BAF Enters Partnership with the Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative
The Blockchain Acceleration Foundation entered a partnership with the Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI), a global nonprofit automotive consortium working to improve mobility using blockchain, distributed ledgers, and related technologies.
As part of the MOBI community, the Blockchain Acceleration Foundation (BAF) will recruit interested student members to collaborate with MOBI’s corporate partners and participate in their initiatives.
“We are excited to begin working to establish credible blockchain and distributed ledger standards across the mobility industry and beyond,” said BAF President Cameron Dennis. “The opportunity to collaborate with MOBI’s strong network is a major development for BAF, and we look forward to participating in upcoming initiatives like the MOBI Grand Challenge.”
The three-year, four-part Grand Challenge invites participants to improve urban environments by exploring blockchain solutions for smart city applications. BAF’s next steps include sourcing developers from its network of California and Mexico-based student blockchain organizations to participate in the challenge, which recently concluded its first phase. The upcoming phase, called Citopia, asks participants to develop tokenized incentives to improve human behavior and make cities greener, smarter, safer, and healthier.
In addition to participating in and sourcing funds for the Grand Challenge, BAF will engage with MOBI’s working groups. These groups have been organized to explore specific use cases within the mobility industry and to establish common means to define, measure, and test quality, performance, and security. MOBI’s five current groups work to develop blockchain applications that address mobility challenges related to Vehicle Identity, Usage-Based Insurance, Autonomous Vehicle Data Markets, Supply Chain, and Electric Vehicle Grid Integration.
“Our goal with this partnership is to expose students to the practical solutions that blockchain technology can provide to a crucial topic like mobility,” said BAF Chief Operating Officer and Vice President Piergiacomo Palmisani. “This is an issue that particularly affects everyday life of those who live in Southern California, which is the majority of our students.”
MOBI counts the majority of the world’s large automakers as members, including BMW, Groupe Renault, GM, Honda, and Ford. Other community members include institutional organizations such as The World Economic Forum and The Ministry of Transport for the Republic of China and Denso, and leading companies like IBM, Accenture, ConsenSys, IOTA, and VeChain.
As BAF continues exploring ways to work with MOBI, check our blog or accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, or join our communities on Slack and Telegram to stay in the loop. If you are interested in participating in MOBI’s Grand Challenge or working groups, or think your blockchain club could be a strong to join BAF, drop us a message here.
