Blockchain technology is growing at a significant pace. According to Statista, the global blockchain market, valued at US$1.57 billion in 2018, is expected to grow more than a hundred times. It will reach US$163 billion by 2027.
Blockchain is a decentralized digital ledger of transactions. It records data in a way that prevents hacking and altering of data by duplicating transactions. These transactions are then dispersed to “nodes” across the network. With organizations increasingly adopting this revolutionary technology, it is transforming the way they do business.
What Industries Will Benefit From Blockchain?
According to 15 of Forbes Technology Council members, industries that will benefit the most from blockchain include:
Law enforcement and security: Currently, it can be difficult for police to know if video evidence is legitimate or altered. With blockchain technology, video evidence is signed and time-stamped in a way that is non-repudiable. Therefore, it cannot be altered using deepfake software, which is easily available online.
Supply chains: The global supply chain is notorious for being difficult to navigate and monitor. This problem often leads to goods being lost or expiring if left out of cold storage. With blockchain technology, these goods can be more easily tracked and monitored using sensors.
Identity management: By providing a global ID in which organizations will need to obtain consent to use data, blockchain will give ordinary people greater control over their online identity and personal information.
Software security: By providing “dependency controls that are automatic, tamper-proof, and decentralized,” blockchain will make software far more secure. Offering “in-depth dependency graphs” allows those purchasing the software to know exactly what it contains.
Media: Blockchain could potentially remodel the rights and ownership of media assets. However, current industry standards pose some obstacles to this topic.
Messaging apps: Blockchain could improve messaging app security by providing a crypto wallet address. This process would allow you to sign into the app without having to use your personal financial information.
Real Estate: Blockchain could potentially simplify the real estate industry. It could remove the need for middlemen such as lenders, property managers, and brokers.
How to Expand Your Blockchain Skills
With distributed ledger technology becoming increasingly popular, many technical professionals are looking to expand their skills to include blockchain. The Q1 2022 Workplace Learning Index, performed by the online learning portal Udemy, found that courses on decentralized blockchain applications were the top lessons among global learners. These lessons were in technology and power skills in 2022, IT Pro reported. Other key findings from the report include:
- Technical skills in decentralized apps (dApps) and platforms like Binance experienced more than 450% growth in usage, compared to the last quarter of 2021. Internationally, interest in learning skills in Openstack Cloud increased by 444%, while FastAPI skills grew by 304%.
- Lessons for Amazon Web Services Certified DevOps Engineer were very popular. Laravel was the second most popular skill in the United Kingdom, with 202% and 168% growth respectively. This was followed by Cucumber Software (118%), GitHub (108%), Apache Maven (107%).
Bill O’Shea, Udemy EMEA vice president, told ITPro that there has been a “rapid rise in blockchain upskilling” in Britain. He revealed that blockchain “continues to be one of the fastest-growing areas” within the employment market.
“Learners are being savvy in preparing themselves for further developments and understanding of this area. It continues to dominate,” he said.
Given the number of industries that blockchain will impact, organizations will likely start recruiting more technical professionals with knowledge of this technology. Is your organization’s workforce prepared for the blockchain revolution?
Get Practical Guidance on Blockchain Solutions
Developed by experts, A Step-by-Step Approach to Designing Blockchain Solutions recaps the basics of the technology. It explains the expected benefits of a blockchain solution and how a solution would benefit a prospect company.
Contact an IEEE Account Specialist for more information on this five-course training program. Or discover it on the IEEE Learning Network (ILN).
Resources
Forbes Technology Council. (10 June 2022). 15 Industries That Could Significantly Benefit From Blockchain Technology. Forbes.
Millman, Rene. (26 May 2022). Uptake for blockchain skills courses surges 450% in 2022. ITPro.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) recently announced the launch of innovative platforms. These platforms are expected to speed the development of machine learning models. The first, the HPE Machine Learning Development System, combines machine learning software with compute, accelerators, and networking. This combination shortens the time it takes to get results from building and training machine learning models from months to just days.
