Blockchain technologies have introduced new economic, business, social and technological models that have the potential to have a significant impact on business and society. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, in association with the Department of Finance are looking to explore use-cases for the potential application of Blockchain technologies in the Public Service at an event in January 2019.
This event aims to identify and explore real-life use-cases of distributed ledger technology (Blockchain) to develop a deeper understanding of how and why Blockchain may be utilised to improve current processes, development, citizen user experience, efficiency and more.
The two Departments will be hosting a Hackathon, where we will present potential Public Service business cases/problems to technical teams over the course of two days. They will be expected to brainstorm a potential technical solution. At the end of the Hackathon a prize shall be awarded for the best solution and this shall then be submitted for evaluation for formal project development/implementation.
Read more about the Hackathon here.
- The real-world problem the team are trying to solve
- A clear explanation of their solution and how it physically connects with the challenge being addressed
- An overview of the benefits of their solution
- The relevance of blockchain technology and why a blockchain solution is more relevant than standard database technologies
A fundamental component of the CSO's business model is the trustworthy analysis of multi-industry and citizen microdata which has been shared by other public and private sector organisations. Mechanisms to verify the data has not been altered or tampered with during transmission could be improved.
Additional Factors: With GDPR, organisations must employ greater security and privacy controls around the data it holds. Blockchain can become a critical tool to meet current and future legal and regulatory requirements.
ATII is responsible for overseeing the procurement and implementation of new tolling arrangements, and for monitoring and managing existing tolling arrangements on the national road network. At any point in time there are a number of toll operators appointed on different routes around the country. Each of these operators offer Electronic Tags as a billing/payment mechanism for their customers. To ensure that a tag issued by one operator can be used at any toll in the country, TII has procured an Interoperability Hub. The purpose of this hub is to act as a clearing house for tolling transaction from all operators and allow customers to be billed through a single Tag for any journey through any toll nationally. There are five key requirements of the operation of the Interoperability Hub: Security of all transactions processed. Transparency and Traceability of the transactions both historically and in real time. Speed and Reliability, transactions must be processed with a given time period of being captured and the system must be highly available. Cost of operation must be low. Easy On-boarding of new operators.
Additional Factors: The advantages of using Blockchain address some of the key requirements of the Interoperability Hub.
De Minimis Aid tracking via BlockChain
De Minimis Aid is small amounts of State Aid given to an entity which cannot exceed €200,000 over any three fiscal years to any entity irrespective of size or location. De Minimis Aid can be awarded to an entity without notification to or clearance from the European Commission. De Minimis Aid can be in the form of grant or equity. A number of State Agencies can issue funding under De Minimis.
According to COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) No 1407/2013 on the application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to de minimis aid, "Member States should be required to monitor aid granted to ensure the relevant ceilings are not exceeded and the cumulation rules are complied with". Currently, applicants for State Aid funding under De Minimis are required to self-declare any other De Minimis Aid received during the fiscal year concerned and the previous two fiscal years when applying for new funding.
The regulation also states that "it should be possible for Member States to set up a central register with complete information on de minimis aid granted and check that any new grant of aid does not exceed the relevant ceiling".
Additional Factors: The data stored is the blockchain could also be used for reporting and analysis. The addition of geo-data in the block data payload could allow for geographic analysis. The additional of sector data would allow for sectoral analysis and cater for specific sector restrictions.
Aim: To improve quality and avoid inefficiencies, work duplication and human error in the current processes used by the Programme for Government (PfG) Office to gather information from all 17 Government Departments on their PfG commitments.
Current System: Data consisting of Text information on 776 commitments shared across all Government Departments resides on a Microsoft Access 2007 Database on the Department of Taoiseach (DoT) Shared Drive. Each commitment is assigned an unique identifier number. Only PfG office staff have access to the database. Results of a survey done in November 2018 have revealed that approx 410 staff (across 15 depts) are involved in producing the update information that is ultimately input into the Database. Both the information request and the update received flow to and from the PfG office via 1-3 liaison officers in each Government Department tasked with managing the correspondence.
Current Process: (Input)Text manually entered to Database by way of forms updating implementation steps of each commitment by PfG staff. (Output) weekly progress report, periodic and annual reports. Current Problem:
• Government Departments have no access to the information being held in file regarding their Programme for Government Commitments.
• Information is only received from Departments when it is actively sought by the PfG office.
• Departments have no option to update in real time.
• When commitment updates are required an Access Report must be exported to either a Word or Excel document and manipulated for improved legibility before being emailed to the Department's Liaison Officer. The Liaison Officer in turn must correctly assign the update request to the appropriate people within their Department. Time delays occur while several rounds of emails take place between the PfG Office and the Liaison Officers and in turn, the Liaison Officers and their colleagues before agreed text is decided upon.
• Given the volume of the text involved, we rely heavily on tracked changes during this period. Work duplication occurs as all new update material received must then be extracted from the Word/ Excel documents and correctly inputted into the Data Base at the same time leaving us vulnerable to human error
Additional Factors: Each Department can only be involved in those Government Commitments assigned to themselves and have no responcibility to those belonging to others. There are however, a number of commitments (~5%) that are the shared responsibility of two Departments.
