Journey of 250 Professionals Building Blockchain Expertise

Good evening, everyone. Hope you're doing good.

evening. Good evening. Good evening. So hello everyone, I Shalini, Senior Consultant at talentsprint and I'll be the host for the session.

It gives me immense pleasure to welcome each one of you to this webinar on journey of 250 plus professionals building blockchain expertise,

surely going to be in very interesting session today.

Today we have Sunil Agarwal, and leader with us. So let me talk about scenario first. So Neil isn't, is the author of the book Bitcoin magnate. He is a leading blockchain expert, and has been advising startups and their ICS over the last six years. Excuse me.

He has two decades of experience in teaching, research and startup consulting.

About Toledo. She is the Chief Business Officer of talentsprint. of Business and Management professional with over three decades of experience 10 years in edtech and 20 years in financial services, she is an avid diptyque comm enthusiast launched a popular High Tech High touch digital platform in deep tech education for young and experienced professionals.

Happy to have you here. sheather Anthony.

Yeah. So let me start with Sunil. Let me ask your first question, what is happening in the blockchain ecosystem now?

See, to be honest, this is a billion dollar question and to be honest, to summarize my answer in less than two minutes will be very difficult, but let me give it a try. See, blockchain world is at present in

Very, very fast expanding zone.

The fact here is that at present, both in public and private blockchains, the activity is almost hotting up. And it has been seen that in last two years post crypto market crash blockchain projects have continuously added on to their technical know how and their developer maturity. As a result, as we are moving into second half of 2020. We are at a stage where most of these applications are going to scale up in a very, very fast manner. And looking at both the regulatory side as well as the corporate adoption side, I think things are moving very, very fast recently, Visa and MasterCard have accepted blockchain based payments, both on chain as well as option payments recently.

American regulators have come up with very progressive regulations. And the fact here is that even recently in India, rb has done away with any restrictions on crypto trading and all those things. So what is happening is that overall atmosphere around blockchain is actually quite on a positive side. Of course, things are yet to happen at a very, very big scale. But if I look at just Indian ecosystem, I can see at least 50 active blockchain startups right now in India. So you can see that

since last three or four years, despite a lot of ups and downs, things are starting now moving into an Oxford go and that too, in a mature fashion, so I personally feel that this is the high time to enter this ecosystem.

Particularly for those people who have a startup bent of mind, or who want to use blockchain for organizational

improvements or new kinds of business solutions.

This is great to me. Thank you. And with this note, I would like to ask Stephen, how do you think businesses are adapting to blockchain technology today?

Okay, that's a very interesting question. I think there's already one chat question similar to this from one of our participants to look, let's look at it business adoption is generally you can look at it in two different ways. Right, the oneness, when disruptors are using something, some deep technology like blockchain a blockchain to create something of huge value, which will challenge the big players.

And the second is when everybody believes that this is a great thing to do, and everybody

And after including the big and small. Right? When I really look at it from the blockchain perspective, I think the it is the early stages that it is the challenges that disruptors who are going to use it more efficiently and effectively to challenge the big boys in the game.

Right. Very interesting points on it said about MasterCard visa using taking crypto payments, right, when I really look at it, the ripples that others in the world are trying to get and garner a large part of the international transactions using blockchain right? And the big players have to react to it.

Okay, so they are coming with coming with products and solutions on their own. So this, this game is going to run for some time. Right? And that, to me, probably my short point is simple, the younger disrupting

Organizations are going to adapt to it faster, and create a challenge for the big players, while the big players will follow and compete in the market, when they realize that the real value of this can be at scale. Right. So that's what is currently happening.

Great, thank you Shiva, Sunni, what kind of people are in demand in the industry with regard to blockchain? And see, there are basically three categories of people who are in demand. The first category is the category of blockchain developers. So when you say developers, for example, if you want to build something on aetherium blockchain then your knowledge of solidarity is must or if you want to do something on hyper ledger, then you need to know golang or if you want to do it on Korda, then you need to know kotlin. So the people who have some kind of coding background they can enter into

These kinds of jobs in the shortest possible time. That's the first category.

And the second category is blockchain architects. When I say blockchain architect, I mean to say the people who actually can look at blockchain tech from a 360 degree angle, who understand blockchain technology stack, who understand both public and private blockchains. So who can lead a team of a dozen or 50 odd blockchain developers? So this is the second category and this is a very, very rewarding category because all big companies, all mid level companies would be looking at not only

blockchain developers but also blockchain architects. And the third category is the category of blockchain Business Builders and when I when I say blockchain Business Builders, I mean to say two things. First thing is blockchain business model builders and second thing is

blockchain business development development makers. So, there is a distinction between the two because when you say blockchain business model see, for example, if you want to build a trade finance solution on blockchain, then how to build a blockchain consortium is an art. Now, this is something which business modelers can do with fineness. And second thing is how you communicate

blockchain opportunities to the clients. So, that's where business development actually happens. So, if you consider these three categories, blockchain developers, blockchain architects, and blockchain, business makers and business managers, these three categories are the the categories were actually lots and lots of demand is emerging.

