How the adoption and implementation of blockchain technology in the Private and Public sector

With blockchain becoming a popular emerging technology, there are several enterprises and startups that are building solutions for real work problems on multiple blockchain platforms. This was implicit when Deloitte stated in one of its reports that executives are starting to ask about how they can implement blockchain as opposed to when they were sceptical about how blockchain will work for them.

Given the enthusiasm to explore the applications of blockchain in several business verticals, we decided to bring you a stellar panel of blockchain industry experts to share insights into the adoption and implementation of blockchain technology. Before we get into the insights, let us introduce you to these exceptional individuals.

Get to know the panel

1. Ravi Vyas
   Ravi Vyas is a well-established product person. His expertise is based on building products for several companies like YourStory, from the ground-up. Presently, he is heading a startup called NextStepHQ as the CEO and Co-founder.
2. Rajesh Dhuddu
   Rajesh Dhuddu is the Global Practice Leader at Tech Mahindra and is responsible for advocating Blockchain led solutions for clients. He has more than two decades of experience in Payments, FinTech, Telecommunications & Business Process Management. Rajesh is an active speaker in forums like CII, NASSCOM, CeBIT, Tedx, ASSOCHAM, and IOTx to name a few. He is also a Mentor for Startupbootcamp FinTech, Mumbai and Everwise.
3. Gokul Alex
   Gokul Alex is one of the best-known names in the Indian blockchain ecosystem, a reputation earned through his work with several overseas blockchain projects. He is the Chief Architect for Blockchain Practice in the Government and Public Sector in PwC India.
4. Mahesh Narayanan
   Mahesh Narayanan is the principal product manager at Microsoft and has over 20 years of experience in the enterprise domain. Mr Mahesh also has expertise in blockchain, private cloud, data centre networking, hyper-converged infrastructure, network security, and cloud-based monitoring and analytics systems.
5. Manish Jain
   Manish Jain comes with vast experience in leading global companies across industries shape their digital strategy, harness Big Data for business value, and deliver digital technology-driven solutions. His expertise is spread across Consulting Practice Development, Account Management, International Experience, and Transformation Excellence. He has applied these skills across various technology verticals that include blockchain and AI.
6. Suresh Ponnuswamy
   Suresh Ponnusamy — the new CTO of Eleven01. He is a veteran developer and an architect with a deep understanding of Information Technology and has the experience that will help Eleven01 continue its pursuit of building a robust blockchain protocol.

5 Interesting points about Implementation and Adoption of blockchain technology in India

1. Blockchain ≠ Bitcoin
   Mahesh Narayanan expressed that the token economy or cryptocurrencies as digital assets, are a technology by themselves. They are backed up by blockchain technology in the backend.
   There needs to be a clear distinction between the implementation of blockchain technology by itself and Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies). With the misconception that blockchain is limited to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, enterprises and startups will be limited a certain set of usecases like finance. This needs to change. Rajesh Dhuddu pointed out that public relations (PR) in blockchain needs to be focused on this aspect.
2. Public sector usecases will fuel large scale adoption
   There are several governments from around the world who are using blockchain technology to enable their citizens with better services. This will surely drive large scale adoption and implementation of blockchain technology.
3. Overcoming challenges to enterprise adoption
   Presently, most enterprises are not adopting blockchain platforms and adding them to their technology mix because of the lack of efficient services. To elaborate, most enterprises are finding it hard to move from their legacy systems or suffixing blockchain into their technology mix due to lack of service that can enable the same. Addressing this issue will change the way blockchain technology is implemented into legacy systems.
4. Business Consortia can influence the adoption of blockchain technology
   Manish Jain pointed out that enterprises will be encouraged to implement blockchain in their technology mix if they are led by example and business consortia can be the answer here. When enterprises can work within trusted ecosystems, they can create positive influences based on the outcome of adopting and implementing something — blockchain technology, in this case. This can urge enterprises to explore how blockchain can enhance their services.
5. Liberating cryptography from the centre to the margins
   Given that we have heard about discussion points about adoption and implementing blockchain technology, Gokul Alex added a perspective to what the impact of adopting and implementing blockchain means. The vision of Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator(s) of Bitcoin, was to give cryptography back to the people. The technology was limited to use by the military and other governmental bodies. However, now cryptography can be pursued to address business usecases and provide solutions to other real-world problems through blockchain.

In Conclusion

The blockchain adoption and implementation panel at Genesis DevCon was one of the most relevant conversations that elucidated what challenges the early adopters of blockchain technology are facing. They also touched upon how blockchain can impact the creation of better services and more opportunities that still lay unexplored.

This was the true intention of a developer conference such as Genesis DevCon: to enable first-hand learning of what this niche, emerging sector truly holds for its stakeholders.

Look out for more on the conversations and discussions from Genesis DevCon.