The Techruption Blockchain project

The project forms part of the overall Techruption Program being undertaken by the Brightlands Smart Campus. The research and development focus will be on six key areas as follows:

• blockchains and business, looking at the design and validation of blockchain focussed business models;
• identities and access management, looking at how to provide assurances that digital identities refer to the same physical identity;
• smart contracts, focusing on how robust smart contracts can be built which will interact effectively with the legal system;
• performance and scalability, looking at how to overcome current scalability problem in view of business requirements and constraints;
• interoperability and standards, looking at how standards can enable interoperability between different blockchains and with existing legacy systems;
• blockchains and society, focusing on how blockchain technologies will fit into societal and legal constraints, and the wider economy.

A variety of use cases are being developed. For example a growing number of participants of the project (at the moment of writing Rabobank, De Volksbank, APG, Dutch Chamber of Commerce, ICTU and TNO) are developing a self-sovereign identity framework (SSIF) for the creation, validation and revocation of digital attestations linked to an identity that can be used in conjunction with blockchain technologies.

The role of TNO in the Techruption program is twofold. On the one hand TNO provides relevant knowledge to each use case development track. On the other hand, TNO organises an extensive program at the Brightlands Campus in Heerlen where new use cases are spotted, and a shared knowledge base and network amongst the participants is achieved by workshops, invited speakers and network events. We focus not only on blockchain as a technology, but also on tackling the business and legal questions that need to be solved before blockchain can be implemented in a corporate environment.

“Het project Techruption is mede gefinancierd uit PPS-toeslag onderzoek en innovatie van het ministerie van Economische Zaken en Klimaat”.