Blockchain, Blockchain and Blockchain. It’s been a common subject throughout the last couple of years in technology advancements, what started to be an implausible technology is now an emerged technology and one must embrace the changes that already and is about to bring.
In this day and age, information is relatively easy to find on the internet about the technology of Blockchain, however, understanding the concept takes education and practice.
Dr Joshua Ellul, senior lecturer of the computer sciences department and director for Centre for Distributed Ledger Technologies explains below how the University of Malta is tackling this challenge and helping students to understand that this is an opportunity rather than an obstacle in the present and future.
“People do not need to understand how it actually works but what they need to gain is trust that it actually works.”
The University of Malta had to take what was a “geeky tech” and research subject to an education challenge to lead students to be what the market demands, especially in Malta since top-tier blockchain companies are looking to invest in the country.
The growth of Blockchain can be proved by the fact that the University of Malta is introducing units on blockchain and distributed ledger technology in October with finance and legal students to understand the legality around the matter.
The University of Malta will also offer evening courses for programmers about blockchain and smart contracts. With this new schemes in the University of Malta, it is predicted that the academy will have between 200-300 students with at least one unit on Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology.
The schemes opened due to the high number of subscriptions for courses about Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology. However, it must be understood that for the technology to fully come out, the hype around the technology must die.
The major challenge that the university faces is to make sure that people without technology background understand the terms of Blockchain, Decentralized and Distributed ledger technology, in fact, many people think that everything can be decentralized. However, research suggests that’s it not yet possible and a list of services must be thought.
Blockchain in Malta
Currently, in Malta, there is a number of initiatives to give accreditation about blockchain and government is providing structures to individuals. However, the issue that the country is facing about Blockchain and distributed ledger technology is that lawyers need to appreciate both the legal aspect and the technical aspect whereas technical people need to do the same. In fact, the University of Malta will be including the multidisciplinary subjects to the blockchain and distributed ledger technology units from October 2019.
“Students needs to be exposed to the multidisciplinary area.”
One area that the blockchain can make a huge impact is the internet of things. However, technological devices may not have much memory, and, the blockchain needs a lot of resources which raises the question of how can they interact together?
Legislations will have to be in place to prevent technological nodes taking over the legal infrastructure in the country. However, one must keep in mind that this is still early days for the technology to be fixed something for the long long term as changes will need to happen in the near future.
Malta can be the leader of the blockchain technology industry thanks to the new initiatives and investment of the government and the University of Malta.
