Blockchain at Stanford University
When blockchain technology started to raise its head in this world, academic institutes seized the moment to bring in blockchain related courses, making the institutes more dynamic. Based on SV Insight Research’s analysis, over 50 top universities now offer at least one course on crypto or blockchain. Students from a range of majors are interested in such courses. With this trend, universities are adding courses across a variety of departments. Among them, Stanford University stands out with not only its technology courses but also with its blockchain related courses in a variety of fields.
Courses Offered at Stanford
Located in the center of Silicon Valley, Stanford University became one of the first academic institutes that brought blockchain technology to the classroom. For blockchain courses, Stanford University has a wide range of courses offered by Computer Science Department, Law School, Business School, Economics Department, and Public Policy programs. Among the 17 courses , Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technologies, instructed by Professor Dan Boneh, is the most comprehensive and fundamental course for avid learners. After this course, students will have a solid foundation of blockchain technology and they will be able to separate facts from fiction when reading claims about cryptocurrencies. Besides, students will not only have the conceptual foundations to engineer secure software that interacts with cryptocurrency networks, but also integrate cryptocurrency ideas into their own projects.
Along with the courses, the Stanford Center of Blockchain Research became another prominent institute of blockchain research within Stanford University. The center brings together engineering, law, and economics faculty, as well as post-docs, students, and visitors, to work on technical challenges in the field. The center’s primary mission is to support the thriving ecosystem by developing new technologies needed to advance the field. Beyond its research mission, the center runs an extensive education and outreach program, including on-campus courses, MOOCs, workshops, and conferences for the general blockchain community.
Besides research focused on blockchain technology, Stanford University also offers students courses such as Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies: Law, Economics, Business and Policy, etc. Today, technology-driven ventures continue to disrupt industries around the world and entrepreneurial ecosystems in developing economies are evolving, making people rethink the relationship between technology, economy, and human being. In law school, blockchain related courses bring together researchers, lawyers, entrepreneurs and technologists who advance the frontier of legal technology, in order to bring efficiency, transparency and access to legal systems for everyone.
Blockchain Connect Conference 2019 — Academic
In the coming Blockchain Connect Conference on January 11th, 2019, the speakers and award winners from academia will provide a series of speeches on the most frontier research. For example, Dawn Song, Professor at UC Berkeley, a keynote speaker at the conference, will talk about privacy and scalability. She will describe how to make sure that the sensitive data is being protected during the computation process, and how to build a platform that has the scalability sufficient to support workload like machine learning on blockchain. Another professor of Cornell University, Elaine Shi, will talk about blockchain with optimistic instant confirmation from her own academic research. Ronghui Gu, Assistant Professor at Columbia University, will also join the keynote speakers to talk about how to build trustworthy smart contract and blockchain from his academic experience. Raj Jain, Chunming Rong and other professors from most well-known academic institutes will present blockchain not only from a technological perspective but also from social perspectives to enlighten the audience about the future of the society with blockchain.
The event is emphasizing education in the blockchain space, which will gather the most authoritative blockchain professors around the world, the public chain projects with the most advanced technology, and technical experts, to discuss the most cutting-edge blockchain academic research, problems, and solutions.
Professors from top universities and industry leaders will be presenting at the event. You may find the full list of speakers from here.
