Hyperledger Global Forum

“I was paranoid that I backed the wrong horse and I was relieved to see […] real applications going into the world.” Michael Del Castillo’s quote from his keynote panel on Blockchain in Action sums up what has gone through my head now and then during the last years.

Public presence of blockchain declined rapidly after the crypto hype. Innovations and redesigning businesses and processes just doesn’t generate as many clicks. By now, like Don Tapscott says in his speech: “Hardy anyone is talking about it [blockchain], but most people are actually doing something about it.” 

And all the participants at Hyperledger Global Forum could experience the merit of this sentence during the four days at the event. There were presentations after presentations of use cases featuring blockchain in production. Apart from the already famous TradeLens and FoodTrust, I was lucky to learn about many more cases: simplifying trading of used airplane parts (Honeywell), loyalty program (American Express), simplifying exchange of crucial information (Credit Union), reducing corruption in public procurement in Latin America or ensuring fair labor conditions in procurement of raw materials (Volvo Cars) as well as many more projects.

Exchanging experience, know-how and ideas with open-minded experts is, next to co-creating value, one of my favorite activities, and the best place for me is the Hyperledger Global Forum. And this year’s edition, once again, lived up to expectations. (Editor’s note: See Markus’ takeaways from Hyperledger Global Forum in Basel here.)

While I mostly followed the business tracks, there was also a great announcement: The Hyperledger Fabric Developer Certification! My teammates and I are looking forward to having our know-how formally confirmed.

One of the crucial and present topics was identity and while, personally, I’ve already been convinced, it was great to see that many organizations tackle this issue using the tools and frameworks from the Hyperledger family. In the workshop by Nathan George and Ken Ebert (both from Sovrin), I learned how much progress has been achieved in terms of ease of use in self-soverin identity and verifiable credentials, and so I hope to see widespread adoption soon. Being Swiss, distributed and self-sovereignty are deeply rooted in my values, so this is the technical implementation of some of my core values.

“All are welcome here.” In my opinion, the Hyperledger community remains the most open, down-to-earth and inclusive community I know. While this can be felt by anyone attending Hyperledger events or joining any of the working groups, the inclusivity was on display to all the attendees. The focus was consistent through the event, starting with the insightful diversity happy hour on the first day up to the workshop by Accenture’s Alissa Worley and Tracy Kuhrt, where I learned about my unconscious biases and how to deal with them.

The Hyperledger Forum was once again the best blockchain conference I’ve attended, and I look very much forward to the next conference.

I’ll close with the words that inspired me most during the four days of the Forum: Brian Behlendorf quoting Tim O’Reilly: ”Create More Value Than You Capture”

Oliver Johnston-Watt caught up with Don Tapscott, Blockchain Revolution author and Blockchain Research Institute co-founder, ahead of Hyperledger Global Forum, where Don will present a keynote talk. Read on to learn more about Don’s extensive history chronicling digital technology and some of the views he will bring to the stage in Phoenix:  

Oliver Johnston-Watt (OJW): Thanks for agreeing to be interviewed in advance of your keynote at the Hyperledger Global Forum. While most of us know you as the author of the Blockchain Revolution (2016), perhaps you could introduce yourself and talk a little more about the Blockchain Research Institute? 

Don Tapscott (DT): Blockchain Revolution is my sixteenth book, and the first I’ve written with my son, Alex Tapscott. All of my work, from Paradigm Shift to Wikinomics and Macrowikinomics, explores the intersection of digital technology with business and society. 

The Blockchain Research Institute (BRI) was established in 2017, a year after Blockchain Revolution was released, to provide a research foundation for enterprise and government leaders to begin exploring blockchain. We gathered a network of the world’s leading experts in a variety of fields to help create over 300 research deliverables, focused on blockchain’s applications in over a dozen different sectors.

We’ve continued expanding our offerings, though – we have released a MOOC in partnership with INSEAD and Coursera, we have put together the world’s largest enterprise-focused blockchain conference, and we are releasing a series of four books this year, the first of which is out now!

