Welcome to the Blockchain Catalonia Association!

Yesterday, November 13, the Blockchain Catalonia Association was presented in public at the Auditorium of the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. The association has as a fundamental mission the dissemination of the Blockchain technology between the Catalan society. The association is organized around seven working groups, of which my initial function is to energize the one dedicated to “Social Transformation”. I reproduce under this paragraph my welcome message from the working group:

“In 1996, Mark Stefik published a book called ‘Internet Dreams’. In it, he described the future of the Internet based on four metaphors: the digital bookstore, referring to the archive of human knowledge; the e-mail, in reference to the communication between people and groups; the digital market, with reference to e-commerce; and digital worlds, referring to an Internet of experiences, where today we could include, for example, online games, streaming, or augmented and virtual realities.

Today, thanks to the Blockchain, we can start talking about a fifth metaphor: the Internet of People. Although this is an old aspiration of the Internet, i.e., an Internet that is at the service of social development, we can consider today that it is plausible thinking about Blockchain as a tool for empowering people. I believe that Blockchain will lead us to the development of collaborative structures that provide efficient solutions to the social problems that the public and private sectors cannot or do not want to face.

In his book ‘The Network Society’, Manuel Castells described networks as the most effective form of organization thanks to three inherent properties of the same that the Internet power: flexibility, scalability, and resistance. Blockchain adds to the network organization three additional properties: the resistance to censorship, the immutability, and the no dependence of third parties to generate trust.

From the Social Transformation group, we will work in an agile and iterative way in three fundamental aspects:

• Detection of the problems and challenges of our Catalan society.
• From a practical and functional approach, an analysis of what Blockchain can offer in order to deal with them.
• The stimulation of working groups and projects in order to develop specific solutions.

The challenge is immense, but the prize also: to develop a society that is fairer, more democratic, more egalitarian, and more resistant. Let’s do it!”

More info (for the time being only in Catalan; soon in English too): https://blockchaincatalunya.org/