Hyperledger, Author at Hyperledger

Apr 15

Developer Showcase Series: Mohit Kumar Sethi, KrypC Technologies

By Hyperledger Blog, Developer Showcase

Back to our Developer Showcase Series to learn what developers in the real world are doing with Hyperledger technologies. Next up is Mohit Kumar Sethi, Enterprise Blockchain Engineer at KrypC Technologies.

Give a bit of background on what you’re working on and how you got into blockchain

At KrypC, I work on the development of KrypCore, which is our core offering. KrypCore allows organizations to accelerate their blockchain journey using Hyperledger Fabric. It abstracts complexities of deployment, governance and chaincode management and lets users focus on the business logic. We have used KrypCore to design and deploy a variety of use cases in production ranging from supply chain, provenance, trading and micro finance.

I have also had the opportunity to work in the field of smart cards, cryptography and payments. The application focused on secure messaging, digital signatures and immutability. Bitcoin and cryptocurrency were natural areas of interest as they related to cryptographic security and payments. We did a deep technical study of Bitcoin and realized how it has stitched existing cryptographic concepts and P2P networks to form an immutable decentralized token network. The challenge we tackled was how to the advantage of immutability and autonomous contracts to the enterprise business and hide the complexity of the protocol.

What Hyperledger frameworks or tools are you using in your projects? Any new developments to share? Can you sum up your experience with Hyperledger?

We use Hyperledger Fabric as the primary DLT. We use the combination of Hyperledger Fabric and Hyperledger Fabric SDK Go as part of our internal SDK to develop all Fabric-based projects.

What do you think is most important for Hyperledger to focus on in the next year?

From a Hyperledger Fabric point of view, I think: Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP) & Privacy Enhancements. Hyperledger Fabric has evolved a long way since version 1.0. PDC (Private Data Collection) provided solutions to many of the privacy and compliance needs. However, further strengthening of privacy can be achieved using ZKP or some related privacy preserving techniques.

The introduction of implicit PDC policies have simplified adoption and management of PDCs in large member networks. The current features, capabilities and design approach for PDC are well suited for most use cases. However, there are scenarios where privacy demands are not just limited to the visibility of the data but demands privacy on actions. For example:

The ability to hide the fact that selective members operated on some private key & value. The collection ids are visible in the read/write sets. This enables other members to be aware of the fact that some private information is processed between owners of collection members present in read/write sets.

What advice would you offer other technologists or developers interested in getting started working on blockchain?

There are numerous online materials available on blockchain. It is good to start with reading the basics like how blocks are related to each other and the concept of digital signature. The next step would be to go deep on Bitcoin and Ethereum white papers. Hyperledger Fabric provides very good documentation and examples. The documentation covers both developers and technologists.

Apart from knowledge of the technology, it is equally important to understand the suitability of the technology to solve a problem. Lets remember blockchain is not a replacement for traditional databases. Use cases should be evaluated for applicability of blockchain. There are multiple blockchain protocols each suiting different applications. For example: Hyperledger Fabric provides tremendous capabilities of enterprise networks where permission and governance are managed by the private consortium. However, if we need publicly auditable immutable trust records or exchangeable tokens, Ethereum is preferable. Complex networks can use a combination of protocols in public and private domains to suit multiple needs like scale, privacy, tokenized assets and immutability.

What’s the one issue or problem you hope blockchain can solve?

Fake currency

Where do you hope to see Hyperledger and/or blockchain in five years?

Adoption in the field of voting, e-governance. Blockchains would provide the required secure sharing and discovery platform for IoT networks.

What is the best piece of developer advice you’ve ever received?

Try to keep the functions/methods small and reusable.

What technology could you not live without?

Docker/Containerization! It is not going to be easy to manage local developments or deployments.

Apr 13

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Road to Hyperledger Global Forum

By Hyperledger Blog, Hyperledger Global Forum

The third Hyperledger Global Forum (HGF) is coming up quickly (June 8-10). While this year HGF will be virtual, we’ve gathered in the past in Basel, Switzerland, and Phoenix, Arizona, and are looking forward to meeting in person again in 2022.

One of the big goals for this year is to make Hyperledger Global Forum as successful and welcoming as past events, even in its virtual format. To help keep us our eyes on that prize, we asked speakers from past events about their involvement and experience at previous HGFs.

The great thing about our community is that it’s home to a mix of technologists, developers, business users and innovators from starts-ups, enterprises, solution providers, research labs and universities from around the world. And they all have a voice at Hyperledger Global Forum.

Read on for more about what brought 10 past speakers from across our extensive community to HGF and what made the event stand out to them. They also share updates on their projects and use cases and on the trends and technologies on their radars now.

Tell us a little bit about why you chose to speak at HGF and what your goal was

Baohua Yang, Oracle America, Inc.: “Share the experience of using Hyperledger technologies and also raise existing problems from real user cases. Also trigger thoughts for the Hyperledger roadmap.”

Ben Taylor, LedgerDomain / Clinical Supply Blockchain Working Group: “Hyperledger Fabric is an exciting project with flexible modular design, the backing of major industry players, a healthy developer community, great documentation, and a plethora of tutorials and ‘hello world’ code samples. At the same time, it’s maddeningly difficult to develop an end-to-end understanding of Fabric as a platform, create custom deployments, and develop real-world user-facing applications backed by smart contracts.

