously upon completion of the contract terms.

These have the potential to automate manual banking processes. It is useful for functions like compliance, claims-processing, and processing general insurance applications.

The main features of smart contracts in the financial services industry are:

Compliance and control happening within the system without the involvement of any party. Smart contracts are self-executing. They are independent.

They automatically source information from external data sources, which makes them self-verifying.

Smart contracts are tamper-resistant and guarantee more security as intermediaries are not involved.

They offer faster resolution than manual processes, which saves time for both parties.

They remove trust issues from any contract because of the transparency they offer.

Smart contracts eliminate the need for third-party mediation at the time of settlement.

The execution of smart contracts is free of cost.

They securely handle sensitive data, and all associated data remains in the blockchain platform for future use.

A cryptographic digital signature verifies participation in the contract, making them an ideal choice for high-end contracts.

Reference: https://www.businessofapps.com/insights/how-smart-contracts-are-transforming-banks-and-financial-institutions/

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Smart contracts come with a plethora of benefits. They are tamper-resistant, self-executing, and self-verifying. They are also changing the face of the banking industry in the form of error-free processing of insurance claims, smooth peer-to-peer transactions, streamlined KYC processes, transparent auditing, and so on. In this article, we will discuss the positive changes that smart contracts have brought into this industry.
Simply put, smart contracts are self-executing programmable contracts that encode an agreement between two or more parties. The terms of a transaction are written as a protocol that exists across a distributed, decentralized blockchain network system.

Unlike traditional contracts, they do not involve any paperwork or third-party validation. The contract is computer-coded, and compliance is ensured using the blockchain technology. Smart contracts validate autonomously upon completion of the contract terms.

These have the potential to automate manual banking processes. It is useful for functions like compliance, claims-processing, and evaluating loan eligibility.

The functioning of smart contracts

Smart contracts are computer-coded blockchain applications. They work on pre-programmed terms and conditions that govern a transaction between two organizations. The terms are executed on a condition-based principle. Both parties can interact and respond in real-time to " if-when-then " conditions of the contract. It allows parties to transact anonymously if needed.

The main features of smart contracts are:

Compliance and controlling happen within the system without the involvement of any party. Smart contracts are self-executing. They are independent.

They automatically source information from external data sources, which makes them self-verifying.

Smart contracts are tamper-resistant and guarantee more security as intermediaries are not involved.

They offer faster resolution than manual processes, which saves time for both parties.

They remove trust issues from any contract because of the transparency they offer.

Smart contracts eliminate the need for third-party mediation at the time of settlement.

The execution of smart contracts is free of cost.

They securely handle sensitive data, and all associated data remains in the blockchain platform for future use.

A cryptographic digital signature verifies participation in the contract, making them an ideal choice for high-end contracts.

Smart contract typologies

Now that you have a basic understanding of what these are and the benefits they are, let us explore the different of smart contracts in IoT systems:
1. Smart legal contracts
These contracts can simplify legal processes and ensure strict adherence to regulatory guidelines. They are applicable for critical financial, international trade, and real estate market contracts. The current legal framework lacks sufficient context and support for automated contracts on the Blockchain. However, once the laws are in place, it will be easier to use them.
2. Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs)
These are contracts built for blockchain communities. The participants of these communities abide by the set of rules put into the contract ' s code. Crowdfunding platforms, for instance, use DAOs. Many smart contracts make up rules, and they work towards effectively policing and supervising participants. This ensures enhanced support amongst all parties.
3. Application logic contracts (ALCs)
If you have ever heard of the Internet of Things (IoT) concerning the Blockchain, chances are you must have come across Application Logic Contracts or ALCs. These contracts are application-specific codes that work in conjunction with other programs on the Blockchain.

They help establish and validate communication between IoT devices. ALCs make up a vital piece of every multi-function smart contract and majorly function under a managing program.

Examples of Blockchain-based smart contracts

When the concept of smart contracts originated in 1994, little did anyone know that Blockchain technology would make the task of embedding those contracts into computer code that simple, ensuring transparency and security of all records.

Here are the most popular Blockchain-based smart contracts:

It is a public Blockchain platform that allows developing smart contracts accessible through its ready-to-use templates. The smart contracts created using NXT cannot be customized, as it uses a scripting language that is not Turing-complete.
2. Ethereum
It is a Blockchain platform that supports building advanced and customized smart contracts. It uses a stack-based bytecode language which is a Turing-complete high-level programming language. The code of these contracts is executed in the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
3. Sila
It offers application program interfaces (APIs) for integrating real-world payment functions of banks such as KYC, ACH, and digital payments. To create a smart contract on Sila, simply put in the assets and request the code to execute automatically for delivering the assets.

Smart contracts reshaping financial services

Smart contracts are very well on their way to changing how and the speed at which business gets done across sectors. The financial service industry is no exception either. Smart contracts can come in handy for the following processes in banks and financial institutions.
1. Error-free processing of insurance claims
Assessing the legitimacy of an insurance claim is a tedious process. Counter-checking the terms of a manual contract and validating the claim takes a long time. Blockchain-driven smart contracts offer automated insurance claim processing to the banking industry.

Smart contracts allow the easy filing of claims and automatic validation through the decentralized ledgers of the blockchain network. It reduces the risk of compensating for fraudulent claims by the financial institution.
2. Reduced transaction costs
The transactions governed by smart contracts are self-regulatory. This facilitates low-cost record-keeping and reduces manual intervention, which considerably lowers transaction costs in the long run.
3. Real-time remittance
The adoption of digital modes of payments has raised the demand for a fool-proof remittance system. Blockchain-based smart contracts ease payment processing allowing real-time fund transfer while maintaining accuracy and transparency. They also speed up transaction settlements by allowing their autonomous verification.
4. Transparent auditing
Record-keeping is essential to facilitate audits. Traditional contracts involve a lot of paperwork, and banks have to invest resources to manage them. Blockchain-powered smart contracts support advanced bookkeeping tools.

These are based on incorruptible and distributed codes in the Blockchain network. The solutions enhance the transparency of records stored while eliminating any possibilities of infiltration.
5. Increased speed
Automating manual tasks through software codes helps reduce transaction times. It helps speed up banking operations by cutting down unnecessary manual processes.
6. Streamlined KYC processes
KYC is a crucial function in the financial services industry. Banks and FIs verify customer identity before offering a loan or engaging in other transactions with an individual. A smart contract system makes the process easier for banks.

They can verify credit scores of individuals and identities based on Blockchain records. Related compliance requirements like tax returns are also processed in real-time - a fantastic support for accounting firms.
7. Accurate contracts
Transactions driven by smart contracts are transparent and self-executable. They reduce the chances of error by eliminating human intervention. That is why they cultivate heightened trust amongst the parties involved in the contract.
8. Gains for firms and consumers
Both banking institutions and customers benefit from implementing smart contracts. Banks save costs and streamline processes to ensure regulatory compliance. Customers also gain from easier and safer transaction methods. Everyone wins!
9. Smooth peer-to-peer transactions
Banks are customer-centric, and when they are looking to implement a technology that helps them, they want to ensure it also works for their customers and clients.

Smart contracts use Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to eliminate third-party mediation. It leads to cost reduction and simplifies transactions for those without a bank account. The adoption of cryptocurrencies by retailers is facilitating peer-to-peer payments.

Smart contracts enable such transactions, including cross-border payments, without the involvement of any trusted third parties. They offer convenience and stability.

Opportunities for smart contracts in banks and financial institutions

The digitization of financial instruments, comprising smart contracts, digital assets, and programmable money, takes the benefits of Blockchain to the next level by paving the way for unparalleled levels of connectivity between products, holdings, and assets. Listed below are eight incredible use cases of smart contracts in decentralized finance.
1. Trade clearing and settlement
Blockchains-powered smart contracts offer banks the ability to streamline trade clearing and settlement activities. Traditionally speaking, the process is labor-intensive and prone to errors due to the involvement of various parties for approvals and reconciliations.

Smart contracts help in avoiding discrepancies and saving costs by developing an efficient equity settlement system. Along with 40 global banks within the R3 consortium, Wall Street is currently testing smart contract-based clearing and settlement systems.

Similarly, the Australian Securities Exchange and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) are also working on a smart contracts-based post-trade platform.
2. Supply chain and trade finance documentation
Decentralized ledgers of Blockchains help streamline supply chain and trade finance documentation. They are more efficient than paper-based systems and significantly reduce processing time.

On the other hand, digitizing letters of credit and bills of lading is also not feasible as the chances of forgery are higher. Blockchain offers secure and easily accessible receipts of transactions.

Smart contracts ease documentation and workflow management through digital signatures. Barclays Corporate Bank, for instance, has recently partnered with a startup platform Wave. It uses Blockchain to store bill-of-lading documents. The platform uses smart contracts to automate log change of ownership and payment processes.

Seven banks, including Bank of America, Standard Chartered, and the Development Bank of Singapore, have also given proof-of-concept testing for their organizations.
3. Simplification of complicated processes
Organizations must review their internal processes and evaluate possibilities of simplifying complex ones using Blockchain. They can automate manual workflows and facilitate interdependent transactions using smart contracts. Corporations can also establish trust among parties for multiparty agreements by offering transparency.
4. Improved securities
The traditional settlement and clearance processes of securities markets are inefficient. Market participants have to deal with opaque systems while their money remains trapped for uncertain durations. Smart contracts can make processes transparent and reduce the settlement timeline to a few minutes or even seconds.
5. Lending with well-defined T&Cs
Legacy systems run on the revenue generated by the difference in rates of interest paid to their investors and that charged from their borrowers. A massive population of borrowers cannot meet the stringent lending criteria of traditional lending institutions.

Deploying a smart contract system helps monitor the loans of such borrowers. Using DLT, borrowers who do not qualify for a loan from a bank can borrow directly from investors, thus shortening the timescales within which one can procure loans.

BlockFi even facilitates lending against cryptocurrency collateral with well-defined terms for interest payments.
6. Improved KYC and fraud prevention
Banking processes across the globe have made customer identity verification, also known as KYC, mandatory. It is an essential step in all financial activities, including trading, borrowing, and lending.

However, obtaining customer credit histories under legacy systems is tedious and costly. But it is a necessary step to avoid financial fraud. A smart contract system can help banks streamline KYC operations.

They can easily verify customer identity through records maintained on the Blockchain and trace down an individual ' s credit history.
7. Minimized entry barriers for SMBs
Banks that run on legacy systems usually have cumbersome onboarding processes. Lengthy documentation and multi-step verification reduce accessibility for SMBs. Smart contracts lower the entry barriers for SMEs and startups.

DeFi, for instance, offers blockchain solutions that accelerate the adoption of traditional banking systems. It helps build processes to match the agility of small businesses. Financial institutions can select appropriate offerings to fill market gaps.

They can reshape traditional financial models and roll out new instruments by leveraging the capabilities of decentralized ledgers. No wonder there is an increase in demand for IoT development services from small and medium-size businesses.
8. Versatile tokenization
Blockchain has established an identity as a platform to deliver stable and secure processes. Tokenization helps financial institutions avoid risks associated with cryptocurrencies and the market volatility that drives them.

