Solutions to blockchain challenges revealed

Business Monday 25/March/2019 16:26 PM
By: Times News Service
Solutions to blockchain challenges revealed

Muscat: PwC’s latest study outlines approaches to enable the successful transition from proof of concept to full-scale implementation of blockchain technology.
Commissioned by the Future Blockchain Summit through PwC and Smart Dubai’s Global Leaders Exchange roundtable, PwC’s latest white paper “Accelerating Blockchain — from proof of concept to implementation” summarises the main outcomes from last year’s Exchange, laying out the various challenges and practical solutions for the implementation of blockchain technology beyond proof of concept.
These challenges, according to PwC, range from technical, organisational and regulatory and are complex in nature.
Education
The need for more and better education is clear. The continued development of a community to further raise awareness and champion the benefits of blockchain is needed to achieve tangible benefits from blockchain technology use cases.
Interoperability
The different blockchain protocols and applications have created the need for interoperability: defined as communicating and exchanging information and value between blockchains. Achieving this goal requires embracing the open source movement, agreeing common standards and establishing trusted blockchains, all of which are complex problems to overcome. The 2018 PwC Global Blockchain Survey highlighted that 41 per cent of respondents cited interoperability concerns as one of their top three barriers to blockchain adoption.
Collaboration
Collaboration is arguably more important to the proliferation of blockchain technology. The true benefits of blockchain are only likely to be realised when organisations work together to a sufficient extent – trust, transparency and efficiency can only be achieved at scale and across an ecosystem. A strong, distributed governance model is critical for success, the attributes of which must include open dialogue, transparency and in some cases independent facilitation.
Role of government
Finally, the role of government cannot be underestimated. Whether as an enabler (through industry advisory bodies, accessible platforms or sandboxes) or as a regulator (by establishing policy), governments have a unique opportunity to be at the forefront of blockchain technology proliferation.
Oliver Sykes, Partner at PwC Middle East noted: "Creating a vision and strategy for the usage of blockchain technology is an important enabler for adoption. The Dubai government, and subsequently the UAE Federal government have created clear and compelling strategies for the adoption of blockchain technology."
"A clearly defined strategy, articulated in the context of a decentralised environment with multiple stakeholders and conducted with risk management principles in mind are key to the successful transition from proof of concept to full-scale implementation," he added.
. Younus Al Nasser, Assistant Director General of Smart Dubai and CEO of Smart Dubai Data, said: “Guided by the vision of our leadership, Dubai has quickly but firmly established itself as a hub for innovators and entrepreneurs in the international Blockchain industry."
"We, at Smart Dubai, believe that to build a full-fledged smart city, we must embrace disruptive technologies to create advanced, connected, and seamless services for citizens, residents, and visitors in the city; we must, therefore, establish and empower a holistic Blockchain ecosystem to serve as a catalyst for the Dubai Blockchain Strategy, and the transition to a paperless government by the year 2021,” he added.
PwC’s Oliver Sykes said: “One of the central roadblocks in preventing the universal adoption of blockchain is a widespread lack of understanding and knowledge over how it works. This “poor” level of insight – coupled with accelerating public interest – has manifested itself in such a way that business leaders are now less inclined to even ask questions about blockchain, anxious that they feel it is a technology they should already be fully up to speed with.
"The time is now to invest in education, identify opportunities for collaboration to drive progress, and engage with regulators and standard-setters to establish clarity and stability. Only then will we see more projects fully implemented with the tangible benefits that are being promised,” he added.