This is as much a social and political challenge as it is a technological challenge, and requires the ability to work with various stakeholders to demonstrate value as well as set a clear direction. Along with showcasing results from a real-world use case of Hyperledger Fabric, we wanted to share our insights and strategies related to the key questions of governance and orchestration.”

Markus Stauffiger, 4eyse GmbH: “I often profit from other people’s efforts and know-how and hoped to give something back by sharing our experience to those starting with Hyperledger.”

Mohan Venkataraman, Chainyard: “As a blockchain practitioner and technology evangelist, I was quite motivated to share my experiences, thought leadership and make connections. I have worked on over 30 projects, some in Hyperledger Fabric, Ethereum and a bit on Aris and BigChainDb. The learnings have been tremendous and sharing that with fellow practitioners and learning from their success and failures was part of it.”

Tell us a little about your experience speaking and attending HGF

Thomas Goetz, PostFinance AG: “It was striking to see the worldwide interest in the Hyperledger project. We had a number of interesting conversations and contacts before and after our presentation.”

Mohan: “It was amazing as we have an over full room of over 150 attendees, despite of being the last presentation of the day. The questions were pouring and people were curious about our experience in building highly performant Fabric solutions. Our methodology, accelerators and reference architectures were well appreciated.”

Saptarshi Choudhury, Paramount Software Solutions: “I loved the live interaction with the audience from different parts of the world who helped co-create values while speaking as a panelist, and I truly enjoyed all the sessions of the Hyperledger Global Forum.”

Shengwei You, University of Notre Dame: “It’s a very informative and awesome experience, and I feel everything was arranged well.”

What is the most memorable part of attending and speaking at HGF?

Benjamin Djidi: “The people. I was really impressed by the different project bearers and contributors.”

Markus Stauffiger: “The openness, sharing of ideas, experiences and know-how. The no-bullshit attitude, where critical thinking is welcome. Also the inclusiveness, which is very obvious with the people, but it extends to all aspects, such as technology & philosophy.”

Thomas Bohner, IntellectEU: “Meeting new people and building long-term partnerships and client relationships.”

Thomas Goetz: “The keynotes gave a very good overview of the ecosystem and emerging trends. It was very motivating to be part of the community.”

How has your project/use case with Hyperledger tech progressed since you spoke at HGF?

Ben Taylor: “Since we shared our results from the BRUINchain study, we have extended the framework to encompass all prescription drugs in the United States, an*d have tested it at scale and with production data. The framework is currently in the process of being rolled out with participating health centers and drug manufacturers. We published the results of our pilot with UCLA Health, Genentech, Amgen, Sanofi and others in December 2020, and at time of writing our peer-review study with real-world enhanced drug verification is set to be published in the next several days.”

Mathews Thomas, IBM: “Multiple use cases were covered and several have gone into production with various clients. Also kept in touch with some folks I met and continue exchanging ideas.”

Saptarshi Choudhury: “We are now in a pilot stage with our Farm2Plate solution and also developing another product catering democratization of energy by P2P energy trade.We are also working on a Social impact project with BlueNumber on ID for farmers.”

Shengwei You: “I was a summer intern for the Hyperledger Caliper project. More users are paying attention to this project, and I feel there are more improvements we can do to make things better and more user friendly.”

What new enterprise blockchain topics, technologies or trends are on your radar?

Baohua: “Zero knowledge, China standard of crypto, PBFT implementation”

Benjamin Djidi: “Aries is very interesting. I’m generally fond of ZKP topics and followings updates to the existing frameworks (especially Fabric, Indy, Ursa).”

Mathews: “Application of blockchain in emerging areas for different industries (e.g ,Telecom – 5G, Media – Decentralized media network)”

Thomas Bohner: “CBDC, Digital Cash, Quantum Technology”

Apr 09

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Weekend Update: This Week’s Round-up of Remote Blockchain Learning Resources

By Hyperledger Blog, Weekend Update

Welcome to the Weekend Update. Our goal with this weekly post is to share quick updates about online education, networking and collaboration opportunities and resources for the open source enterprise blockchain community.

If you have suggestions for resources or events that we should spotlight in a future Weekend Update, let us know here using #HLWeekendUpdate.

Hyperledger Global Forum Scholarships

To encourage attendance by underrepresented/marginalized persons in the technology and open source communities, Hyperledger is offering scholarships to Hyperledeger Global Forum 2021. Recipients will receive complimentary registration to the virtual event, taking place June 8 – 10, 2021. Applications are due May 21. Go here to find out more.

Hyperledger Fabric study circle – hosted by the new Hyperledger India Chapter Student Society

The recently launched Hyperledger India Chapter Student Society is hosting Hyperledger Fabric weekly study circle meetings, starting April 10th. Held over the course of two months, the eight sessions will help people get acquainted with the practical aspects of using and contributing to Hyperledger Fabric. At the end of the sessions, participants are expected to come up with a project demonstration of their choice.

Session one will be on April 10th at 11:00 AM IST. For more details, go here.

How does Blockchain Protect Consumer RIghts in the New Digital Era?