OJW: You have been travelling around the world giving keynotes about blockchain. I personally saw you speak in January at the Geneva Blockchain Congress before you travelled to Davos for the World Economic Forum (WEF). Overall, do you think the market is becoming more receptive to blockchain? 

DT: I would call it “uneven and combined development.” In some sectors blockchain/DLT adoption has been rapid, but it’s been downright glacial elsewhere. On the whole, however, the enterprise community is considerably more literate than it was when Blockchain Revolution was first published back in 2016. 

From time to time, I still hear the sentiment that blockchain development has “stalled.” That particular view is deeply misinformed – we have seen a significant growth in production blockchain solutions in the past year.  The previous Internet (of Information) was targeted at the information and media industries. The disruptions were deep and spilled into other industries like retail, but relative to the Internet of Value (blockchain) they are small. 

Why so? Because blockchain targets elements of our economy and society that are more profound than information – assets – everything from money, securities, intellectual property, the data in our identities, deeds, contracts, to cultural assets and even votes.  It challenges the way that we treat valuable information and data assets that are owned too. 

OJW: You wrote for the WEF that bad PR, regulation and technological immaturity are the main obstacles to blockchain adoption. While regulation affects enterprise adoption of blockchain less than, say, cryptocurrencies, what role do software foundations, like Hyperledger, have in solving these issues? 

DT: The Hyperledger community is a core part of the ecosystem governing this historic innovation.  The organizations tackling such stewardship operate on three levels: platforms, application ecosystems, and at the broader cross-industry, societal level. Organizations like Hyperledger govern at the platform level but have proven extremely effective in promoting interoperability too, not just within their own ecosystem of DLTs but more broadly. Meanwhile, organizations like the Chamber of Digital Commerce (CDC) or the BRI provide advocacy and guidance to enable broader institutional changes. 

All of them are crucial, as I see it, in facilitating widespread adoption.

OJW: In your 2012 TED talk, you argued that the four principles of an open world are open collaboration, transparency, sharing, and empowerment through decentralisation. These principles are closely aligned with those of the open source community. Do you think that open source will prevail in the development of lasting blockchain technologies? 

DT: I think that open source is fundamental to the long-term development of this technology. Of course, above the very basic protocols and platforms there will be no shortage of proprietary applications, and that’s to be expected. Fundamentally, though, the success of a blockchain project depends on building and engaging an ecosystem of developers, which lends itself well to open source.  

OJW: Some may remember that, in the early days of the personal computer market, there were many competing offerings. Of course, very few market players survived in the long run – basically Apple and the IBM PC. Do you see a similar situation occurring with blockchain? With many different open source protocols available, will ultimately only a few survive?

DT: The specific offering changes the amount of diversity a market might accommodate, of course. If we’re talking about personal computing, it makes a big difference whether we’re discussing hardware, operating systems, or applications, for example. There’s no question we’ll see greater consolidation of blockchain platforms, but we’ll also see improved platform interoperability. Hyperledger Besu is a good example of the latter.

OJW: Whatever the outcome of the “ledger wars,” would you agree that it makes sense for enterprises to focus on smart contracts? Solidity has been around for a while, but there are now emerging open source smart contract languages such as Accord and DAML (from Digital Asset). Do you think smart contracts will follow a similar evolution to previous business model processing languages, that resulted in BPML (Business Process Modelling Language)?

DT: The areas of innovation that enterprises will, of course, change by industry, but on the whole I do think smart contracts probably have the most immediate impact on the largest number of businesses. This is especially true if your business is approaching blockchain solely as a means of reducing the manual processes involved in conducting business logic, but I think there are more fundamental transformations to work on as well. 

OJW: What role do you think organisations like the BRI and the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) should play in developing the standards required to accelerate blockchain adoption?

