Global blockchain leader nChain has notched many achievements in the Philippines in the past six months alone. In December 2022, it signed a memorandum of understanding with the Provincial Government of Bataan to establish a digital platform and streamline the government processes of the province.
Now, the company celebrated with a night full of great ideas, and networking with various thought leaders in the government and blockchain industry with the nChain Blockchain Meetup held at the Manila House Private Club in Bonifacio Global City.
In his speech welcoming the attendees, nChain Group Executive Chairman Stefan Matthews talked about how the company started and why they chose the Philippines to be the next country to garner their future projects.
Past, current, and future works—the DNA of blockchain
Founded as a research company in 2015, nChain is now a leader and pioneer in blockchain research with over 1,000 research papers about the emerging technology and applications across industries.
“What we work on and what we filed patent applications on in the first three years is best described as being the DNA of blockchain,” Matthews said.
“Our patent portfolio used to make intellectual properties that we have is the largest of its kind in the world. We have nearly 3,000 patent applications being found globally. We have about 400 of those being granted. We never had a patent application declined. We have about two or three that we’ve withdrawn because of the discussions with the patent officers,” he announced.
Matthews then talked about their future projects with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and their partnership with the province of Bataan—where they plan to open an incubator facility that will train Filipinos about blockchain technology.
“I got excited for a few reasons because, obviously, blockchain is my life, but it’s also in Bataan, which is where I live. And suddenly, I found myself viewing financial inclusion, social impact, and all these things. And I suddenly realized that it was an opportunity for me and my company (nChain) to do something very special for the Philippines,” he said.
“The incubator is there to fulfill the promise of training, upskilling, fostering digitization, and fostering innovation,” he added.
The executive chairman reiterated how nChain is dedicated to helping the Philippines implement blockchain solutions nationwide, cementing their plans by personally talking with the DICT and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
“The areas that I’m personally focused on are areas with IoT around agriculture, around weather, around disaster management, areas of supply chain management, patching on agriculture again, and probably a whole host of other things,” he said.
Moving forward to educating young Filipinos
Meanwhile, Stephanie Tower spoke about nChain’s plans to foster blockchain innovation in the Southeast Asian country by signing an MOU with Ateneo De Manila University. Christian Pulmano, a lecturer at Ateneo’s Department of Information Systems and Computer Science, explained the details of the partnership.
“The first step to blockchain adoption is we have to educate the people on how it should be properly implemented and where to implement blockchain technology. That’s why the university’s (Ateneo) first approach is to gather more students to take the course,” Pulmano pointed out.
Prior to the pandemic, the university already had a course about the technology, and the partnership with nChain only pushed through December 2022. “We plan to hold the course hopefully as early as the first semester,” Pulmano told CoinGeek on the sidelines of the event.
On working with nChain, Pulmano said they chose the company because it aligns with the university’s vision as a research institution.
“The reason why we pursued the partnership is [because] a lot of the things are aligned. A lot of things that nChain is trying to do is very much aligned with also what we’re trying to do as a university and a research institution,” Pulmano explained.
“We learn a lot from them since they have experience doing research about blockchain, but at the same time, as a university, we can also help them expand their growth in the country,” he added.
Pulmano will be the one to teach about blockchain in Ateneo as they begin with the course, but as they go around, nChain will be training more faculty members. The instructor also shared that they have yet to make plans to work with other academes to establish the course, but future collaborations would be welcomed to build studies and research as long as it follows the university’s goals.
Pulmano said they are open to researching more about the technology and its different networks, like the BSV blockchain.
“Part of our job as researchers is to try it [blockchain networks] out before we can conclude anything. We have to conduct rigorous research. Definitely, at the start, will we learn about it [BSV blockchain] more,” he noted.
“For me, [BSV blockchain] has a good approach…In the real world, we do a lot of transactions in different industries. BSV has a goal of having a more scalable blockchain solution that helps the adoption, removing the problem of how to scale a blockchain system,” Pulmano added.
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Watch: nChain will digitalize government services in the Philippines
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