Recently, Hyperledger and BSN hosted a webinar on the timely and increasingly important subject of how blockchain can help protect consumer rights in the digital era. Panelists included Hyperledger’s Brian Behlendorf and Julian Gordon as well as Everledger’s Leanne Kemp, Wipro’s Joshua Satten and Whitfield Diffie, 2015 Turing Award Winner and senior advisor to Findora. The recording is available here.

Hyperledger Job Board

Don’t forget to bookmark the Hyperledger job board to find the next opportunity to put your skills to work.

Virtual Meetups

Saturday, April 10, at 12:00 UTC / 15:00 AST: Hyperledger Riyadh hosts “21 use cases of blockchain solution with Hyperledger – For Entrepreneurs”
Monday, April 12, at 21:30 UTC / 18:30 BRT: Hyperledger Brazil Chapter hosts “Blockchain e os Cartórios”
Thursday, April 15, at 16:00 UTC / 12:00 PM EDT: Hyperledger Toronto hosts “Scaling Hyperledger Fabric networks”

See the full Virtual Meetup schedule here.

Apr 08

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Introducing the Hyperledger India Chapter Student Society

By Robin Roy Thomas, Student Coordinator- Hyperledger India Chapter Student Society Blog, Regional Chapter

The Hyperledger India Chapter Student Society is an association for students and faculty members around the country who are researching, working, or are interested in blockchain and Hyperledger distributed ledger technologies. The Society works in accordance with the code of conduct issued by the Linux Foundation and Hyperledger and hosts bi-weekly meetings open to the public. The Society aims to provide a platform where students can engage with their peers to educate, co-create, and network all over the nation and bring about the next industrial revolution with blockchain and Hyperledger DLT technologies. Students volunteer, take up initiatives, and organize events relevant to their area of interest. The Society also tries to enhance leadership, teamwork, and professional conduct among students by allowing them to take charge.

Faculty members can volunteer as co-leads of the Society to share responsibilities for the activities and events to be organized. Faculty members can be part of the Society and act as mentors to encourage and motivate students to take up initiatives. They may also promote student projects, collaborate with industry professionals, and identify internship and placement opportunities.

The Society maintains channels on Discord and LinkedIn to connect and bring together interested students and mentors from the community. The LinkedIn page acts as a source for important announcements and events while Discord serves as a casual space where members can exchange and express their opinions, ideas, or even topics they are interested in. The Society also lists resources to learn and improve student’s blockchain skills and even posts must-read articles every week on Discord.

Bi-weekly meetings are conducted to discuss and keep up to date with recent trends in blockchain technology. Several segments, like Pitch your Project (PYP), where students are provided an open stage to pitch their ideas in front of others, and Blockchain for the Week, where a couple of recent developments and news within the blockchain space are discussed to keep track of the current trends in the blockchain space, are also part of the bi-weekly session.

Planning is also underway for additional programs such as Research Paper discussions and a study circle for Hyperledger Fabric. (See details on the study circle below.)

The Hyperledger India Chapter Student Society relies entirely on student and faculty participation and enthusiasm and encourages members to learn with others and inculcate a sense of learning in public.

Watch our recent meeting record here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGWf0i_bVH8

Join our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/KGCgzemKkY

Official LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hyperledger-india-chapter-student-society

Our Wiki Page : https://wiki.hyperledger.org/display/HIRC/Hyperledger+India+Chapter+Student+Society

Hyperledger Fabric study circle

Weekly study circle meetings will be held starting from April 10th, 2021, for a period of two months (8 sessions) to cover the practical aspects of Hyperledger Fabric. At the end of the sessions, participants are expected to come up with a project demonstration of their choice.

Session #1 on the 10th of April 11:00 A IST will be taken by Mr. Pavan Adhav (https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavan-adhav/).

Click here for more information about the event.

Apr 02

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Weekend Update: This Week’s Round-up of Remote Blockchain Learning Resources

By Hyperledger Blog, Weekend Update

If you have suggestions for resources or events that we should spotlight in a future Weekend Update, let us know here using #HLWeekendUpdate.

Hyperledger Media and Entertainment Special Interest Group Guest Presentation: Verizon Full Transparency Initiative

Join the Media and Entertain SIG meeting for a guest presentation on the “Verizon Full Transparency Initiative.” Jason Small and Dante Pacella from Verizon along with Hunter Prendergast from MadHiveCooper will discuss the recently launched blockchain-based system Verizon is using to transparently track all changes made to official news releases in its corporate newsroom. The talk will dive into why Verizon made this a priority, how this is a first step towards adoption of this open-sourced system across brands and media entities and what the system does and doesn’t do.

For more information on the meeting, which is Tuesday, April 6, at 9:00 AM PDT, go here.

Hyperledger In-Depth: An Hour with Valid Network

Gilad Eisenberger of Valid Network will lead a discussion on securing the new economy. New economies are on the verge of creation with blockchain as their infrastructural foundation. Old processes are being challenged by autonomous decentralized processes that go beyond the organization’s walls. Those processes share data, resources, and risks. Every transformation holds many layers of challenges when one of the most crucial requirements is security. The talk will walk the audience through the process of understanding different attack vectors and their potential impact as well as how mistakes can be avoided and safer execution can be adopted.

