HOME TECH RESEARCH OTTO PHILIPP BRAUN SUPPORTS BLOCKCHAIN RESEARCH AT THE UNIVERSITY KASSEL
More and more universities in Germany, including the University of Kassel, are taking up research into blockchain technology. An interdisciplinary working group is investigating questions of stability, acceptance and the need for regulation of blockchain applications. This working group can now look forward to a donation of 750,000 euros from the entrepreneur Otto Philipp Braun.
It is very important for the research group to investigate the full potential of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), i.e. to go far beyond the possibilities of the Bitcoin blockchain and payment processing.
In particular, Smart Contracts are considered to have great potential, whether in e-governance or the news spy
Prof. Dr. Dr. Walter Blocher, Head of the Department of Civil Law, Corporate Law and Information Law at the University of Kassel, for example, predicts that this will be the news spy: „DLT is bringing about profound changes in the way we use the Internet and how we do business. It will have at least as lasting an impact on many areas of society as it did on the commercialisation of the Internet in the 1990s. The ‚Internet of Information‘ will now be joined by the ‚Internet of Values‘.“
In the spring of 2016, a DLT research group was founded in which more than 20 disciplines are represented, including computer scientists, business computer scientists, economists, business economists, lawyers and – last but not least – musicologists (who research the effects of blockchains on the music industry, among other things). In the meantime, it has identified several dozen research topics related to DLT, which will initially be dealt with in four clusters, but will subsequently be researched in multidisciplinary collaborative projects.
Otto Philipp Braun, who recently founded Metamorphoses Braun GmbH based in Munich, is a practical companion. The company’s objects include smart contracts, blockchain and distributed ledger technology, the mining of crypto currencies as well as the development and marketing of Internet- and blockchain-based technology solutions and corresponding apps. Metamorphoses Braun GmbH, whose founders expect DLT to improve the exchange of information and values between people as well as to be more citizen-oriented and transparent in decision-making processes, intends to cooperate closely with the DLT research group of the University of Kassel in the future.
The company is now funding their basic research with 750,000 euros for the investigation of three major topics
Changes in market structures and processes through the use of blockchains / smart contracts – C2B instead of B2C (under the direction of Prof. Dr. Dr. Walter Blocher, Prof. Dr. Andreas Mann and Prof. Dr. Georg von Wangenheim);
Trusted Blockchain: Secure Blockchain Technology through Third-Party Certification (led by Prof. Dr. Ali Sunyaev and Prof. Dr. Andreas Mann);
Crypto-Assets – blockchaing-based assignment of rights to persons (under the direction of Prof. Dr. Dr. Walter Blocher and Prof. Dr. Georg von Wangenheim).
A part of the funds, which is dedicated to the financing of events, conference trips etc., is linked to the course development of Bitcoin and Ether, so to speak to the success as well as the importance of the two outstanding blockchains. According to Prof. Blocher, this also opens up new avenues in the financing of university research projects.
The University of Kassel confirms the impression that blockchain technology is increasingly finding its way into German universities. Just this week, we reported on a Blockchain conference at the University of Münster. The Mittweida University of Applied Sciences was also particularly active in blockchain research and was able to attract attention with its blockchain idea competition in September.