The University of Dubai (UD) hosted the IEEE UAE Blockchain Group Kick-off Symposium which was organized by the IEEE UAE Blockchain Group. As co-chairs of the symposium, UD President Dr. Eesa Al Bastaki and Chairman of IEEE UAE Blockchain Group Dr. Saeed Al Dhaheri invited the UAE-based emerging Blockchain community to join this event and share their experiences with Blockchain technologies.

In order to foster best practices and user guidelines to deploy Blockchain for the benefit of the UAE, a number of top international and local experts and stakeholders from industry, government, academic and research have been invited, namely IEEE UAE Section Chair Dr. Fatima Taher, Secan-Lab at University of Luxembourg Prof. Latif Ladid, Founder of Bitcoin Satoshi’s Vision (BSV) and Blockchain Dr. Craig Wright and many others.

As an honorary chair of the symposium, Dr. Al Bastaki welcomed the audience to the University’s sustainable and green campus located in the Academic City. “Blockchain technologies mark the beginning of the fifth industrial revolution, of which artificial intelligence and robotics will be one of its pillars,” he said. 

He pointed out that these technologies represent a record of transactions and fully secure cryptocurrencies. In the near future, this technology will contribute to the transformation of the economic industry over the internet and “we must be prepared for that,” he said. In his speech, he also reviewed the history and development of communications and relevant evolving technologies and tackled future trends. He also covered the transformation phase from the invention of the telephone to the digital age of  robotics and artificial intelligence.

 He added that the University of Dubai implemented this technology through Smart World, a digital platform that verifies and issues academic certificates using blockchain in a completely secure manner. “Moreover, the University signed agreements with Saudi training providers, the Middle East Logistics Institute, to provide professional certificates in Blockchain technologies, digital marketing and e-commerce,” he concluded.

The UAE is a regional hub

Dr. Saeed Al Dhaheri, Director of the Center for Future Studies at the University of Dubai and Co-Chair of the organizing committee stated that this symposium, organized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in the UAE Blockchain Group aims to enhance the UAE’s orientation to be a regional and international center for Blockchain and its applications. “The UAE government has made great strides in adopting Blockchain applications in various sectors such as health, transportation, energy and education.” he added.

He spoke about how Dubai has become a global center for conferences specialized in this field and a center for startups in Blockchain technologies. This conference brought together a large number of specialists from the academic, governmental and industrial sectors to discuss the challenges facing this technology and ways to address them. It also reviewed some cases of the distinguished usage of this technology in the UAE, especially in the education and government sectors.

Dr. Fatima Taher, a professor at Zayed University and IEEE UAE Section Chair, said that the IEEE community aims to keep pace with progress in electrical and communications engineering as well as modern technology. “This symposium comes in this context,” she said after reviewing the uses of Blockchain and new trends in the fields of information security, network security, the sixth Internet protocol and the applications of these technologies in the fifth generation network.

Dr. Wright delivered a keynote speech in which he pointed out the major commonalities between Blockchain technology and the Internet protocol. He defined both as fixed protocols that enable scalable solutions. He also highlighted the impact of IPv6 and Blockchain technologies. He informed the audience about Bitcoin and defined it as “an end-to-end communication platform.” He added that the Blockchain and the Internet protocol have a major commonality. Both are fixed protocols that do not change. By setting the protocol, the creation of scalable solutions will be able to be created using Bitcoin (BSV) in a manner that is analogous to how TCP has formed the underlying protocol across the Internet. By creating a stable system, companies and groups will be able to build stable protocols on top of bitcoin. “This will allow them to create long-term projects that they know will not only work when they complete them but for years into the future,” he concluded.

Patrons and sponsors of the symposium included a list of local and world-class communities, institutes and organizations including the European Commision, IEEE Blockchain, BSV Blockchain and many others. Jimmy Nguyen, Founding President of the BSV Blockchain Association, a Co-sponsor of the event, said: “We are honored to partner with the IEEE UAE Blockchain Group for this first blockchain symposium in Dubai.”

He added that the UAE is one of the world’s leading countries for Blockchain technology, and can benefit from the combined thought leadership of IEEE experts and BSV Blockchain ecosystem to promote technical standards that can accelerate Blockchain adoption. The Fourth Industrial Revolution will be driven by data of increasing volumes and micropayments to monetize data. A massively scaled Blockchain such as BSV – as well as sensible technical standards – are needed to serve consumers, enterprise, and government as the demands of big data, IoT, artificial intelligence and smart cities are growing exponentially. We are very excited about working with the IEEE UAE Blockchain Group on this event, and expect it will be the first of many collaborative efforts with IEEE groups to educate countries around the world about Blockchain technology,” He added.