Tune on Wednesday, April 7 at 10:00 AM EDT. For more information and to register, go here.

Community Innovation Lecture: Decentralized ID and Access Management (DIAM) for IoT Networks

The next talk in MOBI’s (Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative) Community Innovation Lecture Series will focus on centralized ID and Access Management (IAM) in IoT networks. Nima Afraz and Vipin Rathi from the Hyperledger Telecom SIG will present a decentralized approach to validate and verify the identity of IoT devices, data, and applications, drawing from a recently published solution brief.

To learn more or to register for the lecture, which is Wednesday, April 7, at 10:00 AM EDT, go here.

Webinar: Dialogue with Hyperledger – China Blockchain Industry Embracing the World

Hosted by Alliance of Blockchain Industry, Z-park (ABI), this webinar will discuss the current development status of China’s blockchain industry, and how blockchain can better promote the economy all around the world. Key speakers include Hyperledger’s Brian Behlendorf, Ant Group’s Xianghui Jiang and RootChain’s Jay Guo.

This is the third meeting of “Blockchain Connecting to the World” series and is supported by Hyperledger and CoinTelegraph China. Simultaneous interpretation will be provided for Mandarin and English.

Find out more about this webinar, which is Wednesday, April 7, at 6:00 PM PDT, here.

Hyperledger Telecom Special Interest Group Guest Speakers: Shamit Bhat, GSMA, and Monique J. Morrow, Syniverse Technologies

Join the Telecom SIG meeting for a guest presentation on “GSMA-DLT Shared Vision for the Telecom Industry.” Shamit Bhat from GSMA and Monique Morrow from Syniverse Technologies will present a shared industry vision that evolved around the tenet that Distributed Ledger Technology or DLT cannot be assumed as siloed and certainly involves other business technology enablers. 80% of the discussions must be business focused and 20% technology focused. The ecosystem is multi-stakeholder in nature including Opcos, Wholesale Carriers, Banks, Mobile Players/Enterprise and Policy Makers. This presentation will emphasize DLT opportunities for the Telecom Industry and provide a clear roadmap for moving from POCs to commercialization with demonstrable proof points to maximize impacts for some key use cases.

For more information on the meeting, which is Thursday, April 8, at 9:00 AM PDT, go here.

Webinar: CBDC Overview

SIMBA Chain is hosting Forbes contributor Vipin Bharathan for a discussion on Central Bank Digital Currencies. In addition to providing a basic overview of CBDCs and their role in bringking greater resilience to the payment system, the talk will include a quick review of major CBDC papers and initiatives and guidance on a practical way forward to pilot central bank digital currencies.

For more information on the webinar, which is Thursday, April 8, at 2:00 PM EDT, go here.

Hyperledger Summer Mentorship Program Applications Open

The Hyperledger Summer Mentorship program is back with more opportunities than ever for hand-on skills building and experience in developing leading-edge open source blockchain technologies. Applications are now open for the fifth year of the program and, for the first time, mentees from any career stage are invited to apply for any of the 22 planned projects. These paid mentorship opportunities are open to participants from anywhere in the world. The deadline to apply is May 7.

Linux Foundation Training Program (LiFT) Scholarship Applications Open

The Linux Foundation is hosting the Linux Foundation Training (LiFT) Scholarship Program to provide opportunities to up-and-coming developers and sysadmins who show promise for helping shape the future of Linux and open source software but do not otherwise have the ability to attend training courses or take certification exams. The deadline to apply is April 30.

Virtual Meetups

Friday, April 9, at 13:00 UTC / 15:00 CEST: Hyperledger Sweden hosts “Hyperledger Tech Study Circle”
Saturday, April 10, at 12:00 UTC / 15:00 AST: Hyperledger Riyadh hosts “21 use cases of blockchain solution with Hyperledger – For Entrepreneurs”

See the full Virtual Meetup schedule here.

Apr 01

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Applications Open for Expanded, Paid Hyperledger Summer Mentorship Program

By Hyperledger Blog, Hyperledger Summer Mentorship Program

The Hyperledger Summer Mentorship program is a hands-on, results-oriented program that starts with active developers designing and proposing mentorship projects that have real impact on advancing Hyperledger technologies. This year, the 22 projects cover a range of technologies, challenges and technical difficulty levels. The program offers both part and full-time projects tackling development challenges such as interoperability, security and scalability and addressing a mix of use cases, including in climate change, digital identity and telecom services.

“Since we kicked this program off five years ago, growing it has been a priority for Hyperledger,” said Brian Behlendorf, executive director of Hyperledger. “We believe strongly in creating opportunities for a wide spectrum of aspiring open source and blockchain developers, which is why this is a structured, paid and very hand-on program with involvement from mentors from around the world. We hope, by expanding the program to all career stages and adding a larger number of projects, we will bring even more energy to this program and our community and fuel more breakthroughs on the career and technology front.”

The developers who propose the projects serve as the mentors and work closely with their mentees on developing a project plan, setting milestones and solving problems. Mentees can expect regular evaluations and feedback as well as a stipend. For more about the program, including the schedule and stipend details, go here. To learn more about how the Hyperledger Summer Mentorship program has helped shape the career of one recent mentee, read this Developer Showcase profile of Sara Ghaemi, a member of last summer’s cohort.

All Hyperledger Summer projects must be approved by the Hyperledger Technical Steering Committee before becoming official mentorship opportunities. Read on for descriptions of some of the projects planned for this year:

Support Clique for Besu on HL Labs BAF

Hyperledger Labs Blockchain Automation Framework(BAF) is a tool to deploy different DLT platforms automatically on a given Kubernetes cluster. BAF supports multi-cloud and multi-DLT deployments, and already supports HL Fabric, HL Besu, Quorum, R3 Corda. For HL Besu, currently only IBFT2 Consensus is supported by BAF.

With this mentorship program, we want to support the Clique consensus for Besu, so that BAF can be used to deploy and operate a HL Besu network with Clique consensus. This will also include upgrading BAF to support the latest stable Besu version.

The expected outcomes of this project are:

Documented, ready-to-use Besu Clique consensus on BAF
Documented upgrade of Besu to latest stable on BAF

Documentation and Use Cases for Climate Action

The Carbon Accounting and Certification Working Group is developing an Operating System for Climate Action, which is a set of applications for obtaining and certifying data, creating tradeable tokens for emissions and offsets, and using DAO’s to coordinate collective action.

As part of this project, we’re looking for technical writers who could help both document the technologies and how they could be applied to actual use cases. We’ve started with a few ideas and would like your help refining them with actual or potential projects. We’d also like help reaching out to and interviewing potential users of the applications to get their feedback on how they could be used.

The expected outcomes of this project are:

Improved documentation of the blockchain carbon accounting applications.
Tutorials on how to develop and enhance the applications.
Use cases for the applications.

HL Iroha and HL Cactus Integration

Hyperledger Cactus is a blockchain decentralised integration tool designed to allow users to securely integrate different blockchains started by Fujitsu and Accenture. Cactus has pluggable architecture that makes it easy to integrate various blockchain by creating plugins (currently plugins for Fabric, Besu, Quorum are implemented). Cactus allows transfer not only of assets but also of data between multiple blockchains. On the other hand Iroha (version 1.x) is great with asset management, and has functionality to store data, which makes those two projects a perfect fit!

With this mentorship program we will not only allow the interoperability between different blockchains but also create a system of Iroha networks that will also demonstrate the integration in examples easy to run by everybody.

The expected outcomes of this project are:

Documented, ready-to-use integration of Iroha and Cactus
Documented example of integration between multiple (two and more) iroha’s networks with Cactus
Documented example of integration between Fabric and Iroha (Fabric plugin for Cactus is already implemented) integration

Check out the full list of mentorship projects and start your application today. The deadline to apply is May 7. The Hyperledger Summer Mentorship Program is part of the Linux Foundation’s overall commitment to mentoring. The application process is being managed through LFX Mentorship, a platform created by the Linux Foundations to train future open source leaders. Students from diverse communities are encouraged to apply. All are welcome here!

Apr 01

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Developer Showcase Series: Sara Ghaemi, TELUS

By Hyperledger Blog, Developer Showcase, Hyperledger Summer Mentorship Program

In this edition of our Developer Showcase Series, where we learn what developers in the real world are doing with Hyperledger technologies, we are spotlighting a recent graduate of the Hyperledger Summer Mentorship Program. Today, we get an update from Sara Ghaemi, Technology Specialist at TELUS and a member of last summer’s cohort.

Give a bit of background on what you’re working on and how you got into blockchain.

Currently, I’m a technology specialist at TELUS working on various projects. TELUS is very keen on the space of blockchain, and we are in the exploratory phase. Before joining TELUS, I was a master’s student and research assistant at the University of Alberta, working on blockchain research. When I started my master’s program, I had already been exposed to cryptocurrencies and how they work. When deciding on my research topic, I got interested in how this technology can be leveraged in use cases other than cryptocurrencies. I was also curious about the performance of distributed ledgers and the ways we can have blockchain features with higher throughput and lower latency than public blockchains such as Bitcoin.

As a result of this interest, I worked on a blockchain-based serverless computing platform called ChainFaaS, which was implemented using Hyperledger Fabric. As part of our research group, we also worked on performance analysis of distributed ledgers. After about two years of researching this topic, I got into the Hyperledger Mentorship program, which introduced me to the world of blockchain interoperability. During this program, I worked on blockchain interoperability with a focus on Hyperledger technologies.

What Hyperledger frameworks or tools are you using in your projects? Any new developments to share? Can you sum up your experience with Hyperledger?

Continuing my research as my side projects, I am currently using Hyperledger Fabric, Besu and Caliper. Given my interest in interoperability, I am also following Hyperledger Cactus closely. Very recently, I have also become interested in Hyperledger Indy for access management.

I’ve had a lot of positive experiences with Hyperledger. First and foremost is the community. During my mentorship program, I had the opportunity to get involved with the Hyperledger community in different ways. The community is very welcoming, and everyone is always there to help. There have been many instances where I was stuck on something and was able to get help from the community through chat groups. Moreover, the variety of blockchain solutions that are available in Hyperledger’s greenhouse has been a great help for me.

What do you think is most important for Hyperledger to focus on in the next year?

I believe blockchain interoperability is an important area to focus on. Given the momentum in the blockchain space, many different blockchain networks are introduced for various use cases. All of these networks are isolated from each other, resulting in silos of information. I believe it is crucial for the future of blockchain to have secure interoperability solutions so that even when new networks are introduced, they can work with currently running networks.

What advice would you offer other technologists or developers interested in getting started working on blockchain?

Blockchain is a space that is changing fast. Don’t be overwhelmed by the amount of information that is on the internet. Understand the basics first and then focus on one specific blockchain technology that interests you the most. Spend some time to fully understand that technology. When you get a good understanding of one of the blockchain networks, it will be much easier to understand the rest.

If you want to learn something in more detail, I recommend reading a few top research papers in that area. For example, I remember struggling with understanding how exactly Hyperledger Fabric works. Reading the “Hyperledger fabric: a distributed operating system for permissioned blockchains” paper gave me great insight into the details of Fabric.

What’s the one issue or problem you hope blockchain can solve?

I’m hoping that blockchain can allow users to be in charge of their own data on the internet. Instead of relying on third-parties and trusting them not to disclose their information to others, the users should be able to see and control who can access their data and information.

Where do you hope to see Hyperledger and/or blockchain in five years?

I hope to see blockchain and/or Hyperledger being used in production at a large scale.

What is the best piece of developer advice you’ve ever received?

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. I used to spend a lot of time trying to fix the issues that I had with my code. One of my mentors once told me to reach out to experts in the area and ask my questions. Worst case scenario, they are not going to answer.

What technology could you not live without?

Internet!

Mar 31

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Hyperledger Cactus: On the Road to General Blockchain Integration

By Peter Somogyvari at Accenture and Hart Montgomery at Fujitsu Laboratories Blog, Hyperledger Cactus

Since its inception as a Hyperledger project almost a year ago, Hyperledger Cactus has come a long way. Today, the maintainers are excited to announce a version 0.4 release that supports many exciting integration applications and moves us in the direction of our “dream” modular architecture.

Hyperledger Cactus is a pluggable enterprise-grade framework to transact on multiple distributed ledgers without introducing yet another competing blockchain. With this project, we aim to provide a decentralized, adaptable and secure integration to and between blockchain networks that is adaptable for various platforms and protocols. Roughly speaking, Cactus consists of “business logic plugins,” which coordinate cross-blockchain integration and “ledger plugins,” which facilitate connections to particular ledgers.

The Hyperledger Cactus v0.4 release includes the following modules:

Ledger Plugins – the mechanism to communicate with various DLT platforms
(Hyperledger Besu, Corda, Corda OS, Hyperledger Fabric, Go-Ethereum, Quorum, Hyperledger Sawtooth)
Three Business Logic Plugin samples – the application integrates multiple blockchains
Support Libraries – various utility libraries that make programming business logic plugins easy. These are great for setting up your own applications!

In fact, it’s very easy to try out Hyperledger Cactus today. We provide instructions for running a sample implementation of the Business Logic Plugins (service applications in Hyperledger Cactus architecture) that takes advantage of various blockchain platform features so you can evaluate Hyperledger Cactus on your own PC.

It is even possible to set up a container with a supply chain example using a single command-line command! Here is a link to this example. We encourage you to see for yourself how easy it can be to get started with blockchain integration using Hyperledger Cactus.

Our long-term architectural goals for Hyperledger Cactus are to offer a flexible, modular system that allows users to configure blockchain integration systems to exactly fit their needs. We want users to be able to reuse code as much as possible while still avoiding code bloat and duplication in the features that are used. Contributors are working to complete Hyperledger Cactus in line with an architecture that is based on prototype code. Unimplemented features are detailed in the white paper.

Our white paper describes the path of development for Cactus, starting with enumerating various use cases that can be realized with Cactus. We use these use cases to derive and establish basic design principles such as pluggable architectures and modular interfaces. As the result of many long discussions, we have put together an initial architectural design. We present a diagram that showcases this below:

CACTUS Architecture

This diagram is a little bit complicated, but hopefully it allows you to picture the modularity and flexibility of the Hyperledger Cactus system. We want to emphasize that our system design pushes the ledger-specific functionalities as far to the edge as possible in order to maximize ease of development and make applications as ledger-agnostic as possible.

If this seems interesting to you, we’d love to welcome you into the Hyperledger Cactus community. Unlike our project namesake, we are not prickly! Whether you want to contribute or are just interested in using Cactus, we would love to connect.

It’s easy to get in touch with us! The simplest way is to reach out on the Hyperledger Cactus rocketchat. We have pair programming sessions set up for new contributors and users almost daily (please check the Hyperledger calendar), so we’d be more than happy to help if you would like to contribute or want help getting up and running. We look forward to hearing from you!

Mar 30

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#Hyperledger Women Share their Blockchain Journeys – Part III

By Hyperledger Blog, Community Spotlight

In celebration of #HyperledgerWomen, we asked some of the many excellent women leaders in our community to share some details about their blockchain journey, including how they got started, what projects get them excited and advice they’ve received or have to share.

Read on for part II of this story where we hear from:

Hanna Zubko, Co-Founder and CEO at IntellectEU

Melanie Cutlan, Managing Director, Blockchain & Multiparty
Systems Co-Lead at Accenture

Sandra Ro, CEO, Global Blockchain Business Council

How did you get into the innovation/technology space?

