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bne July 2017 Companies & Markets I 15
bne:FinTech
Businesses move beyond early learning stage
of blockchain
Nicholas Watson in Prague
Businesses in the US appear to be moving beyond merely learning about blockchain –
a distributed ledger first developed to record bitcoin transactions but now regarded as having uses far beyond that – and are now increasingly interested in piloting projects using the technology, according to the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC), which in May hosted an event on the sidelines of the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting.
Educating business about the opportunities and inno- vations surrounding blockchain is a main goal of the newly created GBBC, which in partnership with the Greater Omaha Chamber organized the “New Kids on the Blockchain” event in Omaha, Nebraska.
The two-day event began on May 4 with a gathering
of senior executives from a variety of major companies headquartered in Omaha, such as Union Pacific, Mutual of Omaha and proxibid, to give an overview of blockchain technology and to hash out potential case uses for it.
This was followed by a larger event the next day that featured presentations and panels from industry players such as CME Group, IBM, EY and The Bitfury Group, a global full-service blockchain technology company, to a wider audience of company representatives numbering around 170. “It was standing room only,” says Mercina Tillemann- Dick, executive director of the GBBC, adding that her organization had originally expected around 100 to attend.
“It was a special opportunity to be in the same room with all these major companies. Connecting blockchain experts and technologists with companies that are aware of block- chain, but don’t yet know how the technology works or how it might impact their companies is exactly why we formed the GBBC,” says Mercina Tillemann-Dick.
The companies that attended came from a variety of sectors
– freight, manufacturing, agriculture, financial services, insurance – suggesting the opportunities to apply blockchain technology will be widely spread across the economy.
The applications for blockchain are believed to be manifold and growing. The technology offers a way for people who do not know or trust each other to transfer nearly any asset using the same process, creating a record of ownership that compels the consent of everyone concerned. Given that no central authority or potentially malicious third party can tamper with it, everything from land registries, to stock
“There’s no reason this technology has to be based in Silicon Valley or Shanghai”
markets, to financial services, to even airport security could use this technology to hold sensitive data, limit fraud and corruption, improve efficiency and maximise economic benefits to a broader section of society.
Since its launch in January during the Annual World Economic Forum Meeting in Davos, the GBBC has held
a number of meetings around the world in places such
as China as it expands to take in 39 members represent- ing 30 countries so far. But what marked out the council’s first blockchain event in Omaha was the number of com- panies that showed interest in actually piloting blockchain projects, rather than just learning about the technology.
“This was very encouraging to us – by the end of our events and conversations in Omaha, companies were talking about piloting projects,” says Tillemann-Dick. “There was a huge emphasis on actually testing the technology, which was an
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