That's great to me. Before we could start with the next question, I would like to tell our participants so that definitely your

Try. keep posting your questions on the chat and we will take it up in the q&a, which is going to happen at the end of the session. I mean, the first segment that we are going to have this interaction session and then at the end, we'll take your questions. Meanwhile, if you think of something, just keep posting into the chat. Thank you. My next question is to Shiva, Shiva. Can you tell us something about the blockchain programming association with triplicity hydrobath.

Okay, so that's a very interesting process that we launched, two years back talentsprint entered into the first relationship into Blighty Hyderabad. Just to ensure that everybody knows about retrieval. It has been this the first trip letting the country because our public private partnership

institution focused on research which came out and has probably today, it is ranked the number one computer science research institution in

The country, right and has produced and focused investment and research in very, very cutting edge areas. There are Machine Learning Lab there.

There are labs on

on natural language processing and blockchain are very strong. In fact, it's one of the very few institutions in the country which has, and and the world, which has the blockchain Center of Excellence in partnership with ripple, which is one of the global players. Our current spend was lucky to be along with triple it when we were part of the incubated group and we were in it for a long time. And

when when Natalia when divinity decided that there is a opportunity and the necessity for AAA to to get involved in the working professional area, they have always been in the academic area, but then they decided saying that there is a need for them to impact the working professionals.

Who, and wanted to launch education programs through which they can bring their deep research and

academic expertise for the benefit of the Indian business ecosystem. Right.

Thanks to being one of the partners and one of the incubated companies and things like that we had the opportunity to launch. The first program we launched with them was on a machine learning and the second one was on blockchain. I got this very interesting history behind the blockchain program because

as a senior top management team in talentsprint, we have good exposure, both the finance side as well as on the finance I mean, banking, financial services side, as well as the technology side. And we launched the program on FinTech. We thought along with FinTech blockchain is a very important area. And we launched one program, which was a combination of FinTech and blockchain and then realized that it is to become to programs and the way

Worked out as the blockchain program we are now doing with arthroplasty, Hyderabad and the FinTech program we are doing with I am conquered Africa. What was the management side? The other was a is a technical side. So it's our two years since we launched this program. We have run for cohort so far, and the more than 250 people have gone through this program, the interesting insights about this program you're talking about who are these 250 people, etc, going forward. But it's been a very interesting experience. I think. Sunil has been part of all the all the

programs so far as

a blockchain expert delivering the program so I'm sure he will have a lot of stories to sell. tell tell about that. But, I mean, it's been a great experience. We have learned on the way I think this is one area that within the first cohort and the fifth cohort we are launching today a lot of improvements and changes have happened the technology itself is continuously getting incorporated with the program. Right.

The second part is when people are coming for this program. They are coming

from different industries, different positions, different roles, and are able to add value not only to themselves and their peers but also for the program. The program has evolved over a period of time.

Absolutely.

Before we start with the next question, I'm sure that all of us here want to know more about the program. I mean, what we are going to cover or who are these 252 50 plus participants and what they did in the blockchain field. Okay, let me start I'm sure this question is going to help a lot of participants here, so Sunni to you, what is unique about this program?

See, to be honest, let me speak from experience and before I

before I introduce

Yeah, so before I introduce the program design, let me share the experience with you

I have I had with all those participants as a teacher, as a mentor. To be honest, when I decided

to design this particular program, my expectations were to be honest, bit uncertain because this was going to be first blockchain executive program of the country. And I'm talking about this in September 2018. So when I was designing this particular program, my focus was that how to build a 360 degree view of blockchain? Can we create such a capacity building program where blockchain professionals can look at both public and private blockchains in one single shot, and not only public and private blockchains, but also on the foundational as well as on the regulatory side. And not only that, they can also build new businesses. So to be honest,

I had some expectations, but I was not clear how to put that into practice. And that was a very uncertain zone. And for that the only way forward was to interact with my students as deeply as possible. And art after four cohorts and interacting with 250 plus professionals in last less than two years, I have realized that this journey has been really, really remarkable. And let me share that journey through certain slides.

See, I'm going to share

this entire journey in four parts and I will introduce the program then, what has been the experiences and what participants have been doing and about the program modules.