They are now offering variations of tokens, such as Stablecoins, which are transactional fractions of major currencies. Their linking to Dollars or Euros ensures risk coverage and stability against market fluctuations.
9. Efficient online donations
Online donations have considerably advanced the way charities collect donations making it easy for supporters to select causes.

Through smart contracts, charities can make impact-based donations that include clauses stipulating that the money gets transferred only if specific trigger conditions are met.

Such contracts will increase the trust of supporters and enhance overall transparency and openness in the process. Plus, smart contracts reduce unnecessary (and sometimes high) donation processing and transactional costs.

How Blockchain can disrupt banking

Blockchain can disrupt traditional banking models. Banks adopting smart contracts will minimize their operational costs and risks significantly while limiting chances of errors.

The transparency offered by banks will help them nurture long-lasting customer relationships by providing satisfactory services consistently.

Smart contracts backed by blockchain technology can empower retail banking business models. There are some challenges to broader adoption of the technology by banks like scalability, volatility of cryptocurrencies, and developing stakeholder trust.

But, by deploying the right regulations and rules, safer banking systems can be established, and customer engagement can be boosted.

In conclusion

Without a doubt, smart contracts can unlock valuable insights for banks and financial institutions and carry out their operations more smoothly and efficiently. Technology leaders envision many apps for Blockchain-based smart contracts.

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How smart contracts are transforming banks and financial institutions

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Smart contracts come with a plethora of benefits. They are tamper-resistant, self-executing, and self-verifying. They are also changing the face of the banking industry in the form of error-free processing of insurance claims, smooth peer-to-peer transactions, streamlined KYC processes, transparent auditing, and so on.

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Building “Block”chain Smart Contracts in the Construction Industry

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Building “Block”chain Smart Contracts in the Construction Industry

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Smart construction contracts & blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionise the construction industry. However, the industry is slow to pick up on the numerous benefits that smart contracts have, some of which are as follows:

Performance monitoring of suppliers

“We are familiar with ‘buyers’ and ‘sellers’ performance being monitored, ranked and rated on digital platforms like eBay. However, when a construction project is completed the performance of participants lives mainly in collective memory, and fades. Finding out how well a supplier performs; how accurately contractor tenders; or how timely a sub-contractor completes their work is accomplished by word of mouth and making enquiries or through experience” (McMeel & Sims, 2021). This is very true in my experience in the construction industry in New Zealand. A company I worked for had a list of “risks” which was made up of a mix of companies they were currently contracting with and not happy with their performance, ones they had heard bad feedback about via trusted parties, and those they had worked with within the last few years that had not met expectations. The implementation of smart contracts would lend the experience of providing feedback when buying and consuming on a personal level to the business arena, where parties can be given feedback on performance in a way that is secure, “to agree and record salient information such as start date and completion date (both projected and actual) and did these dates change; what was the tendered amount for the contract, and did the tendered amount of the contact change over the duration. Over time all this data can be used for assessing performance, with good performance likely to result in more contracted work” (McMeel & Sims, 2021).

Immutability and legality

Thanks to blockchain technology, smart contracts are practically impossible to hack or undermine. This has benefits in assisting with dispute resolutions where parts of the contract are not upheld by a party and, “since the transactions on the blockchain are transparent and validated regularly by opposing parties, disputes can be resolved more quickly. Furthermore, the legal ramifications of digitally signing the smart contract are more explicit...This level of transparency and trust is much harder to achieve in cloud-based database systems” (McMeel & Sims, 2021).

Faster payments for suppliers

Slow and legally problematic payment practices is a significant challenge facing the construction industry. Smart contracts can ensure timely payments through embedding escrow, meaning that when obligations of the contract are met and digitally validated, payment occurs immediately. The benefit of this would be a great reduction of disputes and follow up time that occurs as a result of late payments (McMeel & Sims, 2021). “A smart contract can do away with pay-when-pay clauses by cutting out the middle-man in the progress payment chain. This technology can make the entire payment process more transparent. And transparency is a key factor in getting paid on time.” (Scalisi, 2020)

References

Litan, A. (2021, July 14). Hype cycle for blockchain 2021; more action than hype. Gartner. https://blogs.gartner.com/avivah-litan/2021/07/14/hype-cycle-for-blockchain-2021-more-action-than-hype/

McMeel, D., & Sims, A. (2021). Chip of the new block(chain): Blockchain and the construction sector (No. ER62, ISSN 2423–0839). BRANZ. https://d39d3mj7qio96p.cloudfront.net/media/documents/ER62_Blockchain_and_the_construction_sector_LR10482.pdf

Scalisi, T. (2020, June 23). Can smart contracts speed up construction projects & payments? Levelset. https://www.levelset.com/blog/smart-contracts-speed-up-construction-projects-payment/

Simply Explained. (2017, November 20). Smart contracts - simply explained [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE2HxTmxfrI&feature=youtu.be

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What Could Blockchains Do for Education? (By Loraine Jayme)

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What Could Blockchains Do for Education? (By Loraine Jayme)

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What Could Blockchains Do for Education?

There are many applications and benefits of blockchain-based ledger technologies for education:

1. Student records. Academic transcripts are one of the most time-consuming, labor-intensive tasks in academic institutions today. Before issuing a certified transcript of a student’s grades, each entry must be manually verified to ensure accuracy.

Another kind of student record that is frequently requested is the certification of course contents. In K-12 education, it might happen that a student in one state takes a class called ‘Algebra’ and then moves to another state where she is enrolled in a school that also teaches a class called ‘Algebra.’ So far, so good. But do both courses share the same content? Verifying this means comparing the courses’ content. In K-12, this can be tedious. At the university level, it is a nightmare. At the university where I went to medical school, complete course contents are around 700 pages. For each student who requests this record, each page should be signed and stamped (to ensure accuracy). But if this information were stored on a blockchain, with just a few clicks, a person could obtain a complete, verified record of content courses and all academic achievements.

2. Diplomas and certificates. Just like grades, a student’s diplomas and credentials could be issued and stored on a blockchain. Instead of asking the institution emitting the diploma to certify a paper copy, employers would only need to be provided with a link to a digital diploma. This is already being done. In 2017, MIT began issuing digital, blockchain-stored diplomas to its graduates. This prevents people from submitting fake degrees to potential employers, a situation that is, regrettably, all too common.

Other uses of block chain for education can be on badges, for file storage, dissemination of lessons and courses and publications.

Source: https://www.gettingsmart.com/2020/02/23/how-blockchain-could-impact-education-in-2020-and-beyond/

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By: Jesús Cedeño

Blockchain. A few years ago, the word was known only to a very select few. Nowadays, most people have heard of blockchains, even though they might just know it as 'that thing that makes bitcoin work.' While cryptocurrencies are the first widespread application of blockchain technology, this is far from the only use for it. Being secure, decentralized ledgers, blockchains can be applied in many fields including healthcare and education.

Just a Reminder...

For starters, blockchains are distributed ledgers.

We've all seen ledgers before. They are books where records, like accounting records or students' grades, are kept. Most of these today are electronic, maintained using specialized software, and generally centralized.

If a centralized ledger is ever stolen, damaged or compromised in any way, it's a problem. So keeping exact copies of ledgers in different locations would be a good safeguard, provided each copy were a faithful, verified, exact version of the original. This is what is called a distributed ledger.

In a blockchain, each of the many individual digital 'nodes' keeps a full copy of the ledger and also constantly verifies the integrity of both newly recorded information as well as the copy that it stores. If any or many of these nodes fail or are compromised, the ledger's information remains intact.

It's easy to see how this could be beneficial in many fields. But besides holding ledgers, blockchains also offer other services, such as smart contracts and a built-in rewards system. Let's look at how blockchains could impact education in 2020 and beyond.

What Could Blockchains Do for Education?

There are many applications and benefits of blockchain-based ledger technologies for education:

1. Student records. Academic transcripts are one of the most time-consuming, labor-intensive tasks in academic institutions today. Before issuing a certified transcript of a student's grades, each entry must be manually verified to ensure accuracy.

Another kind of student record that is frequently requested is the certification of course contents. In K-12 education, it might happen that a student in one state takes a class called 'Algebra' and then moves to another state where she is enrolled in a school that also teaches a class called 'Algebra.' So far, so good. But do both courses share the same content? Verifying this means comparing the courses' content. In K-12, this can be tedious. At the university level, it is a nightmare. At the university where I went to medical school, complete course contents are around 700 pages. For each student who requests this record, each page should be signed and stamped (to ensure accuracy). But if this information were stored on a blockchain, with just a few clicks, a person could obtain a complete, verified record of content courses and all academic achievements.

2. Diplomas and certificates. Just like grades, a student's diplomas and credentials could be issued and stored on a blockchain. Instead of asking the institution emitting the diploma to certify a paper copy, employers would only need to be provided with a link to a digital diploma. This is already being done. In 2017, MIT began issuing digital, blockchain-stored diplomas to its graduates. This prevents people from submitting fake degrees to potential employers, a situation that is, regrettably, all too common.

3. Badges. Besides degrees, a person's typical resume contains a lot of additional information that could be relevant to employers. We're talking about foreign language skills, technical knowledge or specific abilities not necessarily related to a person's profession. I, for one, am a medical doctor with a master's degree in primary care diabetology. But that doesn't tell anyone that I speak four languages to varying levels of fluency, can set up computer networks, know about cryptocurrencies or am a trained cook. Then again, these skills aren't easy to verify. But a person can get an expert third party to verify that skill and grant a certificate or badge. If these are stored on a blockchain, they prove that a person indeed has the skills in question. Services like Open Badge Passport are a first step in this direction.

4. File storage. If institutions want to store digital curricula, records, degrees and other information, that's going to use a lot of file storage space. Saving everything on local hard drives brings us back to the issue of centralizing the files. If the hard drives are damaged or compromised in any way, that would be a big problem. Cloud storage is an option, but buying the amount of cloud storage space needed could be out of reach for many institutions. A possible solution would be blockchain-based cloud storage services like Filecoin.

5. Lessons and courses. Many blockchains are also smart-contract capable. That means that lessons and courses can be programmed into the blockchain and executed automatically when certain conditions are met. For example, a teacher could set up tasks for students. The completion of each task could be automatically verified by the blockchain's smart contracts. Upon completion of all tasks, teachers could receive payment with crypto tokens and students could be awarded credits. Entire courses could be laid out this way.

6. Publishing. Undergrad and grad students, teachers, professors and researchers constantly generate quality material. But the road to publication is a hard one. Science has a long history of worthy research that, for a variety of reasons, were rejected by scientific journals: Enrico Fermi's 1933 paper on weak interactions, Hans Krebs' 1937 paper on the Citric Acid Cycle, Rosalyn Yalow's 1955 research that set the bases for radioimmunoassay and even as recently as 1993 Kary Mullis' paper on polymerase chain reaction were all rejected for a variety of reasons-and all these papers went on to earn Nobel Prizes for their authors! Not only does this indicate that rejections don't mean your paper is bad, it shows just how difficult it can be to get published.