DT: The BRI exists to fill the knowledge gap in blockchain and help large enterprise leaders navigate this coming revolution. I have limited knowledge about the GBBC’s work, but I know they play an important role as industry advocates and they do helpful educational work such as the platform they offered this year at Davos. Both organizations, alongside the CDC, are focused on the highest level of stewardship that I mentioned previously – broad, institutional changes to facilitate further adoption. 

The BRI has been supporting various organizations’ efforts to build standards, specifically at the platform level. My most recent research, in fact, specifically explores the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance’s Token Taxonomy Framework – which is part of a truly breakthrough initiative. 

OJW: How can we work to develop standards particularly in the regulated financial services sector? An interesting example is the partnership between Digital Asset and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) to develop a Common Domain Model (CDM)?

DT: The goal should be not just to develop those standards, but to develop the tools necessary to help innovators and companies abide by those standards. Digital Asset’s CDM reference code library is a good example of that. We should also work to provide greater certainty that solutions or products being developed indeed abide by those common standards – certification systems built into testnets, for example. 

If we don’t focus on accessibility, clarity, and certainty, then it will be far more difficult for smaller companies and innovators to abide by those standards.

OJW: Finally, we keep hearing that this is the year that blockchain becomes mainstream, how close or, for that matter, how far are we from achieving this and what could derail this ambition?

DT: There will never be a distinct moment when we realize we’ve “arrived,” and there are already many applications that have reached a level of production that could be considered “mainstream.” In general, though, it will take time to embed this technology into every facet of business and daily life because it challenges very fundamental aspects of how firms and broader industries operate.

Blockchain often forces us to reimagine the role of some very powerful and deeply integrated institutions, which are – by design – not easy to change. It will take time to get there, but compared to where we were even a few years ago, the pace of change is astounding. It’s clear now that to sit this out is to resign yourself to obscurity, and smart enterprises working hard to bring about change. 

Don Tapscott’s keynote, “The Blockchain Revolution – State of the Union,” will be on March 4, 2020, at Hyperledger Global Forum. To register, go here.

Don Tapscott is a world leading authority on the impact of technology on business and society. He authored 16 books, the most recent being the best-selling Blockchain Revolution which he co-authored with his son, Alex Tapscott, who he also co-founded the Blockchain Research Institute with in 2017. Don received an Order of Canada for his leadership in the field of business and innovation, he is a current Adjunct Professor at INSEAD and former Chancellor of Trent University, Ontario. 

Oliver Johnston-Watt is Marketing Director of Blockchain Technology Partners (BTP), a leading enterprise blockchain company.  BTP brings the benefits of smart contracts and blockchain to business by providing Sextant – a management platform that radically simplifies the deployment and ongoing management of distributed applications. Oliver is based in London and is a graduate of the University of Oxford.

The upcoming Hyperledger Global Forum, March 2-6, in my hometown of Phoenix, Arizona, provides us with an opportunity to come together face-to-face and learn what is happening in the Hyperledger community. 

With the chance to collaborate in person, we can align on how we think about fundamental questions, such as:

• How do we meet the growing need for interoperability?
• What can we do to achieve an inclusive community?
• How can we build the blockchain ecosystem?

While at Hyperledger Global Forum, here are some sessions that will help us answer the questions above.

The growing need for interoperability

Before joining Accenture this time last year, I spent two years with the Linux Foundation as a community architect for Hyperledger. With 15 different projects in the greenhouse, maintainers share a baseline understanding of each other’s work, but community collaboration tends to stay within project silos.

The thing is, multiparty systems like blockchains are a team effort. They rely on an ecosystem of people working together. To reach the technology’s full potential, we need interoperability between every person, every platform, and every project.

As a result, the dialogue in the community is shifting from “Which chain will rule them all?” to “How do I get my chain to work with yours?” The answer hinges on ecosystem collaboration. 

On Wednesday, Accenture’s Giuseppe Giordano and Peter Somogyvari’s session, “Connecting Ecosystems: Blockchain Interoperability,” will give an update on our development work and unique approach to interoperability for permissioned blockchain networks with Blockchain Integration Framework, recently open sourced to Hyperledger Labs.

