Recap: Global University Workshop in North America

Published in

OntologyNetwork

5 min readNov 24, 2019

As you may have seen, Ontology’s Global University Workshop has been on the road since October. If you’ve been following the tour, you will know that we just finished up the North American leg of the tour, visiting 5 of the top universities in the U.S. We are happy to announce that each and every stop has been a huge success and that the future of blockchain is truly bright.

What is GUW?

Hosted in collaboration with multiple high-profile collaborations, our aims with the Global University Workshop are to help educate young talent about the world of blockchain in the hopes of attracting high-potential developers to the Ontology world. Through this, we hope to continue to develop our infrastructure and ecosystem as we continue to propel blockchain forward.

Furthermore, we feel an obligation to share our knowledge and experience with the generation that will most benefit from the potential of blockchain.

Klein Bottle Challenge

In addition to all of the valuable knowledge and experience on offer throughout the Global Workshop, Ontology also hosts the Klein Bottle Challenge, with $20,000 in rewards available to each university. Whether you’re new to blockchain or an experienced developer, we want to help you bring your ideas to life on our platform.

The purpose of the Klein Bottle Challenge is to encourage students who are interested in blockchain technology to apply their knowledge to practical applications. During the process, Ontology will provide full-scale support from finance to incubation to help you bring your ideas to life on our platform.

Take a look below to see a short recap of each stop on our tour of North America:

Stop 1: Northwestern

Held at the Garage in Northwestern University, our stop at Northwestern saw Prof. Aleksandar Kuzmanovic, Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University and founder of bloXrouteLabs, give an insightful opening speech to the excited crowd, before Ning HU and Edmond CONG, Ontology’s Senior Architecture Experts, and Jesse LIU, Ontology’s Marketing Director, dove into the topics of the Final Web, developing dApps, and more. Take a look at the action below

Stop 2: University of Chicago

The students in attendance at the oldest building on the campus of the University of Chicago, Ida Noyes Hall, were in for a treat during their stop of the Global University Workshop. With its quaint setting, students began to take their first steps into the world of blockchain under the guidance of Ning HU, Edmond CONG, and Jesse LIU.

Stop 3: Cornell

With a storied history, Cornell was a no-brainer when it came to choosing where to stop on the Global University Workshop tour. As you can see, our Cornell stop was well-received by the enthusiastic students in attendance. Take a look below to see students learning from Ning HU about the current situation of Web 1.0/2.0 vs. what Web 3.0 might be, as well as Edmond CONG introducing the 4 steps to developing dApps on Ontology.

Stop 4: Princeton

Next up, our Global University Workshop visited Princeton University with our workshop located at the Princeton Entrepreneurial Hub. This time, we had an exciting appearance from Erick Pinos, Ontology’s US Ecosystem Development Lead. Alongside Ning HU, the workshop gave students a window into blockchain and provided all of the tools to get started as part of the Ontology community.

Stop 5: Harvard

As the final stop on our tour, there was no better place for the Global University Workshop to visit than Harvard University. Held in the Harvard Kennedy School, the 5th stop on the North American leg saw the biggest crowds with a full-house, including Harvard students as well as other Boston-based developers. Ning HU explained a number of important topics, from decentralized knowledge to the 3 dimensions of trust. Take a look below to see the workshop in action!

To conclude, we want to say a huge thank you to all of the universities and partners involved in helping us bring these workshops to life and all of the enthusiastic students and developers that helped make each workshop so special. We set off on this tour to help spread the principles of blockchain and we are happy to see this become a reality. For those of you around the world who have reached out to us regarding hosting workshops at your universities, we want to let you know that we are currently considering the next phase of stops, with a stop at Chung-Ang University in Seoul, South Korea, up next.

For more updates on where we will be going next: