Libra is a digital currency proposed by Facebook and intended to be managed by the Libra Association, a membership organization with 27 payment, technology, and nonprofit members. Libra will be based on permissioned blockchain technology with the expressed goal of enabling a more inclusive global financial system.
Libra, and all distributed ledger technologies, raises many questions, including:
- Can blockchain technology offer tangible value beyond digital currencies?
- What are successful use cases in health, education, and agriculture?
- Who is innovating with blockchain, and what are they learning?
- Will blockchain technology transform international development?
Right now, we don’t have many answers for Libra, but the role of blockchain in international development is better understood, thanks to the leadership of TechChange.
Blockchain for International Development
Please sign up now for the TechChange Blockchain for International development course taught by Priyanka Pathak. Use the code ICTWorks395 to get a discount.
TechChange’s blockchain course will start on September 9th and feature live events with leading blockchain practitioners, software developers, and data scientists who will cut through the hype and evaluate the potential of this technology for:
- International and domestic remittances
- Health record validation and storage
- Elections and voting practices
- Smart contracts for eCommerce
- Land titling and transactions
- Educational credentialing
- Supply chain management and traceability
It will also include a unique hands-on learning environment with animated videos, technology demos, practical activities, networking events, immersive simulations and examples of early case studies from the Gates Foundation, World Food Programme, and UNICEF Innovation.
Blockchain Technology Course Topics
This TechChange course will provide blockchain content and resources so that you can be conversant about the pitfalls and potentials of this new technology. The agenda will include:
- Week 1: Introduction to Blockchain – The decentralized digital ledger and other key terms, frameworks, case studies and debates.
- Week 2: Platforms and Technologies – Survey of the early technology leaders in blockchain and evaluate their relative strengths and weaknesses.
- Week 3: What Could Go Wrong? An exploration of all the pitfalls and tradeoffs associated with blockchain technology in development.
- Week 4: Where Do We Go From Here? The future of blockchain in international development, including Facebook Libra and other efforts.
If you’ve been putting off learning about Blockchain and what it might mean for your work, please sign up now to head back to (virtual) school and get educated on tomorrow’s technology today.
Servus,
I think we have to wait and see. From the onset, Libra is not a blockchain project, maybe a BINO project where BINO stands for Blockchain in Name only. You can’t eat your cake and have it too. Decentralization is at the heartbeat of blockchain, when you have an agency like Facebook in charge then you have missed your bus stop. Even if your add 27 other names to it, or even 100.
Many International agencies are jumping on the next block chain train, out of ignorance, or rather it sounds catchy. By the way this is not a bad thing in itself. In the open source community we were happy to see the White House using Drupal.
Blockchain has two main problems
1. It’s slow. How slow is it, well if you ask me I would say slower than cream rising on butter milk
2. It doesn’t fit most projects up to 90%.
3. Blockchain is hungry, it can eat your children and their pets. You need a lot of server resources, what most projects end up doing is storing a few things on the block
But there’s good news
1. It can lower transaction costs if designed well. One good application here is in remittances.
2. Trust based projects can rely on it for additional security, for example a University can validate if Wayan actually attended Howard University, an HBCU (Historically Black College)
3. In health, it can be used for tracking. There’s alot of fraud especially for high value
4. Agriculture – I have read about block chain coffee projects, most of them are all talk, however they could be scenarios where it can transform the industry.