{"id":6741,"date":"2020-05-04T07:50:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T07:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.experfy.com\/?p=6741"},"modified":"2023-12-12T11:39:50","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T11:39:50","slug":"education-in-blockchain-and-dlt-how-to-acquire-the-necessary-knowledge-with-a-workload-of-10-working-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/fintech\/education-in-blockchain-and-dlt-how-to-acquire-the-necessary-knowledge-with-a-workload-of-10-working-days\/","title":{"rendered":"Education in Blockchain and DLT: How to Acquire the Necessary Knowledge with a Workload of 10 Working Days"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Working at a university, dozens of people ask us: \u201cHow can I get in blockchain? What do I have to read?\u201d Therefore, we now took the time and developed a 10-day program to onboard people interested in blockchain and DLT. The adoption of blockchain technology gets more and more widespread. Therefore, it is essential \u2014 also for employees working with topics such as digital transformation \u2014 to have a basic understanding of blockchain technology. This article summarizes main sources which can be used to acquire initial blockchain knowledge. We recommend podcasts, books, networking events, papers, study programs, workshops, online courses and online articles. We \u201cdesign\u201d a 10-day program, which makes it possible to acquire the necessary blockchain basics just within a few days in a \u201clearning and doing\u201d mode. Please note that as lecturers of an university we are biased and therefore also present sources of ourselves. \u2014\u00a0<\/strong>Authors: Philipp Sandner, Jonas Gro\u00df<\/em><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Introduction<\/h1>\n<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Blockchain technology approaches reality and more and more companies plan and implement first blockchain projects.\u00a0In June 2019, Facebook has announced its crypto currency project<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 one of the most promising announcements so far. Other companies are also very active (e.g. B\u00f6rse Stuttgart, Commerzbank, Bosch, Daimler and hundreds of startups) and even Germany as a country now has a\u00a0national blockchain strategy<\/a>.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Therefore,\u00a0it is important to have a basic understanding with respect to blockchain. Blockchain will be a core technology for the next decades and will disrupt everything related to finance \u2014 and much more.<\/strong>\u00a0At this point in time, crypto currencies are live and have market capitalizations of dozens of billions of US dollars \u2014 currently led by Bitcoin. Soon,\u00a0traditional currencies such as the Euro or the US dollar will also run on blockchain-based systems<\/a>\u00a0as well as all kinds of securities such as debt instruments, stocks, funds etc. All these assets, especially the Euro and US dollar on blockchain systems, will be used by various industries in the context of financial activities. However, there exists also a variety of non-finance use cases of blockchain technology: identity management, voting systems, tracking goods along the supply chain, provenance of goods etc. As said, it is a very powerful technology with a broad field applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who decide to engage with the topic of blockchain now, in autumn 2019, will be pretty busy for the next 10 to 20 years. These people will design the digital transformation of the economy instead of having to observe how their own workplace is being transformed or vanishes at all. Simply put, they have the chance for a promising career.<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Figure 1: How to acquire blockchain knowledge with a workload of 10 days?<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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How to gain knowledge?<\/h1>\n<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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If you intend to acquire blockchain knowledge, you have various different options (see Figure 1): listening to podcasts, reading books, papers or online articles, networking and attending blockchain-related study programs or online courses.\u00a0Some of these options are \u201clow-hanging fruits\u201d such as podcasts, others require a higher amount of commitment such as studying white papers or participating in a programming or smart contract coding course.\u00a0<\/strong>Learning about blockchain and DLT is more than YouTube video and podcasts. Therefore the latter tasks are also inevitably necessary if you take it seriously.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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What is the level of understanding that should be acquired?<\/h1>\n<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Everybody who works or intends to work in the field of blockchain should at least be able to understand \u2014 and program \u2014 a very simple smart contract such as an escrow process implemented with a couple of lines of code in the program language Solidity. This is a clear statement which \u2014 in our mind \u2014 makes sense although other people would say that a different focus should be made when learning about blockchain and DLT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our mind, the need to understand a simple smart contract (say 5\u201310 lines of code) is important not only for employees in the field of information systems, but also in the field of business, economics and law. Deeper technological knowledge about how to configure nodes, however, is mostly not urgently necessary but could be acquired later on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anybody who seeks to get involved with blockchain technology and considers the following steps, can potentially have a glorious career ahead. We believe that blockchain technology and its increasing importance have the potential to positively affect the career path of an interested person since there is a lot to do over the next few years \u2014 and even decades \u2014 within this dynamic and fast growing segment. This way, the risk of losing a job (e.g. in the financial sector) as a result of increasing digitization and automation can be minimized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But how can an interested person gain enough knowledge? Which opportunities exist to study blockchain technology? This article summarizes some different tactics for blockchain education. We basically design a specific program to get \u201cblockchain-ready\u201d in approximately 10 working days. As the authors are from Germany, there is a slight focus for this country.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Purchasing and transferring crypto currencies<\/h1>\n<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Time needed: \u00bd day<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides gaining some theoretical knowledge, it is very important for understanding this technology that you operatively \u201cget your hands dirty\u201d. This works as follows and provides interested persons with the most important learning about what blockchain technology actually is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best exercise to get started is therefore: Purchasing a crypto currency such as Bitcoin and transferring it around the globe.\u00a0<\/strong>As follows, please find a step-by-step guide:<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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