BLACKSBURG — In a McBryde Hall classroom, computer science professor Kirk Cameron began counting heads. It was the start of class and he wanted to see if he was missing any students.
If a dedicated small group within this 25-person class has anything to say about it, he won’t have to do that anymore.
Four juniors are working together on their class project: building a blockchain program that will monitor classroom attendance using the EOS blockchain platform from block.one.
These Virginia Tech students in Cameron’s course are capping off their Virginia Tech careers with a class in blockchain. They aim to become leaders in the technology that is part of what’s known as the blockchain initiative, headed by Cameron, a professor who is also the associate department head for research and engagement in computer science.
People are also reading…
Tech’s goal is to be a leader in blockchain with help from block.one, the billion-dollar startup with a massive Blacksburg presence.
Blockchain has gone mainstream, mostly behind the development of Bitcoin digital currency, and the school is attempting to pioneer new uses for it.
“It’s a technology that has a lot of applications beyond cryptocurrency,” Cameron said. “We’re looking for people who can push the technology.”
That search includes folks from undergraduate students to faculty. Virginia Tech has three prongs to its strategy for its blockchain initiative, Cameron said: developing coursework, doing outreach activities and hiring researchers to examine the technology.
Blockchain technology uses decentralized networks to store and process data in a way that offers unprecedented transparency and security.
Instead of central authorities controlling the financial system, cryptocurrencies log every transaction in a public ledger anyone can access. That way, there can be no disputes over who owns what, nor any policy manipulations by governments.
For university administrators, work in blockchain makes sense for a college that wants to stay on the cutting edge, said Julia Ross, Tech’s College of Engineering dean.
“It’s an example of how we update and stay current,” she said. ”Things are changing very quickly. We need students to be prepared for the types of things they’ll need to do.”
The school’s blockchain initiative has been kickstarted by a $3 million gift from block.one announced last year. The startup was founded by Virginia Tech graduate Dan Larimer, who now serves as block.one’s chief technology officer.
The company has its own cryptocurrency called EOS and has begun hiring software developers and engineers in Blacksburg — in the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center — while most of the company’s corporate leadership works in Hong Kong.
“Block.one is dedicated to creating a more prosperous society by improving the integrity of business interactions, and blockchain is the key driver of this vision,” Larimer said in a press release about the gift last year. “If we are to achieve this goal, it is important to work with a leading institution such as Virginia Tech to provide students with the tools to succeed as the technology is developed.”
In the classroom, students are putting together applications for EOS as part of their capstone class with assistance from block.one engineers who regularly work with them on campus.
Teams of students are looking at a number of applications, from an online music store controlled by artists, to secure voting to measuring classroom attendance.
Taking part in the class and studying blockchain is attractive for students, said Jiayi Wang, a junior from Vienna who is taking part in the project to measure attendance.
“You’re not just doing a project for class credit,” Wang said. “This is a project that can be a real thing that helps people.”
The university already has a number of blockchain courses, like the capstone course for computer science students.
Tech will offer a certificate in blockchain with the first courses debuting in fall 2019, Cameron said. From there, the school is exploring the creation of a minor, depending on how the technology continues to be used.
The school has already interviewed prospective faculty members and hopes to hire one or two researchers to specialize in blockchain teaching and research for the coming fall, said Cal Ribbens, the head of Tech’s Computer Science Department.
Tech, behind Cameron, is also instituting programming to get students interested in the technology. The university is sponsoring a number of prizes for student teams and individuals to build applications on EOS that offer thousands of dollars in prizes.
Last month, the school hosted a blockchain bootcamp on a Saturday. About 450 students attended the event and many more signed up but were unable to get in the door.
“There seems to be pent-up excitement about blockchain at Virginia Tech,” Cameron said.
Other universities have started to take similar looks at blockchain curriculum, Ribbens said. Virginia Tech might not be the first, but he said the goal is to make the university among the best in the emerging field.
That has everything to do with block.one’s presence in Blacksburg.
“It’s opportunistic,” Ribbens said. “It’s potentially a really important technology. Lots of schools are finding interest in lots of places [to do with blockchain]. Block.one is giving us an opportunity to go deeper.”
Ribbens said the university is considering putting together some sort of blockchain studies center or institute, but what that will look like is difficult to say.
Blockchain’s evolution at Tech is really difficult to predict, said Ross, the engineering dean. The technology is changing and people are finding new applications for it.
That’s why it’s just another important facet for the college to pay attention to in order to stay on the cutting edge, she said.
“It’s an ongoing conversation,” Ross said. “We don’t know what this might become.
“We will take it where it needs to go.”