Tony Winters is a technology consultant and the founder of llemmingchain.io, a blockchain research, development & consultancy initiative.
His areas of expertise include blockchain & DLT, peer-to-peer networks, distributed systems & cryptography. A programmer at his core, Tony loves nothing more than to design and code truly disruptive software.
He holds both honours and masters degrees in computer science and has worked in the tech sector for longer than he cares to admit. Tony is also a successful children's author, keen surfer and environmental activist.
Barry Lowry has been the Chief Information Officer for the Irish Government since April 2016 with the primary task of taking forward the Public Service ICT and eGovernment Strategies. These set out ambitions for developing the use of shared services, digital services and data to better serve the people of Ireland and ensure that Ireland is well-placed to benefit from European initiatives such as the Digital Single Market.
Barry was previously the Director for IT Shared Services and Strategy and Head of the IT Profession within the Northern Ireland Civil Service.
Barry is a Fellow of the Irish and British Computer Societies and is a former winner of the BCS Northern Ireland IT Professional of the Year.
Connor is European Partner with COSIMO Venture Partners. Based in Boston, New York and Dublin, COSIMO provide seed level investment to early stage deep tech companies with a particular focus on Blockchain, Crypto, AI, Cyber Security, AR and IoT projects. Connor was Managing Director of Nielsen Ireland at age 27, and subsequently joined the Nielsen European Executive Board with functional responsibility across 40+ countries. He founded and subsequently sold 20-20 insights, an award winning software and analytics company. Connor also established Centauri Technologies with investment and operational activities across a portfolio of Irish technology companies. He brings a high degree of strategic thinking, commercial nous and an understanding of what it takes to make a business successful.
Fiona Delaney is a software developer and digital transformation leader, who devised an open innovation framework model to scope, implement and test blockchain use cases in enterprise settings 'in the wild'.
Currently, Founder and CEO at Origin Chain, launching their platform for sharing and discovering trusted insights about agri-produce in Spring 2019.
MSc Advanced Software Dev, PDQs Horticulture, Landscape Design and Management.
Maria-Luisa Marsal Llacuna is an Architect with two Masters and two Doctorates in the fields of urban planning and applied ICT. She worked for the government in the UK and now in Catalunya, at Government’s of Catalonia Catalan Institute of energy. Her academic career includes the creation and direction of world’s first official scientific master’s program in smart cities; several competitive and commercial research projects in the domains of smart and sustainable cities; postdoc scholarships in Germany and the USA; a US patent on urban planning standards technology; and, the publication as main author of about twenty papers in top peer-reviewed academic journals. Her expertise on blockchain for governments has awarded her with the leadership of the Barcelona Chapter at the Government Blockchain Association (GBA) and participation in GBA’s leadership advisory committee.
Dr. Subhasis Thakur is working as a research fellow at the National University of Ireland, Galway and Insight Centre for Data Analytics.
He is leading several research projects on blockchains and the application blockchains in financial services, smart grid and supply chain management. He is part of Irish peer to peer energy trade using blockchains project (Enerport) and recently received DTIF grant for a large scale peer to peer energy trade project. He has collaborated with IBM on the applications of blockchains for financial services.
Dr. Subhasis Thakur was previous employed at University of L'Aquila, Italy, University of Liverpool, U.K and Griffith University, Australia.
Patrick is a General Partner with Middlegame Ventures, a financial technology venture capital fund based in Washington DC. Prior to joining Middlegame, he was a Deputy
Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Treasury where he served as the first Executive Director of the Financial Stability Oversight Council. He was tasked with standing up the post-financial crisis entity for regulatory coordination and managed the Council’s activities spanning 15 agencies across the U.S. financial regulatory system.
Prior to his government service, Patrick spent a decade as a sell-side financial institutions and capital markets analyst, where he was the lead analyst at Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch for the brokers, exchanges, and financial technology sector. He is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business.
“Discovering that Spark to every Business Success”
The Unconventional Business Innovation strategist. After years of, running, mentoring and evaluating hundreds of Startups & SMEs, Rick learned the ways of the “Spark”, the ability to help discover best opportunities for Business Success. Specializing in Emergent Technologies space, like IoT, AI, and Blockchain, Rick now consults companies globally that are eager to explore the best revenue models to succeed and scale.
"One of the Top 50 Tech Movers & Shakers in Ireland" By Business & Finance Magazine.
"The Blockchain People to watch for in Ireland 2018" By Crypto Coin News.
David Wachsman, Founder and CEO of Wachsman, is a world-renowned blockchain expert, speaker, thought leader, communicator, and Public relations practitioner. David has been working with clients in the blockchain and bitcoin space since 2014. He is a regular speaker at blockchain conferences around the world, most notably Blockchain for Finance in Europe, Consensus in New York, and Blockcon in Los Angeles. Most recently, David was featured in CNN International TV, CNN Money TV, and New York Magazine.