“Enterprises seek to incorporate AI and machine learning to differentiate their products and services. However, they are often confronted with complexity in setting up infrastructure required to build and train accurate AI models at scale,” stated Justin Hotard, executive vice president and general manager, HPC and AI, at HPE, in a press release. “The HPE Machine Learning Development System combines our proven end-to-end HPC solutions for deep learning with our innovative machine learning software platform into one system. This provides a performant out-of-the-box solution to accelerate time to value and outcomes with AI.”
The second platform, HPE Swarm, combines blockchain technology with the revolutionary learning methods “federated learning” and “swarm learning.”
What Are Federated Learning and Swarm Learning?
Unlike traditional artificial intelligence (AI) models trained on centralized datasets, federated learning trains models on decentralized datasets. For example, let’s say a model is learning from data on a phone. Here, the model runs on the phone’s data but does not send the actual data to a central server — only insights gleaned from it. This method is much more secure for the owner of the phone. It also makes the system faster and more efficient, because it does not have to send large amounts of data back and forth to a central server.
However, HP Swarm takes federated learning to a new level by using swarm learning, a subset of federate learning. Instead of relying on a central server, swarm learning uses blockchain. Blockchain is a decentralized digital ledger of transactions that records data by duplicating transactions and dispersing them to “nodes” across the network. As such, swarm learning makes the learning process even more decentralized, secure, and resilient.
This technology could accelerate machine learning while advancing a large number of applications, particularly within healthcare. As Ledger Insights reported, it could allow cancer research centers across the world to collect valuable data with one another without having to share the actual data.
“Swarm learning is an important movement in the AI market, with broad support across the public and private sectors. It serves to combine the power of expanding data sets with the innovation and insights from organizations across the globe,” Hotard told VentureBeat.
HP Swarm provides users with containers that are easily integrated with AI models via the HPE swarm API. Users can then instantly share AI model learnings with peers both inside and outside their organization. This enhances training without having to share the original data – making it far more secure.
Swarm learning holds great potential for businesses. It can enable them to make faster decisions with better results, protect the privacy of their customers, share learnings with other organizations, and advance their data governance.
Is Your Company Embracing Machine Learning?
It’s important for organizations developing and deploying machine learning to understand the concepts and techniques necessary for driving machine learning-enabled business insights.
Connect with an IEEE Content Specialist today to learn more about this program and how to get access to it for your organization.
Interested in the program for yourself? Visit the IEEE Learning Network.
Resources
(29 April 2022). HPE’s new platform lets customers build machine learning models quickly and at scale. TechCentral.ie.
(29 April 2022). HPE launches Swarm Learning using blockchain for AI, machine learning. Ledger Insights.
Plumb, Taryn. (27 April 2022). HPE looks to deliver the power of ‘swarm learning’. VentureBeat.
Press Release. (27 April 2022). Hewlett Packard Enterprise accelerates AI journey from POC to production with new solution for AI development and training at scale. hpe.com
Press Release. (27 April 2022). Hewlett Packard Enterprise ushers in next era in AI innovation with Swarm Learning solution built for the edge and distributed sites. hpe.com
Blockchain technology will not only revolutionize medical records. It will also create a patient-centric healthcare industry, dramatically different from what exists today. As discussed in previous posts, blockchain is a decentralized digital ledger of transactions. It records data in a way that prevents hacking and altering of data. This is achieved by duplicating transactions and dispersing them to “nodes” across the network.
“Blockchain possess the potential to revolutionize the healthcare industry by placing the patient at the center of the ecosystem. It amplifies interoperability, privacy, and security of health data,” write Vic Gupta and Harish Nanda, the Executive Vice President of Digital & AI and Chief Architect of Coforge, in ET Healthworld.com. “The technology is set to equip [the] healthcare industry with a more advanced Health Information Exchange (HIE) model. This could genuinely transform electronic medical records, making them significantly more secure, efficient, and disintermediated.”
