BSV Association’s Evan Freeman takes blockchain education to the Philippines

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The Philippines, particularly its national government, is working double time to understand the fundamentals of blockchain and its deployment.

In August 2023, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), the Department of Information, Communications and Technology (DICT), the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) participated in the nChain Blockchain Immersion Program (nBIP), a workshop series organized by global blockchain solution firm nChain to educate the local government officials about this emerging technology.

Another organization taking rounds in educating Filipinos about blockchain is the BSV Association, a Switzerland-based global non-profit organization that educates enterprises, government agencies, startups, developers, and the public about the power of the enterprise blockchain technology.

On the sidelines of the nBIP event, BSV Association’s Director of Education Evan Freeman looks back at the initiatives of Association in the Philippines with CoinGeek Backstage.

“We’re really looking to blaze a trail here in the Philippines, [to] ensure that there’s the skill level and the knowledge level, both within the academic institutions as well as private organizations and the government, to allow for an effective deployment of blockchain throughout the country,” Freeman said.

Various blockchain discussions have been taking place in the Southeast Asian country, and Freeman is honored to have the chance to participate in these discussions by hosting workshops with the Philippines’ national government agencies.

“[Government agencies have really] taken to what we’ve been teaching them. They’re also excited for the future,” Freeman said. “They realize that blockchain is coming and that they need to have the knowledge to be able to navigate this space in such a way that it’s successful for them as an agency, as well as the nation as a whole.”

Some of the topics that BSV Association delved into in its blockchain workshops are the concepts of digital identity, automated contracts, and how blockchain can make these processes seamless, transparent, and trustworthy.

“I think what these workshops really accomplish is kind of getting everybody on to that same level [of understanding] so that they can begin to work together and be successful in these endeavors because it’s really not just about one particular agency. It’s about making sure that they can all work together in harmony and use the blockchain to ensure that the regulations they put out are efficient and effective,” he said.

Aside from doing workshops in Manila, the BSV Association also targets the Provincial Government of Bataan, a province keen on implementing emerging technologies like blockchain.

Wrapping up the interview, the BSV Association Director of Education encouraged all Filipinos to employ the different use cases of blockchain and take advantage of the micropayment system, which he conveyed is the very “basis for the design of Bitcoin.”

Watch: BSV entrepreneurs prove Bitcoin works with their applications—Calvin Ayre