Working in Blockchain? The Sutardja Center is seeking Project Funding Nominations & Blockchain Lab Research Director

 

January 31, 2018

 

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Welcome to the formal kickoff of 2018 activities by the Blockchain Lab at UC Berkeley Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology.  

The Sutardja Center has initiated the Center’s first course on Blockchain, led by Dr. Po Chi Wu (see Challenge Lab – INDENG 185 01 for more details) and is working with the leading student group in this space, Blockchain at Berkeley, to advance the industry and research domains.

To further efforts in this fundamental technology and through generous donations from our Blockchain Lab Sponsors – EchoLink and NEO – the Sutardja Center is issuing a general call for project funding nominations in the blockchain space and will be supporting efforts with unrestricted funding awards, as well as posting a Research Director.

Select projects will be awarded funding at the following levels –

  • Up to $25,000 to a Berkeley faculty member
  • Up to $5,000 each to student-led teams and possible units through independent study

If you would like your project to be considered for funding and/or awarding of units, please apply by filling out this brief form.  The criteria for project funding will be research or projects that directly impact and aid in the resolution of obstacles to mass adoption of blockchain or blockchain policy and regulatory issues.

If you are currently a Berkeley researcher and/or faculty member and interested in supporting this emerging area with your technical leadership, please consider nominating yourself (or another qualified candidate at Berkeley) as the lab’s Research Director by emailing your resume/CV or contact information to Jocelyn Weber at jweberphipps@berkeley.edu.

Background:  Blockchain is among the most exciting recent developments in computer science.  While it has served the basis of the Bitcoin currency, it has significantly more potential because of its highly secure distributed database . Blockchain has the potential to offer trust, security, and smart contracts to a new generation of internet applications.

However, in its current state, there are still technical and policy challenges yet to be resolved before its full potential can be realized.  The Blockchain Lab at SCET is working to establish new emerging sectors through applied research into the following problems and projects:

  • Creation of truly mobile blockchain applications
  • Scalability of the blockchain itself in terms of both number of nodes and transaction speed
  • Ability for broader smart contract creation and execution
  • Policy and regulatory issues in blockchain
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