But publishing on a blockchain could help new writers, researchers and many others break into the industry. Blockchains could also help with rights management and protection against piracy.

7. Lower costs. Many of the applications mentioned above mean that many time-consuming, labor-intensive processes would be automated. This leads to lower costs for institutions, which in turn could translate into savings for students, who may not need to spend years paying off loans. Schools and universities could also reduce costs related to file storage space and by cutting out middlemen in many activities.

8. Rewards. The computer nodes that constantly verify the integrity of the information stored on a blockchain receive rewards in the form of digital tokens like bitcoin or ether. This is what is called cryptocurrency mining. People who use computers to verify education-related blockchains would also receive tokens as a reward. These tokens could then be traded on a safe cryptocurrency exchange like Kraken for other crypto or fiat currencies, or used to pay for goods and services within the education community itself, as schools and universities could accept tokens as payment in cafeterias, bookstores or even for tuition.

Looking at how blockchains could impact education, we can see that in the not-too-distant future both K-12 and higher education institutions could implement them for record-keeping and issuing credentials. Let's have a closer look at what the K-12 scenario could look like with blockchains implemented:

Each state can create its own education-related, smart-contract capable blockchain with its own specific crypto token. For example, New York State's blockchain can generate the New York Education Token (NYET). For starters, each school can store its course contents on the blockchain. Right off the bat, any school can check whether another school's Algebra course is an exact match to their own.

Upon first registration in the school system, at the kindergarten level, an account on the blockchain is created for each student. The account would contain a full, detailed record of a student's academic activities. And we're not just talking about final grades here; exams and papers themselves could be stored. So not only could the blockchain show Junior got a B- on last week's U.S. geography test, it could also show that he answered that Los Angeles was the capital of California. Just how much detail needs to be stored is a matter that should be decided in advance. For example, should detentions and other disciplinary actions be stored on the blockchain for posterity? Maybe. Maybe not.

Because the blockchain is smart-contract capable, teachers could also write the exam questions in the blockchain with the correct answers and scoring parameters. Students would then use desktop computers or tablets to take the exam digitally and the blockchain would then handle grading. Not having to grade exams would give teachers more time for other academic or cultural endeavors.

Sometimes students possess a very well developed specific skill. Maybe they write exceptional poetry by the ninth grade, are a math genius by age eight or can carve wood like a pro before graduating high school. Teachers or other certified people who witness this could acknowledge this skill by awarding special badges that would also be stored in each student's account on the blockchain. The blockchain also could certify specific skills or abilities.

If a student transfers to another school, there would be no need for transcripts, as the information is already on the state's blockchain and the new school would just continue adding to the student's account. If the student moves to another state, the information could be easily transferred to the receiving state's blockchain. A smart contract on the receiving blockchain could then compare course contents and alert if specific areas need attention.

Schools could also publish their social and cultural calendars on the blockchain. Not only this, but videos of school orchestra or band concerts or plays could also be stored there and shown in a decentralized version of YouTube. Because it's on the blockchain, each video view, like and/or comment could generate rewards in NYETs for the creators of that content: performers, teachers and schools could then earn benefits from high-quality content. Decentralized social networks like DTube or KARMA that reward creators with cryptocurrencies already exist, so it's just a matter of adapting the technology.

Students and teachers who write stories (maybe the first novel from the next Stephen King), create music, documentaries or other short films (maybe even a feature-length film produced as a school project) could publish their creations on the blockchain. This would not only bypass the hassle of finding a publisher but also protect against piracy, improve rights management and directly reward the creator in NYETs depending on how popular or well-rated said creations are.

Of course, storing all these documents and videos would require a massive amount of storage space. So the blockchain should incorporate a decentralized file-storage system akin to Filecoin. Any person, in any part of the world, could then rent out any unused disk space for file hosting in exchange for NYETs. Interested parties could also earn NYETs by mining them, meaning that they set up computers as nodes, dedicated to constantly verifying the integrity of the blockchain and all the information it stores. In the beginning, maybe the NYET could be used as a currency within the school system itself and could be used for buying food in school cafeterias or supplies in bookstores. Later on, more types of stores could start accepting payments in NYETs and the token could also be listed and traded on cryptocurrency exchanges.

Blockchains are already changing the economic landscape via cryptocurrencies; looking at how blockchains could impact education in 2020 and beyond, distributed ledgers and smart contracts could draw a whole new picture. The above just barely scratches the surface of what's possible. The best thing is that the necessary technology already exists, so it is achievable in the short term. The future is certainly promising and I, along with many others, see the positive impact that blockchains could have on education. Believe me, if I could start mining NYETs for Jesús Jr.'s education right now, I would do it in a heartbeat.

For more, see:

Stay in-the-know with innovations in learning by signing up for the weekly Smart Update .

Jesús Cedeño is a doctor-turned-cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiast who enjoys making encryption algorithms and cryptographic techniques more accessible. Follow him on Twitter: @jesuscedeno73 .

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How Blockchain Could Impact Education in 2020 and Beyond

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By: Jesús Cedeño Blockchain. A few years ago, the word was known only to a very select few. Nowadays, most people have heard of blockchains, even though they might just know it as 'that thing that makes bitcoin work.' While cryptocurrencies are the first widespread application of blockchain technology, this is far from the only use for it.

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Smart Contract is a code that facilitates storage and other automated operations on a zone chain.With Smart Contracts, employees can create automated applications.Especially in the application process, Smart Contract can be applied to realize programming, information storage, certificate request and other applications.

https://medium.com/wavesprotocol/what-are-smart-contracts-and-how-to-use-them-in-your-app-a1c0d62d1a5

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Learn smart contract applications on the example of certification app Certificado.
What is a smart contract?

A smart contract is programming code that is stored and executed on the blockchain. With a smart contract, you can create transparent and automated applications.

A smart contract is a key tool in the creation of decentralized applications, or dApps. In addition to storing data on the blockchain, a smart contract allows you to define an algorithm and application logic.

Smart contract usage

In the tutorial on creating a web app that stores data on the blockchain, we considered the example of Certificado - a service that enables you to save a certificate on a decentralized ledger, which can then easily be checked by any Internet user.

In order to develop the first version, we didn't need any familiarity with smart contracts. To implement the required functionality it was enough to address the blockchain using Data Transactions and GET requests to the API.

Using a smart contract, we'll add new functionality to Certificado: a certificate request. An administrator will not be needed to create certificates for all participants. Now, users will be able to request a certificate. After that, the administrator can confirm their request and record the validity of the certificate on the blockchain.

Let's define the logic of the smart contract, which includes two functions: request and approve a certificate. It's not necessary to dive into the syntax of writing a smart contract in the Ride programming language.
Code development
We'll consider the steps required for deploying a smart contract. Then, we'll study how to connect smart contract function calls to a web app written in JavaScript. In other words, how to make a smart contract available to any user, especially for those who are not familiar with the blockchain.

How are smart contracts created?

You can write code in Ride anywhere, even using Notebook. For the convenience of Waves developers, we've created two code writing tools: a plugin for Visual Studio Code and an Online IDE. The IDE is more suited to small smart contracts and experiments. Go to this page to start.

1. request(name) function can be called by anyone and adds to the account state a record that a diploma was requested

2. approve(name, id) function can only be requested by the dApp owner, which is checked in line 22, and adds to the state a certificate id for the person, confirming its authenticity

We'll continue to develop the logic of Certificado. As an example, let's consider a simple smart contract: certificado.ride.
Uploading the smart contract to the blockchain
The comments marked in green describe the contract's logic. Its functionality is quite simple:

As you see, Ride code is intuitive and easy to write. Besides this, the language has several interesting features. For instance, it lacks loops and recursions, which makes it Turing-incomplete. You can learn the syntax and basics of Ride in Inal Kardanov's Ride introduction tutorial.

After you've written the smart contract in the IDE, upload it to the blockchain. Sign in through your Waves account and click 'Deploy'.

After that, a window with the generated SetScript transaction in JSON format will open and you should sign it.

Click on the 'Add sign' button. The transaction is now ready to be sent. Now click on 'Publish'.

With this transaction, the smart contract will be published and available for calling. Once it's recorded on the blockchain, the account that sent the transaction becomes a dApp and is connected with the specific script on Ride. You can check this in the Explorer.

Now the Callable functions of the uploaded smart contract become available for calling. Their execution is transparent, because the source code is recorded on the blockchain. Check it out here.

Learn more about the process of creating and uploading a smart contract in Ilya Smagin's How to Build a Ride dApp tutorial.

1. Writing code in Ride

2. Sending a SetScript transaction, which contains the code and is signed by the dApp owner

How to use the smart contract

We've found that the process of creating a smart contract is easy. Using the IDE, this is divided into two simple steps:

The source code of any contract can be viewed in the Explorer. More interesting is that you can send an InvokeScript transaction and call the smart contract. By calling the smart contract, new data is added to the blockchain or tokens are transferred.
Calling a smart contract via an auto-generated interface
All you need to create a contract is a SetScript transaction. For calling a contract, you only have to perform an InvokeScript transaction, which is sent to the blockchain in any available way. See the documentation for more details about the structure of this transaction.

There are several options to provide an interface for sending InvokeScript transactions to make a smart contract available to all users, not just those who know how to manually sign JSON and send it to the blockchain.

Waves-Dapp.com is a service that allows you to automatically generate an interface for a dApp using the names and data of the arguments of Callable functions.
Creating an interface to use a dApp
The interface for a new smart contract looks like this:

This page is accessible through this link. The developer can provide an interface for calling a smart contract. The user only needs to go to the page, select and call the function by entering the values of the arguments.

1. Creating a standard interface with HTML

2. Allowing the user to sign and send InvokeScript transactions, using JavaScript and Waves Signer or Waves Keeper

In most cases, in addition to a smart contract, developers create a separate web application enabling access to the smart contract for those who are not familiar with the blockchain and the Waves-Dapp service.

This involves:

Let's update the Certificado app by changing the logic in the index.html file so that any user can request a certificate. Since the previous version used Waves Keeper, the easiest way is to change the transaction structure: see index.js.

We are changing the sendData function so that it will initiate the sending of an InvokeScript transaction by a user. We've extended the example functionality so that any user with Waves Keeper installed can request a certificate. Only the dApp owner can validate the certificate, by calling the approve function. For this purpose, an automatically created Waves Dapp interface is used.

To set a lower entry barrier for users, it's better to use Waves Signer instead of Waves Keeper. This tool allows signing transactions without setting up a separate account on Waves.Exchange. You can find out how to use Waves Signer in your app here. (We used Waves Keeper because work on the application was already under way before Waves Signer was announced.)

Conclusion

A Waves smart contract is code written in Ride, uploaded to the blockchain via the SetScript transaction, and executed by any blockchain user through the InvokeScript transaction. To make calling smart contract functions more convenient, you can create an interface using JavaScript and Waves Keeper API (or Waves Signer).

Why are smart contracts important?