Melanie Cutlan: “I was about 10 when I learned to code and have been hooked on technology ever since. I graduated from ASU with a CIS Degree in business – and I have always enjoyed the convergence of tech applied to solve business problems in new ways.

I have been in the innovation space for over 10 years, helping clients and teams adopt new technologies to rethink how they get work done. I helped to launch our Tech Masters program, which inspired business users to learn how to apply simple technologies to their day-to day-work, while running programs to make Emerging Technologies more approachable and easier to understand for the business user. I then created a team to explore how emerging technologies could disrupt our core service offerings, making the “next new” tangible for our business stakeholders and our clients.”

When and/or how did you first learn about DLT/blockchain?

Melanie: “In 2015, while running an innovation team – the Tech Garage – we were looking for ways that we could apply Blockchain to solve back office problems inside Accenture and within our scope at clients. I was immediately amazed by the possibilities and have dedicated my career to it ever since.”

Sandra Ro: “I first learned about blockchain and crypto through the FX trading community in London in late 2011. Once I really understood Satoshi Nakamoto’s bitcoin white paper (had to read a few times before the lightbulb moment), I realized it could be a paradigm shifting technology, a breakthrough that could disintermediate the financial system. Though I was initially focused on bitcoin and blockchain technology as a game-changer for the foreign markets, I eventually appreciated the potential for the technology to build alternative systems to help us develop more resilient and decentralized systems.”

What’s a blockchain project you’ve worked on that got you excited about the technology?

Hanna Zubko: “Our team at IntellectEU worked on dozens of projects across capital markets, payments, insurance, KYC and identity domains, so it’s hard to pick just one. However, one project that made me particularly excited about how blockchain technology can positively impact our lives and our planet is MyWaste, focused on incentivizing more recycling among the population. Our team worked very closely with The Studio (now part of the Fairville venture), the innovation arm of Belfius, one of Belgium’s leading retail banks, to build the MyWaste application. MyWaste introduced a MyWaste token that rewards end-users for their ecological sustainability efforts. These tokens can then be spent at local merchants on “green” products and, more importantly, make citizens aware of their waste production and incentivize more recycling and reuse. Here are some of our other blockchain projects that I am proud of: https://intellecteu.com/#case-studies.”

Melanie: “All of them! As co-lead of our Blockchain & Multiparty Systems, I am working with clients across all industries across our three priorities – Digital Identity, FS Infrastructure and Supply Chains.”

Sandra: “Before GBBC, I ran CME Group’s FX and Metals Research and Product Development, where we began quietly researching cryptocurrencies back in 2014. Ultimately, we launched a new business department within the firm dedicated to crypto and blockchain called Digitization. It was under the umbrella of Digitization at CME that we launched the Bitcoin pricing indices and subsequently, BTC futures, which trades and is the dominant USD cash-settled BTC futures today. At the time, CME Digitization was on the cutting-edge of institutional enterprise blockchain projects. During this time I had the chance to meet with over 200 start-ups and was a founding member of numerous blockchain associations, including Hyperledger. At that point, I decided to dedicate 100% of my time to blockchain for social impact, particularly widening financial access to those most excluded.”

What’s an entrenched problem you hope blockchain will help solve?

Hanna: “The problem of TRUST and resulting challenges of reconciliation and digital asset record keeping. It occurs in so many situations when enterprises interact with each other ranging from Know Your Customer (KYC) to sharing patient record data, as well as insurance claim management, IP management, and royalty payouts.”

Melanie: “If I may pick a favorite problem to solve, I am excited to see responsible and sustainable supply chains for food. Giving a face to those who grow our food, and incentivizing sustainable practices for the raw materials, without extracting the value to the larger players at the end of the supply chain. I am excited to see multi-tier supply chains coming together, providing resiliency, helping adapt to disruptions in supply chains, and ensuring a consistent supply of food to those who need it most.”

Sandra: “There is a tremendous amount of friction in many business processes in nearly every industry, government sector. A good example of such frictions is in cross-border payments, particularly for those for who can least afford to be paying high fees and wish to send small notional amounts. The blockchain and digital asset communities have the ability to affect real change in the space by bringing new solutions to the table, and forcing incumbents to innovate in ways that have a real and tangible impact on the lives of millions.”

What advice do you have for women looking to get started in this space OR what was the best advice someone gave you?

Hanna: “Get involved with Hyperledger! Blockchain is a growing space, and it has a significant need for more talented people, especially women, to join it. You may choose to contribute to one or several of Hyperledger’s open source projects. Also, the majority of Hyperledger member companies in our community are hiring. We are hiring at IntellectEU as well and would love to have you join us!”

Melanie: “By the very nature of emerging technologies, there are not experts that have been in the space much longer than you. Jump in, help shape the future of Multiparty Systems from the ground up. The ecosystem is in need of technologists, consultants, strategists, entrepreneurs within technology providers, service providers and industry constructs. There is such a need for talent. Bring your best, and take a chance on yourself to learn something new, apply something old in a new way, and have some fun reshaping the future of industries with new technologies.”