However, the healthcare industry has been slow to adopt blockchain due to the sensitivity of the data handled.
Healthcare Blockchain Relies on Hybrid Technology Stacks
Because the healthcare industry needs to protect highly sensitive patient data, its blockchain technology must rely on a hybrid technology stack. This is necessary rather than a system in which data is delivered across blockchain nodes. This is according to Stuart Hanson, CEO of Avaneer Health.
“Instead, this technology can be used to help index the complex industry sources of data across a network. It makes this data more fluid and, therefore, valuable,” he told Healthcare IT News. “In other words, we need to figure out a delicate balance between blockchain and other technology components within the stack. This is in order to preserve the key value added from blockchain while making the entire system robust and optimized for the healthcare use cases.”
How Multiple-Signature Contracts Will Provide Solutions to the Healthcare Blockchain
According to Xudong Huang, a researcher at Harvard Medical School who was interviewed by Managed Healthcare Executive, healthcare blockchain is valuable to patients. This is because it simultaneously provides them with data security and data ownership. This is in comparison to traditional data management and security systems. He discussed this in a 2019 paper.
Blockchain-based systems would require patients to authorize retrieval of their data through what Huang and coauthors call multiple-signature, or “multisig,” contracts in healthcare blockchains. Using these signatures, both patient and healthcare provider use separate private keys to access the patient’s medical record in the network. While this means the provider can’t access the patient’s data without permission, it also means that only providers—not patients—can change the patient’s data.
While siloing data in such a way can create obstacles for big data analytics, researchers and healthcare companies often rely on these analytics to create solutions in the healthcare industry. However, Huang thinks it may actually help.
“An easy solution for this is any de-identified patients’ data can be released to a public database for easy access,” he told the publication. In other words, blockchain would allow wider, simplified access of data among vetted parties on the blockchain.
As the blockchain brings major solutions to healthcare, the industry will need to learn to adjust to a new, patient-centric network. Other industries will find themselves in a similar position. Has your organization prepared to adopt blockchain technology?
Designing Blockchain Solutions
Get practical guidance for how to design a blockchain solution with the IEEE five-course program, A Step-by-Step Approach to Designing Blockchain Solutions. Developed by experts, this course program recaps the basics of the technology. It also covers the expected benefits of a blockchain solution. Moreover, it outlines how a solution would benefit a prospect company, and more.
Contact an IEEE Account Specialist to learn more about how this program can benefit your organization.
Interested in getting access for yourself? Visit the IEEE Learning Network (ILN) today!
Resources
Gupta, Vic and Nanda, Harish. (24 March 2022). Blockchain Disrupting the Healthcare Ecosystem. ET HealthWorld.com.
Siwicki, Bill. (3 March 2022). Healthcare blockchain leader talks challenges and trends in DLT. Healthcare IT News.
Kaltwasser, Jared. (8 February 2022). Is Healthcare Ready For Blockchain? Managed Healthcare Executive.
Improving transparency and security, preventing fraud, and reducing errors along supply chain routes are just a few of the ways blockchain can help businesses thrive. Perhaps the biggest benefit of all is the amount of time and money blockchain can save companies while boosting trust and customer loyalty.
“We see a major application of blockchain in supply chain operations,” Cindy Jaudon, a senior leadership team member at IFS, an enterprise software developer, told Forbes. “Blockchain enhances the traceability of goods through an indelible audit trail. This improves security, transparency, and regulatory compliance. Businesses can also benefit from greater efficiencies by quickly identifying where the supply chain might have been impacted. This will enable them to work toward a quicker resolution.”
How Blockchain is Transforming Supply Chains in the Seafood Industry
The seafood industry is just one example of how blockchain is elevating supply chains globally. For decades, seafood buyers had no way of knowing for sure where their fish came from or how it was processed. Now, some fisheries are using blockchain to give their customers insight into precisely where, when, and how of their products. All a customer has to do is scan a barcode to access details about the seafood stored on the blockchain. This decentralized digital ledger of transactions records data about the fish beginning with where it was caught. It can even include the name of the specific fishing vessel.
