Washington, D.C., Feb 26, 2021 - (ACN Newswire) - Over the past year, blockchain development communities have turned
their attention towards winning government contracts.
There is a huge opportunity presented by increased government spending on blockchain projects. According to Bloomberg
Government BGOV200 Report, federal government spending reached $597 Billion in 2019. However, since new businesses face
barriers gaining direct access to government contracts, many have joined the Government Blockchain Association (GBA) to
introduce their cutting-edge blockchain platforms to the public sector.
Traditionally government program managers choose to work with the same few legacy companies. For example, there are
currently over 4.1 million US Federal government contractors but of the $597 billion in prime contracts awarded in FY19,
the top 10 government contractors received $173.4 billion according to Bloomberg Government. However, the COVID-19
Global Pandemic was a catalyst that necessitated governments from around the world look at bold and innovative new ways
to solve problems from a more diverse community.
In March of 2020 the US Department of Health and Human Services hosted a virtual Pandemic Response Hackathon. This
hackathon idea completely changed the former process of government acquisitions. The slow pattern of the past was
rewritten to adopt to the chaos, uncertainty, and urgency of COVID. Government contracts went from a centralized channel
to open and decentralized solutions coming in from completely new sources. A new way of doing business was introduced to
the world stage, and in November 2020 the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), National
Informatics Centre (NIC) held their own up a GovTech Hackathon. Throughout 2020, countless examples of crowdsourcing
solutions contested the traditional procurement processes.
Along with new paradigms in acquisitions, 2020 brought explosive growth of decentralized development communities and
platforms. Decentralized communities operate on independently run servers, rather than on a centralized server owned by
a business. Initially, most blockchain solutions were private-permissioned blockchains dominated by a single vendor. One
of the most popular government blockchain solutions is Hyperledger Fabric. Though it is technically an open-source
project, almost 80% of software changes to Hyperledger Fabric came from IBM, demonstrating an ongoing dependence on IBM
to maintain the code.
Lately, next gen blockchain solution providers have been self-organizing into working groups and communities to compete
in the contracts space. The largest and most engaged of these decentralized communities is the Government Blockchain
Association, with members in over 500 Government Offices, thousands of public and private sector members in 120
Chapters, and more than 50 Working Groups, and 25 Communities of Interests. They also host regular online and in-person
events to introduce blockchain solution providers to government officials, promoting this new diverse community.
Some of these next gen blockchain leaders include:
- DragonChain - DragonChain is an enterprise and start-up-ready platform to build flexible and scalable blockchain
applications. It has business-ready applications and developer-friendly integrations that support many applications
including learning management systems, decentralized identity, and anti-fraud and compliance solutions.
- NEM - A community that has developed two blockchains. They are NEM NIS1 and Symbol. NEM NIS1 is the original
blockchain offering from NEM, created by the community, and optimized to be a developer's sandbox. With zero downtime or
major outages since 2015, NIS1 is the blockchain you can trust for all your project needs. Symbol is the next-generation
enterprise-grade blockchain solution from NEM, purpose-built to help businesses cut costs, reduce complexities, and
streamline innovation. With major upgrades in flexibility, security, speed and ease of use, the Symbol platform is the
best-in-class blockchain enterprise solution.
- Simba Chain - SIMBA Chain is a cloud-based, blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform, enabling users across a variety
of skill sets to implement decentralized applications (dapps). These apps allow secure, direct connections between users
and providers, eliminating third parties. The easy-to-use platform is tailored for users, developers, government, and
enterprises to quickly deploy blockchain dapps for iOS, Android, and the web.
- TON Labs - TON Labs is the core developer of Free TON, comprised of a decentralized team focused on developing the
infrastructure and free software for TON OS. TON OS is a full-fledged, vertically integrated technology stack that helps
developers work easily with the blockchain and makes it simple and intuitive for users.
Decentralized blockchain projects include the Government Business Blockchain Platform (GBBP). This multi-blockchain
platform allows solutions built on any blockchain to connect and become available to governments around the world.
Sub-set eco-systems include Emergency Management, Healthcare Delivery, and Citizen Services. Blockchain applications can
interconnect on the GBBP, providing identity management, logistics, asset management, payments, and many other
blockchain services.
These examples demonstrate how blockchain providers are working together, self-organizing into decentralized entities to
build public-facing blockchain solutions. GBA groups regularly host online meetings to discuss their projects. Anyone
interested in joining the discussion can find out more on the GBA Events Calendar or Events List. Later this year the
GBA will be bringing World-Class Leaders to Washington, DC for Government Blockchain Week on Sept 27 to Oct 1, 2021.
For more information to attend a free online event called NextGen Blockchain Platforms (https://www.gbaglobal.org/government-business-blockchain-platform/) on March 17, 2021 or send an email to support@GBAglobal.freshdesk.com.