Developers from Uruguay to Test Knowledge at the Blockchain Challenge
The event will start on August 14th, with talks about technology. The event will consist of four phases and will end with the support to outstanding projects in the area.
The ORT University of Uruguay, based in Montevideo, has organized an event with the objective of spreading the potential of blockchain technology development. Through its Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (CIE), the university created The Blockchain Challenge, jointly with ThalesLAB and IBM Uruguay.
Through a post on its official blog, the university highlights that The Blockchain Challenge will be developed in four stages. The first, called “sensitizing”, aims to “promote the potential of blockchain technologies, presenting successful stories and different platforms on which they can be implemented.”
In that first stage they will hold an opening event with conferences on subjects such as innovation, the challenges of blockchain technologies and business models. This event is programmed for next Wednesday, August 14th, 2019, at the Executive Tower of the educational institution.
Among the personalities talking about the benefits of blockchains, there are innovation specialists from the university itself, as well as the head of the Banking Sector for IBM Uruguay, Gonzalo Boix, and the CEO of Blockbear Blockchain and Blockchain Summit UY, Ignacio Varese.
Next Stages of the Project
The text does not include dates for the other phases of The Blockchain Challenge event in Uruguay. On the second stage, the post states that it will have the name “educating”. This stage will feature workshops to share knowledge about technology and how to implement blockchain-based solutions.
“Creating”, the third phase of the project, will be based on a contest. In that competition, business ideas that incorporate blockchain technologies will be evaluated “to solve challenges in the areas of government, agriculture, logistics and media,” explains the blog post of the ORT University of Uruguay.
The last stage will consist of a closing event that will include the presentation of the best ideas proposed during the third stage. The developers of those projects themselves will have the opportunity to show their ideas to a jury that will select those “with the greatest potential”.
These projects will receive support from the university and will be conducted with the CIE, indicates the post. The text does not clarify the number of projects that will be awarded, or the type of support that they will receive or possible amounts of financing, if this possibility is considered. They do not give any details regarding the parameters that the jury will evaluate to define the winners.
Previously, the university had announced its alliance with Aeternity Ventures for the creation of this project. It was then learned that the idea is for The Blockchain Challenge to serve as an incubator for projects that could be developed in the Aeternity blockchain. One of the projects of this company is precisely to incubate startup projects to generate applications in its decentralized applications platform (DApps).
This is not the first approach to the ecosystem of blockchain technologies in Uruguay. In addition to the options for using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, the Blockchain Summit UY was held in 2018, which gathered specialists in the area, not only from Uruguay but also from companies in other Latin American countries.
By Willmen Blanco