“When we catch the fish, we take the head, tail and fins off. Then a digital tag gets attached to the trunk of each fish before it gets frozen onboard,” Steve Paku, a fishing captain who works for Austral Fisheries, which has been using blockchain technology since 2019, told The Guardian. “Blockchain backs up the traceability of the fish more substantially. I think this will become the norm in the future.”
When combined with DNA testing, blockchain can also provide information about the specific species of fish customers are buying. This can prevent fraud, a common problem in the seafood industry. Additionally, blockchain can prove to customers that their fish has been caught sustainably and ethically. This is a major step forward in solving the world’s overfishing problem. (Over 34% of fisheries are overfished, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a top authority on the industry).
How Will Blockchain Improve Food Supply Chains?
Within the food industry as a whole, blockchain is poised to dramatically transform supply chains. A few ways it will do so include:
Streamlined decision making: Due to silos within the industry, decision making within the current global food supply chain is often fragmented. Because blockchain gives all stakeholders insight into what’s happening in the supply chain, it enables them to make more streamlined decisions.
Reduced waste: By giving stakeholders end-to-end transparency throughout the supply chain, blockchain can help them quickly spot and fix problems. This includes issues such as improper storage, temperature changes, and mishandling. As a result, they can reduce food waste.
Greater customer satisfaction: Within the current siloed food supply chain, a product’s history is often unclear. This is particularly true in the case of seafood. As a result, many customers mistrust the information on their food packaging. However, blockchain gives companies the ability to tell customers exactly when, where, and how their food was processed. This transparency can increase customer trust and boost brand loyalty.
Increased clarity on where and how companies should invest their money: Because blockchain gives companies a clear picture into what’s happening in their supply chains, they are better able to pinpoint specific problems and issues within their operations. This allows them to make targeted investments and save money.
Blockchain is still in its infancy, and there is a long way to go before it can fully resolve some of the issues that plague today’s global supply chains. However, the technology has enormous potential to revolutionize entire industries and the supply chains they depend on. For those who adapt the technology early, the benefits can potentially be huge.
Understand Enterprise Blockchain for Your Industry
Besides food supply chains, what other industries can benefit from blockchain technology? Get Enterprise Blockchain for Healthcare, IoT, Energy, and Supply Chain, a five-course program from IEEE, to find out. Developed by leading experts in blockchain technology, this advanced program provides business use cases across key industries and sectors. It’s ideal for managers, professional engineers, as well as business leaders.
Contact an IEEE Content Specialist to learn more about how this program can benefit your organization.
Interested in getting access for yourself? Visit the IEEE Learning Network (ILN) today!
Resources
Choudhury, Saptarshi. (2 July 2021). How Transparency Will Elevate the Post-Pandemic Food Supply Chain. Supply Chain Brain.
Forbes Technology Council. (30 June 2021). 16 Tech Experts Share Blockchain’s Potential Outside The Finance Industry. Forbes.
Turns, Anna. (9 June 2021). Hook to plate: how blockchain tech could turn the tide for sustainable fishing. The Guardian.
How many fisheries are overfished, and what does that mean? Sustainable Fisheries.
As companies continue to grow, Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) can help supply chain systems grow alongside the companies in order to better keep up with incoming demands. If an organization’s supply chain team need to spend all their time just keeping pace with demand, when will they have the time to think strategically and plan for the future? Learn how blockchain technology can help your company scale.
Transparency
While new companies may be able to track their data by using spreadsheets, the process is often time-consuming and hard to maintain as the company grows. With new partners and channels, data silos can make it difficult to manage your supply chain. Blockchain can help by connecting the data through its decentralized digital ledger, which creates a secure record of all product movements and transactions.
BaaS can benefit companies of various sizes, not just large corporations. This platform allows companies to connect their supply chain system with end-to-end visibility from any device with an internet browser.
