Blockchain technology holds immense promise for a variety of industries, beyond just Bitcoin, including:
Financial services and banking
Real estate
Supply chain management
Healthcare
Academia… and many more
From smart contracts to blockchain-encrypted academic credentials, the use cases are vast and far-reaching. Are you prepared?
To make sense of this revolution, you need to understand what a blockchain is and what it is capable of doing. Start your learning with this special 3 hour event from IEEE: Introduction to Blockchain Technology, led by Morgen Peck, contributing editor of the IEEE Spectrum Magazine special report on blockchain technology.
Over the course of 3 days, Morgen will help you make sense of this technology, and begin to discover applications that make sense for your industry. Your registration includes all three sessions. If you successfully complete the assessment at the end of the virtual event, you will recieve a virtual certificate with IEEE continuing educations units (CEUs) and professional development hours (PDHs) and ISACA continuing professional education credits (CPEs). Register today! Not able to attend in real time? All content will be available on-demand for 30 days.
Our Speaker:
Morgen Peck
Contributing Editor, IEEE Spectrum Magazine special report on blockchain technology
Morgen Peck has been writing about Bitcoin and blockchain technologies as a freelance journalist since 2011. Her first feature article about Bitcoin “The Cryptoanarchists Answer to Cash” appeared in IEEE Spectrum Magazine and was one of the first pieces in the mainstream press to explain how the technology works and to provide cultural and historical context for the project. While reporting stories for IEEE Spectrum, Wired, Scientific American, American Banker, and other outlets Morgen has witnessed some of the more consequential moments in the history of cryptocurrency evolution. She attended the first Bitcoin conference in New York in 2012. She was a resident in the Air BnB where the founders of Ethereum met in person for the first time during a 2014 conference in Miami. She has toured multiple cryptocurrency mining facilities, both large and small, in mainland China. In November 2016, she acted as an independent observer of the key generation ceremony that marked the birth of the Zcash blockchain, an experience that was the basis for a recent full episode of the NPR show, Radiolab. In 2017, Morgen served as contributing editor on a special print issue about blockchain technology for IEEE Spectrum. She is also a frequent guest on the weekly Science Radio show, Science Friday.
Session 1: Understanding Blockchain Technology: The Bitcoin Case Study
Date: March 20, 2018
Time: 12:00pm EDT
Blockchain is now a buzzword in meeting rooms across the technology industry. As the range of potential applications for this revolutionary invention has broadened, so too has the very definition of the technology. What do we mean when we say “blockchain” today? What will we mean when we say it tomorrow? In this virtual event Morgen Peck travels back to 2009 when Bitcoin, the first blockchain-based technology made its debut. After reminding viewers of the cultural and technological context for this technological breakthrough, Peck rebuilds the system from scratch, providing a step-by-step guide to the fundamental components in a blockchain, ending with a look at how these features interact to balance the economic incentives of network participants.
Session 2: Beyond Bitcoin: Abstracting the Blockchain
Date: March 21, 2018
Time: 12:00pm EDT
Bitcoin is one of thousands of cryptocurrencies and blockchain-inspired technologies, some of which are in no way intended to be used as money. It can now safely be said that currency was the first of many blockchain applications. Most of these applications will evolve on platforms with more general-purpose designs than Bitcoin. In this virtual event Morgen Peck will abstract the functions of a blockchain, looking at how it serves as a method for decentralizing computation and data storage. She will then explain how innovators in the space are leveraging these features to turn blockchains, such as Ethereum, into platforms for the execution of smart contracts. This virtual event will also examine new funding schemes, known as Initial Coin Offerings, that blockchain startups are using to raise money.
Session 3: The Limits of Blockchain Technology: The Costs and Benefits of Decentralization
Date: March 22, 2018
Time: 12:00pm EDT
Blockchain technology enables participants in a network to collaborate regardless of whether they know each other or trust each other. However, this decentralization of trust comes with great costs. Today, blockchains have high latencies, low throughput, and minimal storage. Furthermore, the security of these systems, determined as they are by economic incentives, requires large investments by the people who run them. In this virtual event we will look at the costs of running a blockchain and how their performance compares to other technologies. We will then look at avenues for improving the technologies and point to some of the many improvements we are likely to see in the near future.