Sandra: “There are a myriad of skill sets needed in this burgeoning industry, and we need women of all kinds of backgrounds to get involved. My only suggestion is to dive in, even if you are not exactly sure of what you want to do. The sector is growing so quickly, there are opportunities being created each day, and no matter what the future may bring, this is a collaborative technology, so get stuck in, be curious, and help one another.”

Help us highlight the role of women in blockchain by tagging others in the community with #HyperledgerWomen.

Mar 29

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#Hyperledger Women Share their Blockchain Journeys – Part II

By Hyperledger Blog, Community Spotlight

Read on for part II of this story where we hear from:

Archana Sristy, Sr. Director of Engineering for Blockchain Platforms at Walmart; Hyperledger Governing Board Member

Maria Teresa Nieto Galan, Blockchain Technological Specialist at Telefonica; Hyperledger TSC Member

Maryam Mahjoub, CMO at Soramitsu

How did you get into the innovation/technology space?

Maria Teresa Nieto Galan: “I arrived by chance. When I finished my degree in computer engineering I started working in a company that had just created its Blockchain department. From the first moment I was attracted by this technology and the world of innovation where every day is a new challenge.”

Maryam Mahjoub: “My original passion was for healthcare – but after fainting from trying to cut a squid in my Biology 101 class, I realized I’d never be a doctor. So, I got into marketing, and as the progression of our lives shifted more online, I began focusing more on technology – specifically, healthcare technology. I eventually did my MSc in Healthcare Leadership, focusing on health data management and its impact on health outcomes.”

When and/or how did you first learn about DLT/blockchain?

Archana Srisly: “I first became aware of blockchain from the early Bitcoin days but started digging deeper into Enterprise Blockchains in 2016, when we announced PoC’s to track produce and meat in Walmart’s supply chains in the US & China. It’s been fascinating to learn how this technology can completely transform how companies conduct business.”

Maria Teresa: “I started with Blockchain in the year 2016 with a platform called Eris-DB, now better known as Hyperledger Burrow. Then, I started to create some applications with Ethereum until I met Hyperledger Fabric, the DLT that I use the most in my daily life.”

Maryam: “I entered the world of blockchain in early 2019. It was a fairly easy transition for me to understand the value of blockchain and the opportunities it offers in various industries – this is because in healthcare data management, data privacy, accessibility, and interoperability are all huge topics of concern. Learning the technology behind blockchain protocols, crypto, identity management, etc. took a little bit of time.”

What’s a blockchain project you’ve worked on that got you excited about the technology?

Maria Teresa: “There are two projects with which I had love at first sight. The first is TrustOS, our product in Telefónica. It is a complete Blockchain solution that abstracts all the complexity of blockchain technology and makes it easy to adopt it in any use case. On the other hand, the second is TrustID, a project that we released as an open source in Telefonica under the umbrella of the Hyperledger Labs. It’s aim is to develop a new standard to simplify identity management in blockchain networks regardless of the underlying technology of the networks.”

Maryam: “I think one of the most valuable benefits of blockchain is that it offers inclusion. Over 1.7B people – and over 200M entrepreneurs and businesses – are currently unbanked. Blockchain could be absolutely revolutionary for developing nations, disenfranchised groups, and of course, women. For instance, the Bakong project – developed by Soramitsu on Hyperledger Iroha – was designed to give Cambodians access to online payment management and a digital currency. It formally launched in October 2020, and has already seen over $20mm in transactions by over 50,000 users based at 21 financial institutions. This is a huge first step for a country where nearly 80% of its population is unbanked.”

What’s an entrenched problem you hope blockchain will help solve?

Archana: “My hope is that through transparency, Blockchain will build more Inclusion, create equitable opportunity and access for all in the Digital Economy.”

Maria Teresa: “The world is becoming more and more digital, but trust is increasingly being lost. For example, our personal data is shared without our own control. I think that blockchain can solve this gap in the digital world because this technology adds a trust layer to the operations.”

What advice do you have for women looking to get started in this space OR what was the best advice someone gave you?

Archana: “Pull up a chair, and join the discussion. Go to a local meet up or join open source communities such as Hyperledger to get started. We need diverse representation while building transformational technologies that will shape our future. Stay curious, and own your voice.”

Maria Teresa: “It is becoming increasingly clear that the technological world is going to be very present in our lives in the near future. Blockchain is one of the technologies that will be part of this digital world. Do not be scared if at first it seems complicated, as you learn more and more you will understand more and more things. And, if at any time you find yourself blocked, ask for help, there is a large community behind this technology willing to help and share their knowledge.”

Maryam: “I think the most important thing for women to remember (myself included) is to speak up. From our school years forward, women generally tend to be less vocal with their questions, ideas, and inputs. When I first started out working in a highly technical environment, and not being technical myself, I was a little self-conscious about asking questions out of fear of sounding dumb. But to do my job well, I needed to understand the technical features and nuances of the systems our development teams were building. The number of developers I bribed with good coffee and tasty treats for their time and insights! I learned how to pose my questions to get the answers I needed – and eventually, I got to a stage where I wasn’t just asking for help, but I was providing it as well. I could ask business-driven questions or provide a perspective that our technical team may not necessarily have.”

Help us highlight the role of women in blockchain by tagging others in the community with #HyperledgerWomen.