The future of blockchain is as uncertain as the future of Bitcoin. The word in itself has become a bit of a buzzword in the business but how does it fit into the higher education sector?Experts have predicted that in the future, blockchain will be able to automate multiple tasks and upend banking, education and even healthcare. For the many fanatics of blockchain, there really isn’t anything it can’t do - essentially it holds the answer to almost everything including, cancer, poverty, copyright management and so on. Even governments are interested by the potential of the blockchain.College courses are now beginning to teach the topic. Following the lead of the Institute of Technology at Massachusetts, Columbia university and Stanford University have now both opened up blockchain research centres during the summer.These schools have joined other institutions for higher education which have started teaching courses on blockchain. Montclair State University, Miami University in Ohio, the university of Pennsylvania and so on have jumped on the block-hype-train.Professor Kevin Werbach of the Pennsylvania University legal studies departments spoke to CNBC regarding the matter and said:
“There is rapidly growing student interest. They're seeing opportunities with companies that want students to work in this area, which include both blockchain focused startups as well as major companies. Wharton [School of the University of Pennsylvania] sends people to all the Fortune 500 companies, and investment banks and technology firms. A very high percentage of those leading firms now have blockchain or distributed ledger projets, and they’re looking for expertise in that area.”As more and more businesses enter the blockchain-sphere, there will be a demand for people to maintain jobs related to the field. Glassdoor.com is already listing over 2,600 jobs related to blockchain. However the real challenge comes for the professors who have to teach the subject to students. For ten years now, blockchain has been mainly seen as the technology behind Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The 2008 technology has just started up to catch up on as in demand course in recent years. As the blockchain comes out, colleges have brought in computer programs but as aforementioned, teaching is the subject is the real challenge which has been embraced by scholars within recent years. ReferencesForbes Investment Disclaimer