Will Blockchain change the technology outlook of India?

Verified On Chain
Sep 3, 2018 · 5 min read

Traditionally, India and technology have had a great camaraderie. India is known for its tech talent. People are smart. Hardworking. Willing to burn the midnight lamp. The world noticed it and brain drain happened. It reflects today very well. A few popular examples of India born CEOs in global tech companies as of today.

Sundar Pichai — Google

Satya Nadella — Microsoft

Ajay Banga — Mastercard

Shantanu Narayen — Adobe

Rajeev Suri — Nokia

That’s an impressive list. It backs the point that I am trying to make. This leads to another question.

If we have Indians leading global tech companies, why do we not have that many Indians creating global tech companies?

Maybe it is because we have always looked up to the west. Maybe we are not so confident. Maybe we don’t trust our people. Maybe we are risk-averse.

One thing is for sure. We are not early adopters of technology. Technology reaches India after a decade or two of emergence in the west. Computers, mobile devices, smartphones, big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence. We were at least a decade behind the West in terms of adoption.

The good news is that it is changing.

Blockchain

I got to know about Blockchain at the beginning of 2017. Just like almost anybody who understands it, I was also spellbound by it. After a bit of research, I realized that I was late to the party by least two years. I was relieved. Two years is not that bad.

I started digging in. And I quickly realized that there hasn’t been any major dent made in this area globally. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple were the only names in the limelight. It felt good, or should I say, not that bad?

Learning Blockchain technology was the next step. Looked up bookstores only to find no quality content. In fact, read two full-length textbooks, but both the books sat atop Mt. Everest while the lowly learners grovelled at sea level. It felt good, or should I say, not that bad?

Frantically searched for quality articles and blogs on Google. I did find some, but several were conflicting or factually incorrect. Overall, confusing. It felt good, or should I say, not that bad?

There hadn’t been much done in this space. It holds a sea of potential. It was still in its nascent stage.

Opportunity!

DIY

It was time for a do-it-yourself process. Cloned the source code of Ethereum and Bitcoin and started going through it class by class. Clutter removed. Clarity appeared. Blockchain seemed more powerful as my struggle with it progressed. It was different from regular programming.

This led to the birth of Blockchain Semantics. It is a complete Blockchain learning toolkit for the novice and the advanced.

One thing became clear that it is not a run of the mill technology. It requires a different mindset and approach towards programming. It hit me that India would take much longer this time to come face to face with Blockchain. The realization was disheartening. Once again, India was poised to lag behind in the adoption of a new age technology. Or was it not?

Applications

Once Blockchain started to make sense, I looked around to see what applications have been built on it. The most prominent ones were crypto wallets and exchanges. It made sense, given the hype around Bitcoin. Poloniex, Kraken, Gdax, Zebpay appeared in all search results. Binance was a baby back then. What struck the most was the presence of Zebpay. It is a crypto wallet. From India.

What a breath of fresh air!

After a bit of research, it became clear that Zebpay was doing good. Pretty good. Jumped on to it. Installed the app. Started playing with it. The joy of a new toy. It was simple. It was easy. It just worked. It had the potential of becoming a global exchange.

Regulations

Just when everything looked pretty, there came an intrusion from the government. They didn’t like what was happening on Zebpay and other Indian crypto wallets. It got gloomy. Indian banks were ordered to part ways with all crypto wallets. Zebpay, along with other crypto wallets, was brought to its knees. It was a lost opportunity.

If only the government had the foresight to be a bit liberal in policymaking, there was a chance for the taking. India could have embraced crypto and Blockchain and leapfrogged in at least one fundamentally disruptive technology platform. But, it was not meant to be. That’s not how India operates. India has always been conservative in approach. It looks around globally and implements policies which had been tried and tested in other countries for years. It is a safe approach. Not a game changing one.

Verified On Chain

Not to be disheartened and too deep in the rabbit-hole by now, we have created a Blockchain application which stores and validates credentials. Credentials from your universities and employers. Check out VerifiedOnChain. The issue of certificates and wrong claims on CVs is rampant, right from the guy looking to get his first job to Fortune 100 CEOs. LinkedIn is biased towards candidates. It doesn’t provide means to validate the authenticity of the information provided by the candidates on the platform.

Verified On Chain fixes this issue using the innate nature of Blockchain. The current version of the product stores students’ transcripts and certificates issued by universities on Blockchain. The uploaded information is seamlessly available to the students. Students can actually verify if the credentials were actually uploaded on Blockchain or not. Once satisfied, a student can share it with the potential recruiter or community. A recruiter can rest assured about the authenticity of a student’s achievements. She can also verify the authenticity by clicking a ‘Verify’ button which looks up the document actually uploaded on Blockchain.

In the next phase of development, we intend to extend the solution to employers. Employers would issue, leaving certificates, awards, and important achievements to their employees on the platform itself. Once the ecosystem develops, Verified On Chain would be able to produce digital resumes where all provided information could be trusted. One hundred percent.

But…

…the big question is whether India will produce a global tech product. Will the world accept it? Will India accept it? Time will tell.

Blockchain Editorial

Verified On Chain is the easiest and most secure way to issue, manage, share and verify credentials on Blockchain- whether you are a university, professional, student or a recruiter

Verified On Chain

Written by

Verified On Chain is the easiest and most secure way to issue, manage, share and verify credentials on Blockchain

Blockchain Editorial

Verified On Chain is the easiest and most secure way to issue, manage, share and verify credentials on Blockchain- whether you are a university, professional, student or a recruiter

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade