Lynked.World Partners with Indian Manipur State Government to Integrate Blockchain; A Closer Look At What This Means, and How it Will Play Out
Proposed usage of blockchain from a government and institutional perspective has been long the discussion of the technology’s “actual” use case. By enabling immutability, governments that theoretically integrate with blockchain would be incapable of fraud and record keeping would be solidified; all in the public eye. It’s a interesting ideology, one that has proven difficult to integrate correctly without damaging current infrastructures.
Those who have attempted to pull off the integration have built infrastructures that outpace others; specifically, the Manipur state government of India previously announced its collaboration with Lynked, even going as far as to sign a memorandum of understanding to explore and initialize blockchain technology into everyday processes completed by the state. To receive a better understanding of how this integration will plan out and what avenues are taken to extract the best features of blockchain tech, BitcoinWarrior sat down with Lynked.World CEO Arun Kumar.
BitcoinWarrior: “What exactly is Lynked.World?”
Kumar: “Lynked.World is multi-faceted blockchain based ecosystem that ensures the authenticity of the identity, data, and documents that are shared digitally. It enables individuals and businesses to build applications to provide different services to consumers, without needing to be concerned about the authenticity of shared data, documents and the digital identities of the different entities involved in a secure way.
It is comprised of two pillars, one for individuals and another for organizations. For individuals it is more look like a verified social network where users can create their profile and have their identity, education, experience and other credentials verified by the actual source in question. They can use Lynked.World’s platform to store and authenticate all their important documents like passports, identity cards, medical records and so on.
For organizations it presents an opportunity to ensure the network of an individual. They can easily and efficiently provide their services without being concerned about a user’s authenticity since the source that has been listed must confirm their involvement (which is done on the blockchain). This would mean faster service closure leading to more work volume coverage in a shorter span of time.”
BW: “What was the initial vision for Lynked.World? Was there ever a plan to have such an impact on the global government as has been recently achieved?”
Kumar: “When we thought of our initial solution, from the very beginning, our focus was to craft the project to have the capability to mold into multiple instances where both citizens and governments could benefit greatly. Whether it be applications for certificates or complaints and feedback, we wanted to enable a bridge between governments and citizens, so that more efficient progress could be made. You can see a lot of the technology we’ve developed on the platform has been done so that the deployer can retain some creativity and customizability. The editable parameters in the Lynked.World platform when it comes to deploying your own forms is an example of that. A company can create create their own resume submission portals if they want to that can be pre populated if the wanted information is as static as that.”
BW: “Why is blockchain and immutability so important when it comes to government and professional recordkeeping?”
Kumar: “Authentication of identity and data digitally is still difficult despite many modern advances in technology. Because of this, many services cannot be provided digitally, and within their countries citizens may need to visit the service provider’s offices. Also, certificates in paper form are prone to be faked. This is where blockchain and immutability is very useful. Blockchain based immutability combined with digital identity authentication is an easy and variable way of issuing documents and other important forms that are sensitive in their rarity. Governments can for the first time, with confidence, allow for digital issuance of certain forms.”
BW: “Speaking of immutability, would you be able to provide some statistics regarding the implementation of the technology for governments, for example, statistically how much faster or efficient would implementing blockchain be for these currently centralized systems?”
Kumar: “In reference to many modern day services in India, citizens need to visit the physical government office, and it may take days to months for their requests to be completed, especially if it requires verifications of these documents which are issued by different unconnected departments of the government. With a blockchain solution implemented, these time estimates are then reduced to mere hours. Most importantly, the verification processes are completed not only quickly but securely, and with government data, the maximum level of security is required.”
BW: “How does Lynked.World view its cooperation with the Manipur state government playing out in the long term?”
Kumar: “We have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Manipur government to explore the possibilities where Lynked.World can be helpful to ease the lives of everyday citizens and to improve transparency and security within government verification processes. According to the plans hatched by the Manipur government representatives and the Lynked.World team, the new system will be used by citizens to apply for, and receive various government services from the convenience of their homes. State hospitals will be able to harness the new technology to digitize and protect their patients’ records, schedule doctor’s appointments, and issue hospital reports and certificates. State-run educational institutions will digitize the admissions process and keep grades and test results on the blockchain. All these implementation scenarios are intended to ensure transparency and security, while offering the maximum ease of use for all involved.”
BW: “What are some of the major achievements hoping to be acquired within the next year?”
Kumar: “We plan to have at least 3.5 million users on board by 2020. Our goal is to sign on at least 5 governments to the system, and we ultimately seek to maximize expansion in all continents primarily in USA, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, UAE, Europe, and South Africa. The vast institutional interest in blockchain does not seem to be slowing down.”
Originally published at bitcoinwarrior.net on November 22, 2018.
