IN order to boost application of blockchain technology in the Philippines, the Blockchain Association of the Philippines (BAP) will conduct a three-day forum from May 28 to 30, to enhance the general awareness of the latest technology and convince business leaders and thinkers that are not yet on the blockchain to embrace it. In a news briefing held on May 21, Union Bank of the Philippines Chairman and CEO Justo Ortiz said the enterprise-level organizations like the country’s conglomerates can set the pace in implementing blockchain technology in their operations. “We have to up the ante to the next level—to the enterprise level,” Ortiz said in the news briefing.
“At the end of the day, if enterprise adopts blockchain, people will follow,” Ortiz added.
Christian Blanquera, chief technology officer of Sterling Technologies, said people must be aware that blockchain and cryptocurrency have a separate distinction. In the early days of cryptocurrency, blockchain had been used as its platform.
But this has changed in the recent years as blockchain has been used by several organizations and institutions in their operations. For instance, Georgia is using blockchain for their list of land titles.
Brian Behlendorf, executive director of Hyperledger, said blockchain became an epitome by among techies because it’s often discussed in similar context with cryptocurrencies such as the Bitcoin and Ethereum. “However, they are not one and the same,” Behlendorf explained.
Vincent Choy, director of the Blockchain Asia Forum, said blockchain can be harnessed in every major aspect of operations such as supply chain management.
Arvie de Vera, head of fintech and partnerships of Union Bank, said application of blockchain technology is going to benefit rural banks in serving their clients because it will enable them to process their transactions faster. “Rural banks can check the records of clients in the digital ledgers powered by blockchain,” he said.
Blockchain, also called the new Internet, is a distributed ledger that allows people around the world to link their computing power to create permanent records of exchange and build systems that have trust, accountability, security and transparency at their core. Also known as distributed ledgers, it can be used to record promises, trades, transactions or simply items that a user doesn’t want to disappear. Mirrored exactly across all nodes in a given network, it allows everyone in an ecosystem to keep a copy of the common system of record.
Furthermore, the records can never be edited or erased. Being a relatively new concept, blockchain remains an arcane concept to many local businessmen and company executives, particularly those that are not too tech-savvy.
The first day of the forum, on May 28, will be the formal launch of the BAP and the staging of two preconference boot camps. One is a whole-day workshop on “Ethereum and Smart Contract Development,” which is designed especially for software developers, tech experts and blockchain enthusiasts who wish to get into coding in the blockchain platform Ethereum.
The forum also aims to help entrepreneurs and corporate decision-makers find the right blockchain solution for their businesses, particularly in the light of the fact that aside from fintech, blockchain solutions can be implemented into gaming, supply chains, logistics, digital identity and much more.
A special discussion on blockchain for the social good will be led by Daniel de Gruijter of Incitement and Paolo Magnata from the UNDP. Also of particular interest would be the look at how blockchain can be applied to the entertainment, logistics, energy, commerce, health care and even government sectors.
The three-day forum will be capped by a panel discussion on “What is Next? Taking the Leap into Blockchain,” which will focus on what corporations need to do with newly acquired information on blockchain and what they can do to move ahead.