Accelerating development in decentralized platforms will require a paradigm shift, which requires developers to collaborate and learn through a multidisciplinary approach. There needs to be a more collaborative approach in order to produce real-world solutions that can make a big impact, and the developer community expects to have better capabilities and tools on hand.
In terms of skill, blockchain programming has mostly been learned through experience and community participation, there is no doubt that certain industries need more robust standards when it comes to how products are built. Industries like finance and security will require a more well-rounded and collaborative approach when building blockchain platforms and solutions, for instance.
Learning institutions are already addressing this trend. According to the second annual Coinbase Report on Higher Education done in partnership with Qriously, the percentage of top global universities offering courses and programs in blockchain has increased from 42 per cent in 2018 to 56 per cent this year, with Cornell University topping the Coinbase 2019 Leaders in Crypto Education list.
The report also cites a growing number of students who have expressed interest in learning blockchain. This means there is a growing demand for educational institutions to actively include blockchain in their curricula and course offerings – not just colleges and universities, but even primary education, as well.
“Many universities have started introducing courses in blockchain in recent years. Most of them are focusing in exploring the possible use cases,” says Richard Tiu, Strategic Alliance and Partnership Director of NEM Philippines, which has been working with 24 universities in the Philippines in offering blockchain courses.
“Reckoning that having a supply of developers with blockchain knowledge is fundamental for blockchain to flourish, universities start to offer courses for developers. There is more and more training conducted by the developer communities too.”
A multidisciplinary approach in building solutions
At first glance, blockchain development might seem to be more focused on the technical aspect of product development. However, according to those involved in blockchain education at universities, the interest has been diverse. After all, this technology has a multidisciplinary nature: It cuts across computer science, finance, legal, economics, social sciences, medicine, and so forth.
The Coinbase study notes that after computer science, business and law are the biggest areas of interest when it comes to blockchain education.
This is not surprising, due to the relevance of regulatory frameworks in blockchain and cryptocurrency platforms today. Speaking on the topic, Anatoly Ressin, Co-Founder and Chief Blockchain Architect at PARSIQ, says that blockchain companies are pushing for enhanced regulation in order to arrive at better standards and utilization.
“Our ultimate goal is to push for the mass adoption of blockchain technology in general. Currently, most [crypto and blockchain companies] are not compliant with the current regulations.”
NEM’s Tiu says that in order for educational institutions to participate in accelerating the development of decentralized platforms and applications, they need the ability to quickly adapt and change with the growing needs of the industry. But beyond this, there is also the feedback mechanism — building more capability in blockchain will also contribute to a more active blockchain community.
Jean-Charles Cabelguen, PhD, Chief of Innovation and Adoption at iExec, says that developers need to build products with convergence in mind:
“They need to understand blockchain tech but also other technologies working in interaction with decentralized platforms. IoT, AI, Trusted Execution Environment is a great additional tech, providing highly valuable services when combined with blockchain. It may be a strong stretch from web applications. But we will see more and more full-stack developers with understanding in another tech, as well as specialized developers.”
iExec is addressing the machine-to-machine economy and the edge computing economy in showcasing a proof-of-concept illustrating how connected devices can collaborate and share services. Here’s where the multidisciplinary nature of development will play a big part.
Collaboration and interoperability as an integral part of blockchain development
“Indeed for a lot of actual tech infrastructures, blockchain is not needed. But it is easier to see its strong necessity when forecasting the rise of smart industries where interoperability layers will be needed to aggregate digital infrastructures,” says Dr Cabelguen, who is Chair of the Board at the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance, a member-driven standards organization, whose charter is to develop open blockchain specs that drive interoperability.
He adds that accelerating development in decentralized platforms and applications will need two criteria: development of tools and federating around game-changing services. “I think it is key to find the equilibrium between providing tools for concrete needs of today and as well as building tools for coming challenges.
The first part is key in order to bring onboard people and companies focusing on short term financial profits. The second part is key in order to federate around a strong vision delivering game-changer services. Innovation is often a mix of changes in technology, adoption and/or business models.”
Ressin, whose platform provides tools for blockchain intelligence and analytics, agrees that development tools are important criteria in accelerating development in decentralized platforms. The fast-paced nature of blockchain development today necessitates collaboration among developers, in order to build on each other’s strengths and experience.
“Supporting new blockchains (e.g., simply listening for activity, monitoring them in real-time, scrapping data, automating on-chain processes) requires time and effort, since it is not only about the support, but also the reliability, maintainability and ability to work with big data – each of those will require the proper distribution of resources to save time and money in the future,” Ressin says.
He adds that leveraging third-party tools and services can enable faster deployment vis-a-vis building these from scratch.
“Third-party tools and services exist to eliminate the learning curve for developers [as they can] delegate responsibility and abstract from underlying complexities, being able to concentrate over the features the business requires without any worries that something will get broken the purpose for collaboration, according to Ressin, is “to build fast, integrate faster and measure the results on customers even faster.”
Beni Hakak, Co-Founder and CEO of LiquidApps, likens current blockchain development to the early days of the internet: “Only when developers could begin to move resources away from infrastructure and towards building experiences did the internet revolution really take off. Similarly, for blockchain developers to create products with real end-user value, they must focus their resources on optimizing user experiences, not on building and maintaining the service infrastructure to support their dApp.”
He adds that developers need to collaborate in order to avoid reinventing the wheel, citing the work that his company does in supporting development of decentralized apps (DAPPs). “Trustless DAPP Network services offer developers web oracles, seamless user onboarding, databases, computation, inter-blockchain communication, memory, and more. These services are not restricted to a single base-layer blockchain, either, thanks to LiquidX – which allows developers to use the DAPP Network on their blockchain of choice. They can even potentially use multiple chains or seamlessly migrate later, should the need arise.”
Preparing for the future
Dr. Cabelguen concludes that mindset is what’s important when building on these disruptive trends: “When learning new tech trends, it is key to have a strong commitment and to gather sources from different industries and media. The first step is to not tag too strongly our technical identity. For example, being a hardcore Java developer is great. But other languages are also making sense. It’s the same with new tech in general. The idea is to be committed but to do so with an open mind in order to welcome disruptive approaches.”
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