Scalability
In order to grow a business, a holistic view is needed to ensure that both demand and growth are met. Blockchain provides this by ensuring companies are able to not only meet current demand but can grow.
Blockchain can provide organizations with greater scalability. Adding nodes as the supply chain expands allows for new channels to easily be added to the distributed ledger. Companies can immediately take these new channels into account when planning.
Data
As companies get busy, they may not have time to think strategically. Key performance indicators (KPIs) may not be reviewed, or they might be limited on data. Real-time data with blockchain technology can help create actionable information. Blockchain-as-a-service offers a digital view of what is happening in an organization’s blockchain at any given point. With the ability to view data at any time, it is easier to be more proactive.
BaaS in Real-Life
How exactly does BaaS look like in the real world? IBM is offering a blockchain platform that lets consumers know where their coffee comes from. In the app, “Thank My Farmer”, users can scan QR codes that shows them the journey of their coffee and supports sustainable farming projects through donations. Starting this March, consumers in the U.S. and Canada will be able to find these QR codes on Folger’s 1850 brand premium single-origin coffee and other well-known brands.
Starbucks is also in the progress of utilizing BaaS to help show consumers their coffee’s journey. Starbucks is working with Microsoft to develop a blockchain-based supply chain tracking system and mobile app that would show customers the journey from coffee bean to cup. No live date has been given for the app.
Prepare for the Future
Enterprise Blockchain for Healthcare, IoT, Energy, and Supply Chain is a new five-course program from IEEE. Developed by leading experts in blockchain technology, this advanced program provides business use cases across key industries and sectors. It’s ideal for managers, professional engineers, and business leaders.
Connect with an IEEE Content Specialist today to learn more about this program and how to get access to it for your organization.
Interested in learning more for yourself? Visit the IEEE Learning Network.
Resources
Mearian, Lucas. (9 January 2020). Coffee industry looks to blockchain to brew a better supply chain. Computer World.
Soni, Pratik. (8 January 2020). Blockchain-as-a-Service: Ensuring your supply chain today can meet the demands of tomorrow. Supply & Demand Chain Executive.
The current technologies used in the healthcare industry face limitations in areas security, privacy, and full ecosystem interoperability. Although several challenges must be addressed before any large scale adoption can be attempted, a healthcare blockchain could transform the industry through the secure nature of distributed ledger technology.
A blockchain-powered health information exchange has the potential to improve the challenges providers face, such as cost, with current intermediaries. Blockchain can connect the systems to produce enhanced insights and better assess the quality of care, giving patients a better outcome in the long run.
Promising use cases for blockchain technology in healthcare include:
1. Drug Traceability
One of the top issues in pharmaceuticals today is counterfeit drugs, that can be lethal to patients. Counterfeit drugs are not produced similarly to the real product, meaning they may not treat the intended disease. The difference in ingredients and dosage can lead to side effects that can cause death. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that “16% of counterfeit drugs contain the wrong ingredients, while 17% contain the wrong levels of necessary ingredients”. Furthermore, WHO estimates that “1 in 10 medical products circulating in low- and middle-income countries is either substandard or falsified.”
How can blockchain help? Blockchain technology would improve product tracking as they move along from product production to the consumer. This would make it difficult for counterfeits to come into the marketplace. It would also allow stakeholders and labs to identify the exact location of their drugs should a problem arise.
2. Clinical Trials
It usually takes several years to test the tolerance and effectiveness of a product in a clinical trial. Because the outcome is critical for the future of the drug, falsified results are not uncommon. Additionally, the sheer number of people involved in clinical trials produce considerable amounts of data. This makes it difficult to track and far too easy to make mistakes— whether unintentional or not.
Using blockchain technology in clinical trials would reduce the risk of data fraud. By weeding out studies with seemingly unreliable protocols and results before they’re published, other professionals can focus on replicating more trustworthy studies, thereby facilitating further collaboration in the scientific community.