Inclusive collaboration by design

If you ever attended a Hyperledger event or meeting, you have likely heard the phrase “All Are Welcome Here.” Ensuring we fulfill this commitment is table stakes, for our global community, for our code, and for the future adoption of these cutting-edge technologies. There are a number of sessions related to this important topic that will benefit each of us.

To kick off the event on Monday evening, March 2 at 6pm, Accenture is sponsoring a diversity happy hour. We will be thinking through actions we can all take to make our community more diverse and inclusive in 2020.

On Thursday, Hyperledger Marketing Committee co-chair and Accenture’s Alissa Worley and I will host a workshop on unconscious bias. With the help of VR, this immersive experience will help participants understand what unconscious bias is and how to mitigate it.

I am honored to serve alongside IBM’s Swetha Repakula as the first women on the Hyperledger Technical Steering Committee. Swetha and I will lead a session on Wednesday about how we create an inclusive Hyperledger community. We will share a number of tips about making people feel welcome and being open to contributions. These ideas apply beyond Hyperledger tools to any open source project. 

Building the ecosystem

Building the ecosystem starts before the technology choices are made. We need to make sure that we define the right governance models with our clients, our partners, and our regulators. There are a number of talks that will shed some light on how to lay a successful foundation, ranging from making the case for blockchain initiatives to governing DLT networks. 

If you are like me, you may have got into the blockchain space because of the technology’s potential for positive impact. I will be curious to hear Sheila Warren’s keynote to learn how WEF is using blockchain to change the world. 

Looking ahead

At Accenture, we see blockchain technology flourishing in three main areas: financial services, supply chain and identity.

From hosting the Hyperledger Maintainers’ Summit, contributing code, and supporting Hyperledger Global Forum as a diamond sponsor, it is great to see Accenture further our commitment to the blockchain open source ecosystem. 

I am looking forward to seeing you in March, as we learn from one another and grow the Hyperledger community. Lastly, while you are in Phoenix, you cannot miss having a bite and a beverage at Four Peaks Brewery, taking a hike at Camelback Mountain, or visiting the Heard Museum Indian Fair and Market.

• Discover and bookmark all of Accenture’s sessions at Hyperledger Global Forum by searching “Accenture,” in the program agenda.
• Visit us in the Accenture booth in the Technology Showcase. 
• Learn more about Accenture’s work at Accenture.com/blockchain

It’s 2020 and blockchain is well and truly in production. If you have any doubt, take a look at the schedule for the Hyperledger Global Forum 2020.

Whether you are a seasoned developer, business executive or relatively new to the world of enterprise blockchain, you will be well catered for in Phoenix, Arizona, from March 3-6. The conference features an exceptional range of keynotes, case studies and workshops. 

Here are a few key themes that the Hyperledger Global Forum schedule reveals about the state of blockchain in this new and exciting decade…

Self-sovereign identity (SSI) is here to stay

Self-sovereign identity technology removes the tireless friction of maintaining multiple digital identities and empowers users to control the data they share across platforms. Hyperledger Indy, Aries and Ursa provide enterprises with the tools and libraries required to create meaningful business and humanitarian solutions using this powerful technology. 

At the Hyperledger Global Forum you will learn how SSI is 

1. Reducing the cost of KYC compliance across a consortium of banks across South Africa.
2. Enabling the Province of British Columbia, Canada, to ascertain the provenance of Greenhouse Gas emitting energy resources in their efforts to modernise their energy grid and support their decarbonisation efforts.
3. Enabling non-profit Kiva and the Central Bank of Cambodia to issue digital identifications to unbanked populations, creating better opportunities for credit for traditionally underserved communities as well as helping developing economies grow and better align with the larger global economy.

Innovators are realising the value of blockchain in supply chain 

Blockchain or distributed ledger technology is arguably best described as a database architecture that enables trust between multiple parties. Verifying provenance within a supply chain is therefore one of blockchain’s most natural applications.

A wide range of Hyperledger technologies – notably Hyperledger Sawtooth – is being implemented to harden global supply chains and develop new relationships between customers, suppliers and vendors.

Learn how…

1. Unilever is leveraging Hyperledger Sawtooth to trace the provenance of pork meat so that millions of customers can scan their food packaging using a mobile app to learn the end-to-end provenance of their meat from farm to vendor.
2. Quantum Materials Corp uses Hyperledger Sawtooth and DAML smart contracts  to bring their nanoscale quantum dot technology to market to ensure absolute product identification within critical and high value supply chains.
3. Volvo is tracking the provenance of cobalt to develop a more environmentally responsible and efficient supply chain for the manufacturing of their EV batteries

Blockchain interoperability, both public and private, is evolving…

Open source technology is essential to ease systems integration and drive digital transformation. The interoperability of blockchain technologies is an important challenge that needs to be solved to unlock its full potential. 

Hyperledger technologies are principally permissioned, or private, blockchain technologies. The permissioned space has often been characterised as distinct from, and even adversarial to, public blockchain networks, such as Ethereum. 

A much anticipated panel discussion featuring representatives of ConsenSys, Microsoft and IBM will discuss how both Hyperledger and Ethereum can collaborate to achieve their common goal – the global adoption of blockchain.

Summary

This is just a sample of the sessions on offer at Hyperledger Global Forum 2020. In addition to compelling keynotes, there will be more than 50 sessions covering business and technical topics as well as case studies and demos during the first two days of the event. These are followed by two days of workshops where you can deep dive on topics of specific interest, for example, Accenture and the World Economic Forum are jointly leading a half day session aimed at business leaders to help them understand how to properly evaluate blockchain use cases for their organizations.

For more information or to register, visit the Hyperledger Global Forum 2020 website.

We are a community working together to build tech that will ultimately impact industries all around the world. Of course, we all have our own individual motivations, many of them commercial and many of them underpinned by specific technologies incubated by Hyperledger. Fundamentally, however, we are all sold on the value of blockchain technologies. 

At the Hyperledger Global Forum in 2018 in Basel, Switzerland, the community was still responding to the conflation between blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. In July, the Member Summit in Tokyo showed that the market has come a long way. As Gartner describes it, the hype has dwindled and we are now in the ‘trough of disillusionment’ – terms that may sound discouraging but actually signify the period when meaningful technological adoption begins. 

Across Hyperledger, blockchain projects are increasingly moving into production and generating genuine business value, from the recent announcement of Salesforce’s low code blockchain platform to Walmart’s leveraging of blockchain to build a food traceability system. 

At this stage, it is an excellent time to engage with the community and showcase the progress we are making. While many of you are seasoned road warriors with your feet barely on the ground before being whisked off to the next conference, I want to explain the value of attending the Hyperledger Global Forum in Arizona 2020.

1) The conference really embodies the spirit of open source. Hyperledger Global Forum genuinely encourages open discussion and conference attendees, whether members or not, have the opportunity to talk with the Hyperledger Technical Steering Committee. It is an opportunity to ask questions and meet the engineers you may collaborate with daily, whether you work for a corporate giant or a start up.

2) You always come away with a new perspective and a new market to explore. With over one thousand attendees from all over the world, Hyperledger Global Forum really is that – global. We came back from Basel with new leads from markets as far flung as Russia, Singapore and Israel – connections that, as a start up, have shaped our direction

3) Hyperledger Global Forum generates real outcomes. Conferences are not an insignificant investment, particularly for a start up. However, the relevance of the tracks and the relationships we developed meant attendance was absolutely worthwhile. Whether this be a collaborative effort with other contributors to solve a common problem within a project or an introduction to a company whose problem we are trying to solve, Hyperledger Global Forum always generates actions.

Many in the community are equally as enthused about Hyperledger Global Forum 2020 and the value this extended, global conversation about all things Hyperledger:  

“The Hyperledger Global Forum is a great event for professionals working in the business of blockchain to participate in. I was proud to represent SecureKey at the event last year and to stand alongside some of the most notable technology professionals. We look forward to our continued work with Hyperledger and highly recommend like-minded organizations take part in this excellent event.”  Dmitry Barinov, CTO – SecureKey Technologies

“The Hyperledger Global Forum attracted leaders from around the globe last year and allowed us to have a number of face-to-face meetings with clients, colleagues and, for me, as the co-founder of the Social Impact Special Interest Group, an in-person meeting with group members from Mexico to Timor-Leste. The global make-up of the conference is just one more reason why Accenture will be the diamond sponsor again this year.” Alissa Worley, Global Marketing Director – Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies at Accenture

“The conference really embodies the spirit of open source. Hyperledger Global Forum genuinely encourages open discussion and conference attendees, whether members or not, have the opportunity to talk with the Hyperledger Technical Steering Committee. It is an opportunity to ask questions and meet the engineers you may collaborate with daily, whether you work for a corporate giant or a start up.” Dan O’Prey, CMO – Digital Asset

Winter is coming, but we can’t feel the chill. Hyperledger Global Forum 2020 is keeping us busy and excited. Arizona’s calling, as is Camelback Mountain for those of us who hike. But enough about location, let’s talk about the content!

In a recent post, we shared the process of selecting the talks. Now it is time to tell you about the content. To keep it simple, we didn’t create multiple tracks. The job was to select 21 technical talks, 21 business talks, 18 product demos, and 8 workshops. Only 23% acceptance rate! That is harsh. On the other hand, we were very excited to  see proposals from more than 40 different companies as well as a good representation of universities, governments and non-profit organizations. 

The Program Committee, led by Tracy Kuhrt from Accenture and Hart Montgomery from Fujitsu, did the hard work and made the hard calls. They spent considerable time discussing the submissions and choosing the talks that were not only ranked highest but also came from new or under-represented voices in our community. The discussions were quite intense: many people were passionate about a different area.

Most of our Program Committee members are experienced reviewers for other industry and academic conferences. To make sure that we were all on the same page, guidelines on general CFP scoring guidelines and best practices were published as part of the CFP progress and the program committee developed the criteria we talked about in the previous post.

To make our program clear and easy to follow we created five tracks: Keynotes, Technical, Business, Demos and Workshops. We wanted to balance it out so that attendees wouldn’t have to choose between talks on going at the same time. 

Of course, no agenda is finalized without keynotes and so we are really excited to share with you the confirmed ones. We will hear from Sheila Warren, head of Blockchain and Distributed Ledger at World Economic Forum; “Blockchain Revolution” co-author Don Tapscot and our Governing Board chair, Robert Palatnick. 

In addition to these keynotes, we have a great line-up of talks. In the technical track, Alfonso De la Rocha Gómez-Arevalillo from Telefonica will talk about “Going into Production! Performance Best Practices in Hyperledger Fabric,” Swetha Repakula from IBM and Tracy Kuhrt from Accenture will tell us about building diverse ecosystems in their presentation “All Are Welcome Here: Creating an Inclusive Hyperledger Community” and Nathan George, representing Sovrin Foundation, will present on “Standards and Interoperability for Identity.”

In the business track, there will be quite a few case studies including ones by Julie Esser from CULedger and Ron Amstutz from Desert Financial Credit Union, Alan Krassowski from Kiva and John Jordan representing Government of British Columbia. We wanted to talk about collaboration, so you will find many talks on Hyperledger Besu and connections with the Ethereum community, including a panel “Competition, Collaboration, and Connection: How Hyperledger & Ethereum Communities Thrive.”

Did we succeed? Probably not – we can always do better! That’s why we are sharing the agenda with you so early. If you think we missed something or feel like it is not balanced enough, drop us a line at hgf@hyperledger.org. See you in Arizona!