A blockchain is a database that allows you to store data transparently and securely. Smart contracts are transparent and securely-stored algorithms that can be called by users. Using a smart contract, you can implement any program logic that addresses blockchain data. Smart contracts are important because the data is not just stored on the blockchain, but can also be changed using transparent logic.

Hopefully this article has helped make the development of smart contracts simple and convenient. If you want to discuss a technical issue in detail, please ask in the developer chat on Telegram.

References:

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What are Smart Contracts and how to use them in your app

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Learn smart contract applications on the example of certification app Certificado. A smart contract is programming code that is stored and executed on the blockchain. With a smart contract, you can create transparent and automated applications. A smart contract is a key tool in the creation of decentralized applications, or dApps.

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Blockchain smart contracts for professional athletes' contract

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Blockchain smart contracts for professional athletes' contract

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The application of blockchain smart contracts in the professional sports industry has the potential for many strategic benefits.

Firstly, it can serve to streamline the process and eliminate disputes between the parties to the contract. For example, smart contracts are automatically executed based on pre-defined conditions, and if these conditions are triggered, an agreement is automatically reached, and if they are not, no payment order is given. For athletes, the use of smart contracts can, on the one hand, solve problems such as manual disputes. On the other hand, effectively avoid disputes caused by the poor professionalism of the athlete's agent.

Secondly, it can effectively guarantee the athletes' own interests, and in the event of a discrepancy with the contract, the execution transaction records on the blockchain smart contract can be traced and found.

Thirdly, it can reduce costs and securely track the terms of the contract. Unlike traditional contracts, the anonymity of a smart contract will allow uncertain subjects to exist in the conclusion of the contract. Whatever factors are present, smart contracts can be executed automatically, reducing the cost of discrete human and contractual resources. The simplification and automation of the smart contract process and the electronic signature for payment verification not only significantly reduce costs, but can also change the rules of cooperation between sponsors and athletes.

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The intelligent contact can be used in the policy system. The police can record the tracks with the intellectual connection in their eyes. It can also help them identify the suspects. The call from the citizens can also be posted to their smart contact devices as soon as possible. With intelligent contact, the polices can report their current situation during the mission to their officers, and the officers can give orders simultaneously. It will improve the whole efficiency of the task.

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Smart Contracts for Aerospace and Defense

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Smart Contracts for Aerospace and Defense

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The future for aerospace is evolving quickly. There's many discussions around digitisation, big data, analytics, robotics, blockchain, cloud, and more. Blockchain will be able to help aerospace to have full visibility to the part lifecycle in a secure, trusted and accessible digital format.

Blockchain will be able to reduce paper lending to digital traceability. This industry currently creates, processes, manages and stores paper records. These are usually for auditing purposes. Currently some companies store years of part records in warehouses, third-part locations, and shipping containers and the paperwork volume is too much for the organisation.
Blockchain will be able to help chain partners interact with parts, past records and new records. Blockchain will be able to provide traceability and visibility to where parts have come from and which items they have been installed on.

Blockchain increases the efficiency and quality of operational excution. Companies can sometimes struggle with receiving parts. The first pass quality rates are not often high due to poor or missing paperwork. The paperwork issues can stop parts from being worked on and lock them in quarantine cages. As the parts situation slows down, capital gets tied up, and inventory levels rise to fill the gap. Sometimes parts are scrapped due to missing log books. They can also be re-inducted into a process to be completed overhauled which causes a great amount of cost. Automating and blockchaining these processes will be able to help with the parts not being scrapped as you'd be able to search digitally for the correct paperwork/documents needed for those parts. This would benefit the business because they wouldn't have to spend money overhauling projects or locking the parts in quarantine as the documents would be easily found. This means that time will be spent more efficiently and the cost may go down over time.

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Our findings: Why is blockchain in aerospace and defense desirable?

Blockchain massively reduces the burden of paper leading to digital traceability

The A&D industry is constantly under the burden of creating, processing, managing, and storing paper records. Much of this is to satisfy regulatory compliance and is a key contributor to aviation safety and IP protection, but much of it is a relentless and constant duplication of documents as they move across organizational boundaries. Furthermore, companies store years of part records in warehouses, third-party locations, and even newly acquired shipping containers as the sheer volume of paperwork overwhelms the organization.

It's no wonder that multiple aerospace companies appear to be at least thinking about digitizing much of the paper they traditionally process as they manufacture or interact with parts, and integrate them into end-items or perform maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) activities. The reasons for this are obvious: paper records are typically time-consuming to create, prone to error, difficult to search for, and even harder to extract meaningful information from.

As supply chain partners interact with parts, past records are consumed and new records are created. However, each party creates and stores their own view of the part-there is no "part-centric" perspective that provides a view from the part's standpoint and gives insight into how that part performs over its lifecycle, whether in the supply chain or while operating. Until recently, there has been no facility to easily contribute to the part's historical record. Furthermore, knowing where parts are and how they are moving through the supply chain is something that has been challenging the industry for many decades. Having traceability and visibility to where parts have come from and which end items they have been installed on is extremely important for safety and compliance with airworthiness directives as well as other reasons. There appears to be a valuable opportunity for industry players to better utilize this valuable information stream.

Blockchain increases the efficiency and quality of operational execution

Today, industry companies sometimes struggle with simple processes, such as receiving parts. The first pass quality rates are often not as high as they should be due to poor or missing paperwork. These paperwork issues can stop parts in their tracks, lock up parts in quarantine cages, and kick off the endeavor to correct the problem. In fact, at a large US airline carrier, Deloitte was asked to audit accessibility to part documentation. Deloitte found that greater than 60 percent of the issues with part receiving was due to poor or missing paperwork, and on average it took 34 days to correct the problem.

As parts slow down, capital generally gets tied up, and inventory levels increase to fill the gap. In the worst of cases, parts are scrapped (due to missing logbooks) or re-inducted into the MRO process to be completely overhauled at great expense. In the MRO world, customer orders without proper paperwork can disrupt the planning process, increase turn time, and reduce cash velocity-a situation where no one wins.

In an ideal digital platform world, the part would be shipped with an electronic advanced shipping notice (ASN), and all the required documents would be posted against the part record. Both parties would have access to the records before the part is even loaded on the truck. This helps give adequate time to correct poor or missing paperwork and greatly increases the chances that it will be smoothly received.

The same solution can be applied to any other interaction with the part during its custody. Whether a company performs a dimensional check or other quality inspection, or documents the MRO process steps and parts consumed, the events can be pushed to the digital parts platform along with any supporting documentation. That event will be owned by its author, encrypted, and only seen by select parties in the ecosystem. This level of chronological documentation of a part's history is fundamental to maintaining an asset's value, and greatly improves the level of effort involved in process sharing and managing records.

Blockchain increases collaboration with supply chain partners leading to greater forecasting accuracy

Future application of traditional MRP and other forecasting techniques will likely grow and extend beyond the four walls of the enterprise. Other ecosystem trading partners may gain access using the digital parts platform-creating an "ecosystem MRP" where the accuracy of ordering, fulfilling, forecasting, and executing supply chain planning will increase significantly.

Today, too many of the supply chain partners provide less than accurate inventory and lead-time data-mostly to avoid running afoul of service level agreements and other contractual performance metrics. The impact of this is greatly inflated lead times throughout the supply chain. By running MRP and other algorithms on a broader and more accurate dataset-one in which all parties are incentivized to provide this data-supply chain and economic performance can greatly increase and simultaneously reduce obsolescence, stock-outs, AOGs, and over-stocking of the wrong parts.

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Blockchain massively reduces the burden of paper leading to digital traceability The A&D industry is constantly under the burden of creating, processing, managing, and storing paper records. Much of this is to satisfy regulatory compliance and is a key contributor to aviation safety and IP protection, but much of it is a relentless and constant duplication of documents as they move across organizational boundaries.

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A Smart Contract is a small program which is deployed and run on a Blockchain. These programs are triggered by a transaction resulting in an action.  Smart contracts are able to store a state (e.g, recording a land ownership transaction and updating land registers) and funds or the transaction tokens referred to as Ether on the ledger.

Smart Contracts are used to:

a) hold funds and state, which are stored in the Blockchain under the contract's address; or

b) run code to perform an action/s with the funds or update the contract's state.

Australian based company, Horizon State built a token-based Blockchain voting and decision-making platform to enable online voting from small board meetings, to city councils, regional elections and country elections.  They have created a secure digital ballot box that cannot be hacked, in which results can never be altered, and voter identities are protected.

In a global pandemic the ability to continue with local and country elections without creating a further health risk to the community seems like a great idea. In countries that are typically corrupt, the ability to have a voting system that potential will not be rigged – is a win for democracy.

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Healthcare has faced problems related to privacy, anonymity, personal-data safety. The Healthcare industry continues using old rigid systems for working with personal data and transactions. It doesn't guarantee security for patients' records. A higher quantity of patients worldwide start being suspicious about the cooperation with HealthCare establishments.

The Healthcare industry is strongly related to paperwork – health records, medical history, laboratory tests, etc.

For example, patients with chronic diseases need care health tracking and 24/7. Their care team doesn't have an efficient way to access healthcare information. Blockchain Healthcare Smart Contracts can simplify and eradicate all problems.

Blockchain Healthcare Smart Contracts establish a safe, immutable, and transparent network. It enables digital storage of all patients' health records. A new doctor doesn't have to use unreliable channels like a telephone or look around for a previous doctor to acquire a patient's data – he can get access to it just with one fingertip.

Medical smart contracts allow operations with patients' health records without fear of tapping private data. They unite patients, providers, healthcare and organizations. The idea is to empower each patient with the right to control personal data from any device via using the private key. Thus, it improves the compliance between the care team and a patient, lowers expenses, reduces clinical errors and breaches, saves time.

Reference:
https://applicature.com/blog/blockchain-startups/blockchain-healthcare-smart-contracts

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Blockchain Healthcare Smart Contracts establish a safe, immutable and transparent network. They unite all units of the circle: patients, providers, healthcare organizations, insurance agencies. It makes a cooperation among following branches even better. The idea is to empower each patient with rights to control its personal data from any device via using the personal key. Medical smart contracts allow operations with patient's health records to take place without fear of tapping private data. Thus, it improves the compliance between care team and a patient, lowers expenses, amount of clinical errors and breaches, saves time.

Current problems of Healthcare industry

Healthcare has always been one of those industries that suffer. It faces problems related to privacy, anonymity, personal-data safety. Healthcare industry continues using old rigid systems for working with personal data and transactions. It doesn't provide nor guarantee safety for patient's records. Accordingly, a higher quantity of patients worldwide start being suspicious about the cooperation with HealthCare establishments.

The Healthcare industry is strongly related to the paperwork - health records, medical history, laboratory tests, diagnostic examinations, prescribed medications, other protocols etc. It drowns in tons of papers. Thus, having a big stack of papers around slows down the process of curing and healing the patients and worsens the compliance itself. For example, if a patient is not satisfied with the therapist and wants to change the doctor, he has to fill out millions of different forms.

Another example is patients with chronic diseases. Patients with chronic diseases need health tracking and care 24/7. These patients and their care team don't have any efficient way to access healthcare information.