3. Patient Data Management
The two biggest issues for patient data management are that each patient is unique and sharing patient information amongst the medical community is sensitive and highly regulated. Because what works for one patient may not work for another, access to complete medical records is essential in order to adapt treatment and provide personalized care.
The use of blockchain technology inpatient data management would provide a structure for secure data sharing. Querying the blockchain would allow healthcare stakeholders to determine the location of the desired data without revealing patient identity. One of the main advantages of adopting blockchain in healthcare is that the technology allows individual patients to have full control over who can access his or her medical records. Through a smart contract, the patient defines conditions on when data can be accessed on the blockchain. For example, a patient can select one or more third parties who are able to grant permission to the healthcare provider in case of emergency.
Use Cases Beyond Healthcare
Healthcare isn’t the only industry that can benefit from blockchain technology. Enterprise Blockchain for Healthcare, IoT, Energy, and Supply Chain is a new five-course program coming soon from IEEE. Developed by leading experts in blockchain technology, this advanced program provides business use cases across key industries and sectors. It’s ideal for managers, professional engineers, and business leaders.
Resources
Yukhymenko, Constantin. (17 Dec 2018). What are the use cases for blockchain tech in healthcare? IBM.
(August 2016). Blockchain: Opportunities for health care. Deloitte.
(28 Nov 2017). 1 in 10 medical products in developing countries is substandard or falsified. World Health Organization.
Among the many challenges that blockchain technology is poised to solve, is ending poverty.
While technological advancements have significantly reduced global poverty over the past century, it is still not gone. There are still more than 1.3 billion people in the world living in extreme poverty (defined as having less than $1.25 to spend each day).
General causes for poverty include lack of access to banking facilities and lack of legal property ownership. Both of which are major issues in developing countries and can be solved with blockchain technology.
Economic Identity
According to the World Bank’s global financial index, there are about 2.5 billion unbanked or underbanked individuals across the globe, which represents a quarter of the world’s population. Due to the lack of proper identification or lack of credit history, people are unable to open bank accounts.
Additionally, many organizations that try to help the poor operate in silos, running their own databases. A centralized system would allow people in need to build up information and credit history to improve their situation.
Blockchain-powered digital identity could be used across organizations and eventually even across borders to help those who don’t have proper identification. Blockchain could create access to financial systems and transactions to secure potentially life-changing resources.
Property Rights
Many developing countries don’t have a working system of tracking property rights, or they are fragile and incomplete. Around the world, land registries are inefficient and unreliable, or even alarmingly corrupt.
“Blockchain is a powerful tool to solve these structural issues, which are some of the principal causes of poverty and conflict,” says world-renowned Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto Polar. He believes that property ownership rights are vital for a strong market economy. Poverty is difficult to overcome without an information framework that records ownership of property and other economic information.
Blockchain-based land registries could give many of the world’s poorest people their first real asset. This allows something safe to invest in and will improve their properties, thus helping to lift themselves out of poverty. Using blockchain technology for property ownership registration protects the rights of the owner in the case of theft. It also enables easy resolve of disputes, prevents fraud and makes correct transfer of ownership after sale possible. Once owners have been able to document ownership, they can prove their existence, in turn increasing access to banking facilities. Blockchain-based land registries have already started up in Bermuda, Brazil, Georgia, Ghana, Honduras, India, Russia and Rwanda.
Blockchain World
The emergence of blockchain may be a major contributor in the United Nations’ quest to end poverty in all its forms by 2030. To make sense of the blockchain revolution and see how it could benefit your organization, check out a new 3-course program: IEEE Introduction to Blockchain Technology.
Resources
Pepijn, Daan. (25 July 2017). Here’s how blockchain can potentially end global poverty. thenextweb.com.
How Blockchain Could Help End Poverty in All Its Forms. Datafloq.
Kshetri, Nir. (28 June 2018). Blockchain-Based Property Registries May Help Lift Poor People Out of Poverty. Government Technology.