Natalia Maslova, is a senior finance and technology advisor and strategist with extensive experience in business transformation enabled by technology. She is EY Ireland's Blockchain Leader and helps clients to understand benefits of blockchain technology, use cases, and supports them with the full cycle of blockchain product development.
Natalia is a speaker at various conferences and forums related to innovation, technology, and finance transformation.
Brian Manning is the CEO and founder of EXSILICO - an Ireland-headquartered solutions provider for secure cryptocurrency storage and management.
he has worked in multi-disciplinary teams in the Biotech, Blockchain and Semiconductor industries in Ireland and abroad.
Brian enjoys the journey of every startup - particularly when translating deep-tech ideas from concept through to high-growth business. EXSILICO is on this very path - addressing challenges in the Blockchain space using applied cryptography
philippe has over 30 years of experience across complex and demanding B2B and B2B2C environments, leading projects for companies including Three Telecom, O2, Bank of Ireland, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Anglo-Irish Bank. As the head of Industrial solutions, his role with Ambrosus involves structuring large-scale partnerships after successful delivery of PoC and pilot projects.
He is also a member of the Irish expert Blockchain group run by IDA Ireland
Alan McSherry is a software consultant and the lead of the Openstar platform initiative. He has been working full time in Blockchain technology for over three years and has presented on Blockchain technology everywhere from New York to Hong Kong. He has led teams which have built several full open source blockchain nodes in the scala language. He has distilled this exceptional experience into the Openstar platform and is now leveraging Openstar to provide real world solutions to businesses.
Donal O’Mahony is professor in computer science at University of Dublin, Trinity College. He has a long record of research and innovation in Computer Networking, Security and Blockchain. He is author of a leading book in Electronic Payment and has published over 100 papers in computer networking and security. he is heavily involved in the Ethereum Blockchain and initiates and supervises projects in blockchain infrastructure and applications at undergraduate, masters and PhD levels. He also acts as consultant to companies who are exploring novel deployments of blockchain.
Saad Shahid is the blockchain lead at CeADAR, the National Centre of Applied AI which is an Enterprise Ireland and IDA supported Technology Centre based at UCD. He has worked on various blockchain research projects and proof-of-concept demonstrators in collaboration industry partners. The team were recently awarded funding under the highly competitive Disruptive Technology Innovation Fund (DTIF) for a project applying blockchain to supply chain management. Saad has extensive experience working with start-ups, and has a background in product development, data analytics, and e-commerce.
1. WHAT IS A HACKATHON?
Hackathons have long been staple events in the Technology Industry since the late 1990s. A Hackathon is an intense event that brings together computer programmers like software developers, graphic designers and user interface specialists along with industry process experts and professionals to identify issues and create software solutions, usually within a weekend.
2. WHERE IS THE EVENT TAKING PLACE?
The event is taking place at The Innovation Academy. Directions to the venue can be here.
3. IS THERE A COST FOR ENTRY TO THE HACKATHON?
No, BlockAthon is free to enter. We will be providing food and drinks along the way.
4. WHAT DO I BRING?
Bring laptops, chargers, mobile phones, and anything else you may think you need.
5. WHAT IS THE GOAL OF THE HACKATHON?
The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, in association with the Department of Finance are looking to explore use-cases for the potential application of Blockchain technologies in the Public Service at an event in January 2019.
This event aims to identify and explore real-life use-cases of distributed ledger technology (Blockchain) to develop a deeper understanding of how and why Blockchain may be utilised to improve current processes, development, citizen user experience, efficiency and more.
The two Departments will present potential Public Service business cases/problems to technical teams over the course of two days. These teams will be expected to brainstorm a potential technical solution. At the end of the Hackathon a prize shall be awarded for the best solution and this shall then be submitted for evaluation for formal project development/implementation.
6. ARE THERE PRIZES?
Yes, there are three prizes for the Hackathon. 1st Prize is €5,000, 2nd Prize is €2,500 and 3rd Prize is €1,000.
NOTE: All team members must be onsite for the presentation and prize giving on Sunday 27th January. Team members that are not present will not be allocated a share of the prize.
7. WHO OWNS MY PROJECT & IP?
The team that develops the project is the owner of the project and IP. We do encourage sharing of code with others in the community or making code open source. If using GitHub, we would ask that you create a BlockAthon folder in your person GitHub repository for the code and commit to not deleting the folder for a 6 month period.
8. WHAT IS THE PROGRAM/TIMETABLE?
Please check here. We will be updating the details before the event.
9. I HAVE A QUESTIONS THAT IS NOT LISTED HERE. HOW CAN I GET IN TOUCH?
If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to the team on blockathon@per.gov.ie
10. I AM WITH THE MEDIA. IS THERE A PRESS CONTACT I CAN USE?
Yes, if you have any media/press questions please reach out to the below emails:
Department of Finance - PressOffice@finance.gov.ie
Department of Public Expenditure & Reform - PressOffice@per.gov.ie