An appropriate solution has to be found! Let us introduce you a real breakthrough in the HealthCare industry. It will simplify and eradicate all problems - Blockchain Healthcare Smart Contracts.

Why use Blockchain Healthcare Smart Contracts

Blockchain Healthcare Smart Contracts allow having a digital storage of all patients health records. A new doctor doesn't have to use unreliable channels like a telephone or look around for a previous doctor to acquire patient's data - he can get an access to it just with one fingertip

Let's take a look at an individual who purchases health insurance. The details of their policy get linked to their profile within the blockchain. When a patient undergoes a medical procedure which is covered by their policy then the smart contract will automatically be triggered and the correct payment from the insurance company to the hospital will be automatically made. This will have a really positive impact on the fair execution of the person's insurance policy. It will reduce inefficiencies and stresses that come with having to complete insurance claims forms.

Blockchain Healthcare Smart Contracts' Immutability and Safety

Blockchain Healthcare Smart Contracts allow creating new, independent, immutable system, in which all patient's records are secured. It creates a brand new so-called digital health industry. It has many benefits compared to the systems that are used now.
First things first a big advantage of it is easy accessibility, approachability, transparency for both sides - doctors and patients.
In the current state of Healthcare industry patients have no access to their health records. A big drawback of the existing system is the patient doesn't know how the data is used. As a result, we face hurdles and difficulties with cooperation, compliance and obviously treatment because patients do not trust.
Now, patient's personal records can be stored in blockchain ledger using different ways that are more convenient for patients. Some data such as anamnesis of life, the disease, examinations, laboratory tests, prescribed medications can be securely encrypted. After putting all the information to the blockchain a patient gets the private key for accessing data. Then, all patient's personal records can be used only if he allows doing so. Thus it provides full control over the information by the patient. There is no need to worry about personal data safety. In case if the information is used by a doctor, pharmacy or a research lab - patient's identity remains anonymous and an individual is aware of how the information is used.

Digital Health Direction

Blockchain Healthcare Smart Contracts lead us to the formation of Digital Health Industry, which takes care of the development of interconnected health systems in order to increase the efficiency of using computer technologies, intelligent devices, computer analysis methods and communication tools to help doctors, physicians, and patients analyze the development of the disease, calculate possible risks, strengthen personal health and well-being itself.

Smart Contracts facilitate launching of Electronic health cards. They successfully find their usage and are designed to allow everyone to take control of their health, learn to analyze the results of medical examinations, laboratory findings, get advice on choosing the most effective drugs, etc. Electronic cards allow you to keep diaries for therapeutic nutrition or medications. There is no need to worry about forgetting what drug to take and when; what products are more favorable for you, what aren't. They are truly being an indispensable program for chronic patients and those whom certain treatment courses have been prescribed to.

Beyond Demands with Blockchain Smart Contracts

Furthermore, Smart Contracts make stiff and rigid Healthcare industry more flexible! Digital health is a multi-discipline system that includes a variety of stakeholders, including doctors, researchers and scientists with a wide range of knowledge in health, social sciences, health economics, and management.

Accordingly, the cooperation of different branches together makes the diagnostic process easier. Even at the present time, some diseases can be hardly diagnosed. Consequently, treatment becomes tough because of the lack of symptoms, hidden, unknown pathogenesis, etc.

Now, a surgeon or a physician can easily get in touch with scientists, researchers, discuss, overview possible underlying symptoms of the disease and think of therapeutic or surgery tactics.

Smart Contracts' influence on the Pharmacy and Supply Chain

Pharmacy industry is closely related to the Health Care too. In the Pharmacy branch, the blockchain is used to fight against counterfeiting. Drug companies are able to improved drug traceability, simplify the process of interaction between parties in the supply chain, and even alert labs if fake drugs have been detected. Being able to easily retrieve data and prove documents aren't fraudulent or altered, means a company is aware of what factory a drug came from and can trust given information. You can find out more information about the supply chain traceability here - https://applicature.com/blog/blockchain-for-supply-chain-management
Also, in the new database formed by blockchain technology, pharmacists, doctors are collaborating together. One is aware of new drugs, their therapeutic effects, side effects, length of treatment, possibility or necessity of combining a certain type of drug with another type (antibiotics + corticosteroids, h2 histamine + immunomodulators etc)
Speaking of pharmacy industry, we can't help mentioning provenance solutions that blockchain can facilitate.
Implementation of the decrypted database will save precious time for doctors and of course patients because there are way too many situations in which seconds decide everything.

Life-saving feature of Blockchain Healthcare Smart Contracts

Blockchain technology also finds its life-saving usage in transplantology. Let's take a look at kidney transplantation. There is a potential possibility of creating a waiting list for people who need a kidney transplant. This list would be stored in the Blockchain ledger. It would be cryptographically secure, and transparent. Currently, different transplant lists exist. But that's not an easy task to get on that waiting list. It costs a lot of money. An average person is simply not able to afford the cost of getting A universal transplant waiting list would be fair to everyone.

Using smart contracts, people looking for kidneys, and potential kidney donors could be matched. The smart contracts would allow for kidney donors, to be transparently paired up, making matching donors easier and more reliable than current methods. Using this technology, it would be easy to know exactly where you stand in line and trust that you'll stay there.

Safe and transparent fundraising with the blockchain

Nowadays, diseases have become even more harmful because of ecology, food, the lifestyle of people and many other factors. A lot of people can't afford highly-cost examinations and operations. So they start looking for donations, charity or fundraising projects. There are many websites and organizations on the internet who fundraise money for a good use. They look transparent at first. But should we really trust them?
Smart contracts of blockchain allow establishing safe transactions between both sides - donors and recipients (those who ask for money). A blockchain-based technology creates an independent setting where each transaction that has been made is visible and is saved and stored in the ledger. Money can't be stolen, accounts can't be hacked because of the blockchain. Aside from lowering fees because of the absence of third parties, payment delays will be reduced and eradicated as well.

Smart Contracts Applications for Healthcare

There are multiple existing applications nowadays, they all make a huge impact on Healthcare industry. Let's take a look at their benefits, how they work and tasks that they solve for certain situations.

Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR)

FHIR is the acronym that stands for Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR). It is a new standard for exchanging electronic healthcare information and replaces more rigid and complicated legacy formats. As patients visit various healthcare entities: clinics, labs or even hospitals there needs to be an easy and consistent way to share or transfer information from one location to another, that's where FHIR comes in. FHIR is built on modern web technologies that are used by websites you use every day such as twitter or facebook. It allows implementers to efficiently integrate, request and transfer data between various healthcare systems.

The basic building blocks of FIRE are called resources. Resources are broken down into distinct categories that can reference each other to form a complete picture.
Some examples of resources include clinical resources such as:

Identification resources include:

patient location of service

device information

Financial resources include:

billing

insurance coverage

eligibility information

The FHIR specification defines the way resources can be exchanged between different systems and each resource format is defined by the rest call for exchanging the data.
The ultimate goal of fire is to solve a wide range of clinical and administrative healthcare problems by making healthcare information more portable and making interoperability better.

Patientory (PTOY)

Healthcare is the industry that has got a lot of bureaucratic problems. Decentralization of this system is a way out. PTOY allows to decentralize healthcare industry and encrypt the data along the blockchain.
Patientory is being able to connect patients, providers and other health-care organizations and make the process of co-working very seamless. Any patient can have an instantaneous chat with a health-care provider and clarify all present questions and details. PTOY allows you to:

access your personal data

reach out to community

learn more about your condition at any time

Providers can get an easy access to your health records, including notes, data from other organizations. One can interact with patients, manage their practice efficiently. The Blockchain-based system allows to store, manage and control access to your data. Also, it makes data breaches almost impossible because of decrypted information. A private key is used to access it so security of your health records is guaranteed.

It's much easier to pull out clients information when you're going to be searching through the patientory database rather than huge amounts of files lying around in cabinets or stored in other places. It makes everything simpler. It saves money, time, allows a better communication with one another. That's what everyone wants to want.
Another benefit of PTOY is easy accessibility. PTOY has launched its own app. You can easily connect with any member of your care team with one fingertip - via iPhone, iPad, laptop etc.

HealthCoin

HealthCoin is the coin that converts your data into a health asset. It is a blockchain based personal health feature. HC enables individuals to have longitudinal access to their full health journey. It ensures that individuals own, manage and benefit economically from their personal health data.
How does this work? The digital exhaust from our daily lives is easily converted to a digital property. This property with a use of a wallet can enable speed and flexibility in transactions with products and services that we choose. Episodic care can turn into continuous care. As a result, health will benefit. Imagine working with a telemedicine provider to reverse diabetes or sending proof tokens to your employer or payer and avoiding private and personal information from being past on. Imagine working directly with a pharmaceutical or a research company interested in a glimpse of your genome.

All of this is possible today because things are moving quickly. Milestones include connecting with light-minded contributors and joining with a global provider of blockchain technology.
Their main tasks are:

Weed coins (POTcoin, HempCoin - THC, DopeCoin)

These new types of coins have been recently launched in the US and are booming in states like Colorado, Nevada, and California. You don't have to be interested in marijuana to actually invest in these coins. There is a big demand for marijuana nowadays. More and more states choose to legalize the medical and recreational use of marijuana. This is going to become a million dollar industry, it's been successful in Colorado, it has been taxed, a lot of that tax revenue is solving some major Colorado's budget problems including making better schools, drug education programs and making much better use of money from what used to be a black market much safer for everyone and just generally helping the community. There is no argument that this billion dollar industry is exploding and will make a huge impact.

As an example, in Las Vegas you can buy marijuana without a pre-check or medical permission, you just buy it like a milk or bread.
Scientific experiments and investigations have been conducted to check and see possible positive effects of marijuana on human's health. There are lots of confirmed and proved medical effects of marijuana. It is used for treating multiple diseases, starting off with migraines and finishing with diabetes mellitus and even cancer. Cannabinoids, active components of marijuana, are used and given to thousands of patients in different forms of drugs and their positive effect is proven.
Cryptocurrencies come in handy because they allow marijuana dispensaries owners to put their money on the blockchain platform without the interference of the third party. Accordingly, fees would be lower because there is no intermediary and the government wouldn't have the ability to come and seize money from the individuals because the system is decentralized and independent. Your account cannot be frozen or tapped by hackers. Your data is safe and all transactions are much faster and safer.
These coins are already exploding and booming the market. For instance, HempCoin is not that popular as a Bitcoin but the demand and success of it keep growing rapidly. As a result, the price of HempCoin has grown from 0.30$ in December 2017 to 0,70$ in January 2018. That explains constantly growing demand, especially in the Healthcare industry. This coin is available for all people in the community. When anyone has an access to a global market - great ideas flourish and Healthcare prospers.

Conclusions

1. Smart Contracts of Blockchain are used to empower each patient with control over their personal data.

2. If an individual purchases health insurance - all the details of policy get linked to their profile within the blockchain. When a patient undergoes a medical procedure which is covered by their policy then the smart contract will automatically be triggered and the correct payment from the insurance company to the hospital will be automatically made. This will have a really positive impact on the fair execution of the person's insurance policy.

