Universities Boosting Blockchain Adoption

Universities Boosting Blockchain Adoption

“The difference between science and technology is that science is pure knowledge and technology is essentially the know-how to implement this knowledge.” That’s how CryptoTicker has explained the difference between the two industries. This has been a distinction we can see in the traditional ‘academia’ versus other industries too. Most of the time a subject is proposed or just simply discovered and then it is researched and then someone finds a use for it and more industries pick them up even though an academic group and is usually based on science and peer-reviewed research.

There are plenty of mainstream technologies which get adopted by the masses and industries after it gets the initial momentum and gains some popularity. The subfield of machine learning, also known as Deep Learning was around for over ten years before it got adopted by the masses. Once it became a viable option, numerous industries began to adopt it and it became one of the most preferred methods of analysing big sums of data.

If we take a look at the crypto space this isn’t necessarily the case. When Bitcoin was invented ten years ago, there was developers and enthusiasts from all over the world who adopted it but this was a small amount compared to what we see today. This isn’t to say that universities and researchers were ignoring the cryptocurrency industry. Some were even a few of the early contributors including researchers and academic professors. Despite this, the early years resembled more of an open source project than an academic subject in practice.

Columbia encouragement

Columbia University in New York has taken an approach to support and encourage startups and innovation. For this, the university has partnered up with IBM with the plan for a service package worth around $400,000 through accelerator programmes. Overall, the programme will cover a total of ten startups - the accelerator consists of two programmes. One by the university which is focusing on the idea and pre-seen stage and other are by their new partner, IBM which will focus on the growth stage.

The programme by Columbia University is reserved for New York University-affiliated companies only. What makes this special is the fact that neither the uni or IBM is looking to make a profit in return.

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