Blockchain
Blockchain is one of Chiang Mai University School of Public Policy’s foremost interest areas. We, while deeply digging into understanding this distributed ledger system, are aspiring to be at the forefront of discourse regarding its pitfalls and potential.
Why? This vanguard technology is being integrated into everything from crypto-currency and smart contracts to financial services and merchandise supply chains; even the entertainment and insurance industries are implementing such systems. Public, private, and consortium blockchain processes are being increasingly utilized. In Hong Kong, for example, blockchain is being employed for building junctions between the private and public sectors. Citizens are producing energy with their privately owned micro-grids; blockchain systems are then being used for distributing excess power to the public energy grid. While this is just one example, we at SPP are exploring how blockchain can be further used for public services and to its highest potential.
Indeed, there is ample hype encompassing blockchain’s current uses and future possibilities. Holistic understanding, however, about this technology, including its realized and undiscovered problems, remains somewhat unrealized. For example, it is predominantly believed that blockchain’s capacity for streamlining market supply chains by nullifying transaction intermediaries will enhance transparency and accountability; therefore, the prevalence of corruption and market monopolies will become lessened. Some people even maintain that blockchain systems operate without a central authority. These partial truths have many aspects. Certain is that modern communication channels, with blockchain technology evermore becoming prominently positioned, have transformed how our global market-driven world functions. Institutions can neither ignore this reality nor overlook the prevalence of blockchain’s roles in this modern-world dynamic.
We at SPP acknowledge that blockchain is becoming more important in how governments operate. Indeed, updated or newly crafted public policies must be responsibly implanted into society in ways that justly serve the common good. It is therefore essential to think mindfully, and highly critically, about blockchain’s possibilities; this includes its linked and regulating public policies. How does, and could, this technology work; for whom; and how can governments operating on long-established political systems catch up to modern times?
This is where SPP is serving pivotal roles. Our dedicated task is to answer these questions, while always maintaining the goal of being inclusive, innovative, and progressive in everything we do.
* SPP, while teaching about blockchain related public policies, is offering a training program on how to create blockchain systems. We, open for collaborating with others on blockchain technology projects, also build client tailored short-course blockchain training programs.