3. All Health Records are encrypted and only a patient has access to it via using a personal key, so information cannot be stolen or changed without a permission of a patient.

4. Decentralized system of Blockchain technology guarantees safety for personal data

5. Autonomy and Independence of Smart Contracts lower fee for transactions because of absence of an intermediary (bank, other company)

6. Easy accessibility from any device helps patients to track their health data and condition 24/7. Also, if needed, they are able to connect and consult with their care team anytime. That brings digital health industry to a whole new level which is super relevant for patients with chronic diseases who require help and care all the time.

7. Blockchain smart contracts help to simplify the process of interaction between parties in the supply chain and even alert labs if fake drugs have been detected. A company can retrieve data of received drugs and make sure that documents aren't fraudulent. Thus a company knows where the drug came from and trust the given information.

8. There is a possibility of creating kidney transplant waiting list where donors and recipients can be transparently paired up. Using this technology it would be easy to know what's your spot in the waiting list and you can be guaranteed that you will stay on that spot and won't be kicked out and removed from there.

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Author

ihor.balyuk

Posted at

Jan 29, 2018

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Blockchain Smart Contracts as a Breakthrough in Healthcare Industry

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The implementation of Blockchain Healthcare Smart Contracts empowers patients with full control over their personal data. Operations with patient's health records can take place without fear of tapping private data. It lowers expenses, amount of clinical errors and breaches, saves time.

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Distribution Industry - Safeguarding the efficacy of medications 

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Distribution Industry - Safeguarding the efficacy of medications 

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As explained in the case study video above, Smart Contracts are being used to ensure the safe delivery of temperature-controlled medications that were once often damaged en route to patients.

For example, Sonoco and IBM are working to reduce issues in the transport of lifesaving medications by increasing supply chain transparency. Powered by IBM Blockchain Transparent Supply, Pharma Portal is a blockchain-based platform that tracks temperature-controlled pharmaceuticals through the supply chain to provide trusted, reliable and accurate data across multiple parties.

Blockchain-powered tracking and traceability systems work across disparate stakeholders such as Pharmaceutical Companies, Various Distributors/Wholesalers, Pharmacy Chains, Hospital Chains, and Regulators.

References:
Revolutionizing Pharma Supply Chains with Blockchain & Smart Contracts (Part 2) | by DomaniSystems Inc. | Medium
What are smart contracts on blockchain? | IBM
Smart contracts in healthcare - HealthManagement.org

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Sonoco + IBM: Safeguarding the efficacy of lifesaving medications​ with blockchain

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Blockchain can be applied in insurance. 

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Blockchain can be applied in insurance. 

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The insurance industry is a vast market, with premiums in the U.S. reaching $1 trillion in 2019. Despite this sheer size, the insurance industry still faces significant struggles, with insurers losing more than $100 billion annually. The most severe problems are fraud, low quality and missing data, and generally inefficient business models. Blockchain can open up new opportunities for the insurance industry, address appeals, and significantly contribute to modernizing the insurance business.

Blockchain efficient solutions can make the insurance industry more decentralized, transparent and secure, reducing the time to process requests and the cost of interactions and transactions.

Reducing the number of intermediaries making the public platform fully transparent can significantly enhance business processes, reduce costs and increase confidence in the system.

Smart contracts automate management, payments, reduce fraud risk and improve customer service.

From an insurer's perspective, blockchain enables secure traceability of transactions and storage of information but also integrates partner ecosystems into your business and develops entirely new products. Experts believe that the application of blockchain can advance the insurance industry in the following ways.

Financial Security

Blockchain will minimize human problems in business activities - including making mistakes or oversights and fraud. A decentralized digital-type database will evaluate users independently and impartially without interfering with them. One potential danger area is that different currencies can be traded across borders. Blockchain systems can help you monitor the risk in this area, reducing the probability of fraud to zero. Moreover, blockchain reduces the error rate when dealing with large amounts of data, which is very important for reinsurance.

Claims processing

Blockchain and digital technologies can overall simplify and speed up communication with customers in insurance incidents. The simplest method - remote insurance assessment by experts via cell phone cameras - saves customers' fees and insurers' costs. In the case of natural disasters, a combination of mobile technology and satellite imagery is used to do the assessment, for example, sending rescue teams to remote areas. Farmers with bad harvests due to natural disasters can receive compensation, which depends on the analysis data of the weather. Insurance companies use blockchain to receive data from weather stations to more fairly assess compensation amounts. The use of blockchain technology to exchange information with partners allows for predictive analysis of market trends to set a clear direction for business development.

A new way of distribution

Auto insurance is a constant source of data if innovation is introduced to create new offers for customer retention. It is not enough to install 'smart' sensors in cars, and the data from them needs to be analyzed quickly and accurately, and blockchain can come in handy. After processing a large amount of data, a set of personalized services can be output for customers. The application of blockchain technology can also stimulate the development of the microinsurance market and microfinance companies. More or fewer tools will limit the content of the insurer, but the client can be used anytime and anywhere. Big data analytics and blockchain technology can help insurers gain a deeper and more accurate understanding of consumer behaviour and expand into some new and exciting niches.

Blockchain technology addresses automation, optimizes third-party integration, improves trust, expands market coverage, increases efficiency, increases insured satisfaction, and increases insurer growth.

reference:
https://www.ibm.com/blockchain/industries/insurance?utm_content=SRCWW&p1=Search&p4=43700050370588993&p5=e&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3fGT2sKz8wIVwRB9Ch1TCwLQEAAYASAAEgLHfvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

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Technological disruption has come to the insurance industry - and the smart risk management strategy is to embrace it. IBM Blockchain is helping the insurance industry radically transform operations by enabling faster verifiable data exchanges, visibility for all parties, and transactions underpinned by pervasive security and trust.

One example of transformation is openIDL, a network built on the IBM Blockchain Platform with the American Association of Insurance Services (AAIS). AAIS is automating insurance regulatory reporting and streamlining compliance requirements, and that's improving efficiency and accuracy for both insurers and state insurance departments.

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Blockchain for Insurance - IBM Blockchain | IBM

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Learn more about how blockchain technology can be used to re-shape the insurance industry and build trust and transparency.

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Mediachain Labs used blockchain technology to develop a shared distributed data network for media.  It attempts to address the problem exacerbated by file sharing services where creative media (songs, images) were freely shared with no attribution or value accruing to the creator.  Mediachain advocated that blockchain and smart contracts enable value to flow, and musicians to get the money they deserve.

“It starts with attention (attribution), gratitude, analytics, and can lead to financial exchange, directly through media itself.”  Founder Jesse Waldron 2016 Mediachain.io

A decentralised, transparent contract ensures data about ownership is unambiguously tagged to agreements for use, and the efficiency of blockchain means artists can earn the royalties they have agreed, and get paid on time.

Mediachain was acquired by Spotify in 2017.  Spotify saw the need to ensure that attribution and rights were secured as it serves up billions of tracks every day.  It helps address gaps in metadata for the massive range of songs on its books, but also assists in arbitraging the many payments required to any number of collection agencies.

https://blog.mediachain.io/what-a-blockchain-for-music-really-means-e2f8dc66d57d

https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgehoward/2016/07/29/mediachain-facilitates-automatic-attribution-using-blockchain-and-machine-learning/?sh=25822dfe7fb8

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Unlocking Value

Today, publishers depend on centralized platforms for their identity, audience and monetization.

Using cryptography, all data in Mediachain stays connected to the identity of the author, offering a channel for attribution, analytics and value to flow directly.

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Unlocking Value Today, publishers depend on centralized platforms for their identity, audience and monetization. Using cryptography, all data in Mediachain stays connected to the identity of the author, offering a channel for attribution, analytics and value to flow directly.

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Smart contracts in house rentals with blockchain technology

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Smart contracts in house rentals with blockchain technology

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Blockchain is based on encryption technology, and the blocks in the chain are connected with hash values. The uniqueness of hash values ensures that the blocks are connected sequentially. When the sequence is connected into a chain, it is irreversible, that is, it cannot be tampered with. Blockchain is decentralized. Each block is generated using computing power that can be provided by any of the participating users, whose contributions are recorded information packaged into blocks that are connected to the previous block. The immutable nature of the blockchain provides evidence for every packaged record. Ethereum-based smart contracts give designers flexibility in functional design. Smart contracts are similar to contract clauses, which are translated into machine language to execute corresponding instructions when the required conditions are met. They can be the trigger of transactions. This automated execution saves labor costs by coding the lease terms into smart contract codes, and the contents of the contracts are packaged into blocks for recording, which are secured by the immutable nature of the blockchain.

Decentralized blockchain technology can realize de-intermediary housing rental, one-to-one handover between landlord and tenant, eliminating intermediary fees, while smart contract function based on the blockchain can realize automated hosting. Through the design of smart contracts, the functions of house leasing can be achieved. Compared with the traditional leasing system, it has the characteristics of automation, de-intermediation, and security.

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HR Business operations have the opportunity to benefit from smart contracts, as smart contracts can reduce the need for manual human processes. One example of this is in the Payroll function. Instead of allocating a lot of staff resource to run payroll, businesses could set up smart contracts. For example, when a smart contract says pay employee x on a particular date, the business then automatically sends out the payment. This ensures that the business is reliably meeting their payment agreements, without heavily resourcing their operational functions. This has the potential to save the business time, effort and money.
With transactions being encrypted and stored as immutable data on the blockchain, these transactions are more reliable, which enables better auditing and compliance reporting. There will also no longer be reliance on intermediaries, such as banks, to process transactions.

Smart contracts could also help HR teams with employee data security. Employers has access to significant quantities of personal data about their staff members. On a blockchain these records could be encrypted and immutably recorded, and only shared when necessary with participants who have verified permission.

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Can voters really, truly trust that their vote is counted? This is the questions for many. Voting involves high levels of trust, and where some countries might be more democratic than others, there are countries around the world where its citizens don't trust the democratic process.

Blockchain solution
While electronic voting has been trialed in countries such as Australia and the Phillipines, to date it has come with issues. Blockchain presents itself as a solution solving issues such as confidentiality and instant tallying.

With trust being one of the key issues amongst voters, blockchain truly needs to solve this in order to get voters onboard. Blockchain puts itself forward as a solution to both ensuring voter anonymity as well as making it exceptionally difficult for votes to be miscounted or for a group to illegally cheat the numbers.

There is still some work to do to iron out bugs in the system, however when this is done and there is a higher efficiency rate, this truly could help to ensure legitimacy of voting globally.

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Voting has always been a complex procedure, in which immense levels of trust are placed in the hands of a small number of powerful individuals. As long as democracy has existed voting has been centralised, over time people's trust in the system has been eroding, which has led to an apathetic view from voters in many different...

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Voting using blockchain and smart contractsd

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Voting has always been a complex procedure, in which immense levels of trust are placed in the hands of a small number of powerful individuals. As long as democracy has existed voting has been centralised, over time people's trust in the system has been eroding, which has led to an apathetic view from voters in many different...

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Smart contracts in ethical production and sustainability 

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Smart contracts in ethical production and sustainability 

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Blockchain smart contracts can provide visibility to an end consumer of the origin of a product such as coffee - and manage all the contracts along the supply chain to ensure even distribution of wealth, particularly to the original farmers.

While Blockchain is already being used by a number of coffee suppliers - smart contracts would enable an organisation to ensure certain factors had been met before payment was made. For example, perhaps the farmers need to be paid or need to enact something in the system to ensure distributors are not taking more than they should as the 'middle man'.

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Folgers brand coffee to use the IBM blockchain platform connecting producers to customers.
IBM

Production transparency and blockchain technology are natural partners in the transformation of supply chain management. This may seem like a business platitude written about a new corporate event, but distributed ledger technology keeps making progress with large companies.

Farmer Connect announced today that it would partner with Smucker's Folgers brand coffee to use the IBM blockchain platform connecting producers to customers. A QR code will allow consumers who buy 1850 Coffee to see how it was grown and brought to the shelf.

Farmer Connect wants to eliminate inefficiencies in our food supply - this means removing the middleman and third-party services, which take from the small farmer's bottom line. Blockchain technology will validate the food crop, in this case coffee, to the farmer and its source location.

Will this increase coffee sales? The future is unclear; no one knows today.

Blockchain authentication and identification may not grow Smucker's profits, but it could help farmers better manage their crops directly with broader markets. In effect, this announcement between Farmer Connect, IBM and Smucker is a prototype for new blockchain ventures.

Folger's will be the first large U.S. food brand to use this service. IBM said in the announcement, "Leveraging IBM's blockchain technology, consumers can now trace their coffee back to its origin on a platform designed to help increase traceability, efficiency and fairness in the coffee supply chain."

Farmer Connect's website will provide where the coffee was grown, processed, and exported. Consumers can understand if the drink in their hands was part of clean water and small farm agriculture initiatives.

"We know that consumers are increasingly interested in transparency in the supply chains for the products they enjoy and we have been committed to helping promote this as part of our coffee sustainability strategy," said Joe Stanziano, senior vice president and general manager of coffee at the J.M. Smucker Company. "Our work with Farmer Connect and IBM not only helps connect coffee lovers to the producers who provide their favorite morning drink, it also gives them the opportunity to support these hardworking smallholder farmers and their families."

Time will tell.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out some of my other work here.

... Read More

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Big Coffee Sellers Use Blockchain To Connect Farmers And Customers

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Farmer Connect announced today that it would partner with Smucker's Folgers brand coffee to use the ﻿IBM﻿ blockchain platform connecting producers to customers. A QR code will allow consumers who buy 1850 Coffee to see how it was grown and brought to the shelf.

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The insurance sector has numerous opportunities and difficulties as technology advances at breakneck speed. Every day, trade publications publish articles on how new technologies might assist insurance companies in fixing or integrating this or that. There are so many options that it can be tempting to do just enough to get by.

When it comes to insurance companies, fraud prevention is frequently the beginning point. Why? Every year, the insurance sector is hit with billions of dollars in fraudulent claims and operations. According to a reasonable estimate from the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, various forms of insurance fraud cost the United States $80 billion every year.

Despite these losses, the insurance industry as a whole has been sluggish to incorporate emerging technologies like smart contracts and blockchain. These two technologies, in particular, have the potential to establish a transparent manner of tracking transactions throughout the insurance value chain, reducing fraud.

In the insurance industry, three general uses are predicted to take hold:

1. Smart contracts for insurance policy execution will improve underwriting and claims processing efficiency. (Smart contracts are self-executing contracts in which the contents of the buyer-seller agreement are written directly into lines of code.) The code and agreements contained within are ultimately spread across a decentralized blockchain network.)
2. Using a ledger-based system to manage risk better and remove fraud sources in insurance claims.
3. Creating a smooth communication and payment flow between insurers and reinsurers.

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You buy insurance - auto, health, life - because you want to be sure you and your family will be OK if anything unexpected happens. But as time drags on while you wait for a claim to be processed, you start to wonder if the benefits are worth the hassle and higher premiums. These negative mindsets, along with scandals and crises, have led to stilted growth rates and declining customer satisfaction in an industry mired in inefficiencies from fragmented IT systems that lack interoperability. Fraud also remains an ever-present source of concern and expense. As insurance companies explore diverse solutions, blockchain has emerged as a way to bring about transformation in several areas, including client onboarding, underwriting, and claims processing.

Client onboarding

To satisfy compliance requirements such as KYC (know your customer), insurance providers must collect, validate and verify key documents to prove characteristics such as name, address, birth, health and economic status. Time delays are common as various third parties and internal departments must review the data to complete their due diligence processes. Then, companies spend vast resources fixing any errors that occurred while records were being reconciled.

A blockchain network is distributed, so the necessary documentation can be made available to whoever has permissioned access. The records are secured with cryptography and linked together, which prevents them from being altered retroactively. These characteristics facilitate the secure sharing of information across an organization and to appropriate third parties. Plus, if customer identities are already secured with blockchain, insurers can efficiently verify their eligibility without needing to go to multiple sources.
How insurance could benefit with IBM Blockchain
Underwriting

Through the underwriting process, insurers evaluate the risk of furnishing a client with a policy, how much coverage the client should receive and how much they should pay for it. Insurance might be a gamble, but no insurance company will play the game without thoroughly looking at the data and making sure the odds are favorable. Sometimes, it can take months to a year to evaluate the risk versus reward for larger corporate policies.

On blockchain, external data can be included to decrease risk liability and provide semi-automatic pricing. This can help to automate and shorten the underwriting process, reducing the cost of operations. Blockchains also bring transparency and improve trust in the underwriting process by enabling shared visibility in complex multinational programs. Last year, AIG, Standard Chartered and IBM successfully piloted the first multinational insurance policy to use blockchain and smart contracts to allow visibility into underwriting coverage and premiums at the local and master level.

Claims processing

For a policy holder, making a claim can be a long and confusing process. And then you have to wait as hundreds of insurers and reinsurers figure out where contracts are, which are correct, who already paid what, and which ledger has the right accounting. It's a process that can take quite a while, even if you don't factor in the extra time needed to adhere to tighter regulations for combating fraudulent claims.

You already know how a distributed blockchain network makes it easier for all those insurers to access the same information, reducing administrative duties associated with claims. What if you could also use blockchain to get information about insured goods and events? Everledger is making that possible by putting diamonds on a blockchain network. Each diamond's characteristics are registered onto the blockchain and there's a record of every time it is transferred, going back to its origin. Provenance, or knowing where something came from, can be very helpful in discerning counterfeit items. With less risk of fraud, claims can be handled in a timelier manner.

Transforming the insurance industry

The promise of blockchain lies in its capacity to eliminate outdated systems that are the root cause of inefficiencies in various industries. In the insurance sector, blockchain makes it easier to share information, providing greater line-of-sight to data and security through records that cannot be altered when written. Labor-intensive, repetitive and error-prone client onboarding, underwriting and claims settlement processes will be transformed through the use of a unified platform to store and share all documentation.

Now that you know some specific ways to use blockchain for insurance, take the next step and explore using it in your business.
Learn more about blockchain today

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Three areas in the insurance industry to use blockchain - Blockchain Pulse: IBM Blockchain Blog

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As insurance companies explore diverse solutions, blockchain has emerged as a way to bring about transformation in several areas.

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Smart Contracts in Mobile Telecom Networks

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Smart Contracts in Mobile Telecom Networks

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Smart contracts can be applied in various sectors that create value and where trust and security are concerned. Smart contracts are expected to offer benefits to the telecom and cellular service provider industry in simplified processes, cost savings, new revenue streams and real-time transparency.

Roaming and Settlements

At present, it could take two months to resolve related issues as intermediaries control roaming partners and settlements. The cause for the delays is human errors, frauds, lack of transparency and poor customer experience. Smart contracts and blockchain can resolve this issue by reducing or eliminating intermediaries by automating SLA agreements. In addition, smart contracts and blockchain can provide real-time views to all stakeholders and immediately make threshold breaches visible to all involved parties. Blockchain can also aid in quick dispute resolution through tamper-proof verifiable transactions and real-time usage updates to the consumer.

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

As avid smartphone users, we depend on mobile providers to supply us with the network we need to use Facebook, stream shows on Netflix and send photos to our friends, no matter where we are. And yet most of us sign contracts with mobile providers that go unchanged for years, even with changed talking habits or less internet use - not to mention the hassle of updating a plan when traveling abroad. It's one of those services that leave us wondering: Why, in 2021, isn't there a better way to do this?

Enter smart contracts. Powered by blockchain, and therefore often mistaken for a technology restricted to innovation in the financial sector, smart contracts have the potential to benefit any industry that relies on contracts. While mainstream news outlets still primarily cover blockchain with an eye on Bitcoin's price or JPEGs of apes selling for millions, it's crucial not to overlook the potential of the core technology behind these phenomenons, which is set to transform the backbone of industries such as law, accounting and, yes, telecoms. Most importantly, these changes will come much to the delight of consumers.
Related: Here's What You Should Know About Smart Contracts
An industry in need of an update

The cellular industry today charges customers a monthly fee based on how many minutes they talk on the phone, how many texts they send and how long they surf the web outside a wireless network. Users signing up give an estimate, and if they max out, either they're charged extra or require a new plan.

Without any alternatives, monthly subscriptions serve as convenient payment methods for mobile operators, especially when taking into account most consumers' talking habits didn't vary much from month to month pre-Covid. This was especially true when most people worked full-time at an office, where they used their work phones to make calls and all meetings were in-person.

The pandemic led to more openness to working from home, totally changing the paradigm; 66% percent of employers said in a recent Statista survey they are considering redesigning office space for hybrid work. With employees working away from the office, they are making more work-related phone calls from their mobile phones. On the flip side, they are using their home Wi-Fi more and are not using their mobile data during their work commute. Due to workers' more flexible schedules, it's more difficult to predict exactly how they will use their data. Still, they're paying the same amount they were before the pandemic.

A monthly fee also doesn't take into account breaks when the customer isn't even using the data on his or her phone - for example, when flying abroad. Those who travel abroad either buy a local SIM card or contact their MNO to update their plan. People don't always know how much public Wi-Fi will be available to them, so they estimate how much data they'll need.

This isn't even to mention contacting cellular providers regarding stolen phones - a logistical nightmare. In fact, many Americans pay monthly insurance to deal with these situations, which may never happen.
Related: 5 Ways Hybrid Smart Contracts Are Changing the Blockchain Industry
The path to cheaper contracts

Like finance, and most recently digital art, the telecom industry is steadily embracing blockchain as a tool to improve network security and boost connectivity. The technology's roots in the telecom industry date back to 2018, when early adopters Colt and PCCW leveraged it to settle inter-carrier services in conjunction with blockchain-startup Clear.

Now its adoption is picking up steam, but cryptocurrency and decentralized-finance platforms are often knocked for not being user-friendly enough. In telecoms, the end-user will ideally only reap the rewards, with minimal interaction with the blockchain itself.

While the telecom industry is using blockchain as a way to facilitate agreements between services, it can leverage smart contracts as a way to facilitate the agreements between customers and mobile providers. If customers change their data usage, for example, the contract will update automatically. Smart contracts also keep customer details safe and secure and ensure that all data is kept on the blockchain.

Smart contracts in roaming will detect if a customer travels abroad and allow near-instantaneous charging. There will be no need to buy a local SIM card and certainly no need to get a hold of a mobile-network operator, which will save travelers plenty of their precious time. A blockchain solution can allow telecom providers to store customers' details on the blockchain together with SIM data. This way, MNOs can instantly block a stolen device and notify the customer if a device was stolen.

Smart contracts have the potential to revolutionize the telecom industry by facilitating logistical roaming issues and customer-management problems. Instead of paying the same price each month along with costly phone insurance, customers will pay only according to how much data they use.

Once synonymous with Bitcoin, and more recently associated with other cryptocurrencies and financial technologies, blockchain is permeating industries barely discussed in the tech ecosystem, and it's not likely to stop. Just like blockchain has the potential to revolutionize education and healthcare by creating a transparent environment with a renewed focus on students and patients, mobile providers could stand to provide customers with not only the most advanced smartphones, but also the most advanced service.
Related: Here's How Smart Contracts Can Be Designed

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Frustrated by Your Outdated Phone Plan? Get Ready for Smart Contracts.

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. As avid smartphone users, we depend on mobile providers to supply us with the network we need to use Facebook, stream shows on Netflix and send photos to our friends, no matter where we are.

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With the emergence of new technologies, real estate transactions do not need to continue being the way they were 20 years ago. The solution is the integration of “Smart Contracts” and it is just the perfect technology needed to not only reduce the need for intermediaries, but also create a trustless ecosystem where the automated conditions are transparent and immutable. The smart contract acts as an automated regulator that ensures that involved participants in the contract fulfill the conditions stated in the agreement before funds can be released, and should there be a default, the smart contract cannot be influenced to be partial. With smart contracts, all transactions would be strictly between the real estate agent and the client; no amendments, lawyers or voluminous paperwork.

It makes it easier and faster to transfer homes within minutes, as opposed to taking weeks for transfers, and apart from the reduced cost, it mitigates fraud, and also makes it possible for stakeholders to perform their transactions remotely without meeting physically to have documents signed. It is a win-win solution for both the real estate agent and the client looking to purchase a property.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaOeMo9mxO0

https://www.carlosrousseau.me/en/smart-contracts-and-their-application-in-real-estate/

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Use case 3: FUSION mortgage smart contract

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Smart Contracts for the Mortgage Industry

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Smart Contracts for the Mortgage Industry

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Blockchain smart contracts would provide many benefits to the mortgage industry. Mortgages involve complex contracts with many parties involved including the buyer, the seller, the mortgage broker, the bank, insurance companies and at times other parties too. The contract is often dependent on many different factors including a property valuation, insurance and final inspection.

This provides a good use case for a smart contract. They not only simplify the complex process and save time, but they also provide transparency in real-time. The parties can all see when the insurance has been approved or when the valuation has been completed, automatically allowing the next stage of the process to begin.

The process of getting a mortgage and dealing with the complex paperwork involved is very stressful and often nerve-wracking. Smart contracts provide the parties with an easier to manage process, which may relieve some of the pressure.

In this use case, the information contained within the agreements would be secured using public and private key cryptography. Cryptography ensures each party can only edit the part they ‘own’. Miller (2018) explains “Individuals use private keys to digitally sign transactions and information on the blockchain. Cryptography makes these signatures impossible to forge or reproduce by other users. Additionally, each user has a public address, linked to his or her private key”.

Reference:

Miller, P. (2018, February 13). Blockchain mortgage: the future of home loans. The Mortgage Reports. Retrieved September 28, 2021, from https://themortgagereports.com/34467/blockchain-mortgage-the-future-of-home-loans

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Smart Contracts can be applied to the healthcare industry. In order to provide information on the usage of Smart Contracts in the healthcare industry, one must first understand blockchain technology and Smart Contracts. Blockchain technology is used to record details of an event or a product from the day it is being produced into a log that is unalterable (Griggs et al., 2018). This technology can also be used in Smart Contracts that are essentially contracts that automatically initiate once the requirement is completed. These types of Smart Contracts can be used in the healthcare industry where a patient's data is vulnerable and constantly changing according to new data entry.
One of the researchers provided a system design for a smart contract that allows monitoring a patient's real-time data (Griggs et al., 2018). This data involves the monitor that is connected to a patient to check their vitals. The Smart Contract designed allowed only specific personnel that could view the real-time record of the patient, including the patient as well. Moreover, these Smart Contracts can be allowed to store the historical information on a digital log. In a scenario where the patient would need to move from one hospital to another, this could negate the required time to fill out forms. Records can easily be viewed by the doctor taking care of the patient on the blockchain network once given authority.
Another useful impact of the Smart Contract is on e-healthcare services. Another research showed that in contrast to the traditional approach of sharing patient data, Smart Contracts are more reliable, efficient, and secure (Sharma et al., 2020). In conclusion, Smart Contracts are a reliable method of collecting and storing patient information that can be used efficiently in real-time and protected from external threats.

References

Griggs, K. N., Ossipova, O., Kohlios, C. P., Baccarini, A. N., Howson, E. A., & Hayajneh, T. (2018). Healthcare blockchain system using smart contracts for secure automated remote patient monitoring. Journal of medical systems, 42(7), 1-7.

Sharma, A., Tomar, R., Chilamkurti, N., & Kim, B. G. (2020). Blockchain-based smart contracts for the internet of medical things in e-healthcare. Electronics, 9(10), 1609.

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Managing patients’ health information, records, and data has become a large task for many practitioners. Additionally, there have been many cases of fraud due to the vulnerability of the outdated systems currently in use. These issues cannot be solved by practitioners alone. This is where smart contracts can be highly beneficial:

Health Insurance - When patients use smart contracts to buy their insurance, all the details of their policy will be automatically secured in their patient profile. This is then stored on a blockchain – a safe and secure ledger which is less prone to hackers than a traditional database.

Health records - Smart contracts allow records and information to be stored on a digital ledger. This means if a patient was moving from one hospital to another, they would be able to do so with ease and without having to fill out numerous forms.

Medical research - With smart contracts, patient medical information can be easily shared by hospitals, clinics and pharmaceutical companies to enable medical research institutions to carry out in depth research and monitor the patients progress. This could be very useful in handling major healthcare crises or outbreaks like pandemics and can be used to monitor and implement effective treatment programmes.

Smart contracts combined with blockchain technology can enhance the future of healthcare and medicine. Smart contracts offers high-level encryption and security that allows users, patients, and doctors to access information in a safe and attack-proof manner.

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Originally developed for cryptocurrency in 2008, blockchain allows a distributed network of computers to keep a tamper-proof digital ledger.

The technology, however, is useful whenever collaborating parties have competing interests that require a third-party guarantor. Large health care organizations have been remarkably quick to adopt blockchain.

In 2017, IBM reported that 16% of the 200 health care executives it surveyed from 16 countries anticipate a release of a commercial blockchain solution, and 90% of health care companies expect to launch a pilot blockchain project by 2018.

To date, blockchain in health care has mostly been used for audit trails and payments for value-based care. However, it has the potential to be used for much broader applications, especially given the rapid emergence of the internet of medical things (IoMT). Blockchain may soon allow smartwatches and smartphones to load clinical information directly to the clinical record.
Barriers To EHR Usability
In the past, software developers in health care were limited by complex, heterogeneous security requirements. According to Canada Health Infoway requirements, the industry standard for electronic health records, EHRs must do three things: encrypt data transmitted over email, preserve personal health history and verify the identity of users.

Unfortunately, it's clinicians who bear the brunt of consequences for this security-first EHR design. Existing EHR software is currently bought and constructed based on legislated standards. And it usually isn't tested in situ beforehand.

At least in part because of this, physicians report professional burnout from poorly constructed interfaces. Many have even retired early to avoid the stress of working with EHR.

Not only can a secure distributed ledger aid in medical billing via cryptocurrency, but it can be used to validate clinicians' credentials, control access to patients' records, secure the medical supply chain and verify clinical tests.

For example, in 2016, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services held a contest for innovative ideas related to blockchain technology. The winning white paper, written by MIT's Project PharmOrchard, was about using blockchain to power clinical trials that utilize genomic data.
Blockchain In Clinical Photography
As the CEO of ShareSmart, a company that focuses specifically on clinical photography, I've seen firsthand how blockchain offers two improvements for clinical photography software: smart contracts and better interface apps.

Smart contracts: Smart contracts are data-sharing agreements between patients and care providers that are automatically enforced. Blockchain can put the patient at the center of the health care data ecosystem, enabling them to hold their own record and control providers' access to it. This may include having clinical photos and flexible control over who accesses them and in what context (e.g., diagnostic, research, before and after, academic, operative planning).

Interface apps: In 2012, data scientists at Harvard recommended the SMART platform -- an "open, standards-based technology platform" for innovators to securely and seamlessly operate across the entire health care system. While progress has been made in 2018, blockchain technology could rapidly make this dream a reality. Blockchain can turn the EHR market on its head by creating secure, flexible and enforceable business associate agreements. Clinicians can take photos with their smartphones using secure clinical photography apps such as ShareSmart or ProDerm and then, using a smart contract, load pictures securely to a blockchain-savvy EHR.

While these are two very specific examples, blockchain offers holistic solutions. Blockchain has the potential to be what one surgical team analyzing the technology in the American College of Surgeons Bulletin termed, " a convergence point for health information." For instance, Synx is a machine learning system that mines photos of the retina to automatically predict diabetic retinopathy in Mexico, where ophthalmologists are understaffed relative to population. Blockchain could allow consent, capture, and storage of these photo banks and then integrate the findings from the algorithms with the EHR.

As the authors of the report explain, these interactions extend to many other areas of medicine with the potential to solve hard problems such as:

Interoperability: retaining a lifelong health record from multiple sources.

Personalized medicine: allowing genomic risk calculators access to DNA sequences.

Research: reducing siloed patient datasets and cross-correlating manual updates.

Security: reducing fraudulent billing, counterfeit drugs and the medical supply chain.

Like other forms of transactions, it is likely that we will see blockchain permeate health care software in unforeseen, subtle and, hopefully, beneficial ways. The U.S. Consumers Union estimates that 1 of every 3 health care dollars is waste. Improving efficiency and security could revolutionize clinical care, and with the health care budgets in the U.S. and Canada, it could significantly change economies.

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Council Post: How Blockchain Is Transforming Health Care

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Originally developed for cryptocurrency in 2008, blockchain allows a distributed network of computers to keep a tamper-proof digital ledger. The technology, however, is useful whenever collaborating parties have competing interests that require a third-party guarantor. Large health care organizations have been remarkably quick to adopt blockchain.