See, the fact here is that when you think blockchain

In blockchain, we follow these seven parts. Because blockchain is a very, very interesting technology first people say, we don't know people just ignore it. And then if you tell somebody that this is blockchain technology, then people say this is this is simply impossible. You are not. And somehow, then they start understanding your product, but they still doubt you, they think that it is no opportunity. And then they view your product as just another toy and then somebody among them, start seeing it as an amazing toy and then start using it. And then the Finally, this thing happens when nobody can imagine life without blockchain. So to be honest, in last five, six years, this has been the trajectory of most of

blockchain platforms and most of blockchain products and with this kind of conceptual context and experiential context, let me introduce

how blockchain has actually moved through multiple phases of cycles. So first in around 2016 2017, when everybody was having a very, very serious blockchain hype and we went through that, that peak, but then

in 2017 end, there was a crash and the entire market actually

fell. So, then there was a trough of disillusionment, disillusionment from around early 2018 to early 2020. And then that, that moved into slope of enlightenment and then it moved into a productivity zone. So,

So, this is something which has happened with blockchain as it used to happen with earlier, deep tech or very, very interesting technology. So, now we have moved into a zone where blockchain as a business application is starting to stabilize. And that's where I want to introduce that people from so many different backgrounds have participated in this particular program that I sometimes say it with immense player that

more than 75% of my students have been over five years of experience, you'll be surprised to know, the highest age of one of our students was 75.

And the youngest is 28. So you can imagine the fear distribution of age in terms of participants profile and to be honest

If I say the average age of our participants, it is around 40. And of course there are women participants. And there are also interesting segment of startups and small companies, which means that blockchain is not just popular among the participants from big companies. It is also very, very attractive for those coming from startups and small companies. And another very interesting thing is that 15% of our participants, our students have been corporate leaders.

And 38% have been developers and 24% managers and 23% analysts. So, if you see these different job profiles, you will see that blockchain is in demand across all these segments. So you can see the

the real potential, the real

seductive potential of this new technology. And if I tell you what are the companies, they have been coming from Accenture Capgemini icac Bank paper, I can name dozens of such companies from where our participants have come in last four cohorts. And the program has already produced for startups, for startups from four cohorts, and not just for you will be surprised to more are in pipeline. And very soon in another few weeks we'll be announcing that and not only startups, the factor is that some of our students have went on to lead blockchain lead practice in multiple tech companies like Tech Mahindra Cognizant Accenture, and not only that, many have joined some interesting companies.

As a project leader of interesting projects and that has also allowed quality carrier shift so many of our participants, so, the thing here is when I as a mentor of the program's see all these things happening, so, it actually gives me a lot of player a lot of satisfaction that athletes in last two years in this a very, very difficult but a very interesting scenario, we have been able to pull off such a such a degree of success. And let me share these four startups. The first startup which actually came out of came out of our Cohort One

was Asli medicine and the big the major use case that they are

providing is that how to stop counterfeit medicines. So they are basically building a drugs

Supply Chain where every user, every retail user can actually vouch for the originality of a particular medicine. And the most interesting part of this particular story is that this, this particular company, the brainchild, actually came from the capstone project, which this team this cohort members actually did in the lab. So you can end up surprise, they were also the hackathon winners from Cohort One. So you can see that from lab to market, the journey in blockchain universe can be as short as few months and Asli medicine is a successful example of that. And then farm block. This is another company which has come out of our cohort and you'll be surprised

They have focused on a domain of diagnostic kits. And you can

vouch for the significance of diagnostic kits, particularly in the COVID-19 era where PCR testing kits and

antibodies, antibody testing kits, all they are very, very important because in the early phase, some testing kits were fake. So how to build end to end transparency between manufacturers and distributors and retailers. So this is weird farm lock is actually working

and zero blocks at zero block is a company which is which has come out from the Cohort Two, and the most interesting part is that it has taken one of our hackathons where we provided them with a

project called custody of air

Not in custody of assets, we gave them two options. One was stocks. And second one was Land Records. They took the land records and started building very smart solutions over them. And when they realize that this is not just a lab exercise, this can actually provide a very serious real life solutions. They moved out and built this new startup zero blocks.

And the most interesting thing is that not only startups, in a world of business solutions in the world of policy solutions, there have been very interesting development there happened. Very interesting.

idea, blockchain policy group which was which emerged out of group exercise of our cohort participants. They came together built a blockchain policy group and decided to write a white paper on corporate currency.

In blockchain era, and you'll be surprised there is a release this white paper in

March 2019, and three months after that, when they suggested that corporate currencies should be issued and how they should be issued when it issued this white paper. After three months, Facebook decided to launch Libra.

So, the point here is that our students were well ahead of the curve in terms of mindshare, which is going into the blockchain ecosystem. And the factor is that I have been participating and interacting with with these students on a continuous basis at the stage of idea at the stage of development and also trying to find a product market fit. So, I've been involved as a mentor with all of them at all these

They will, you'll be surprised. Even after going out of the program, they still keep on visiting talentsprint head office and sometimes they they keep on interacting with me in a virtual manner. So the fact here is that this has been such a satisfactory relationship built over this period that I can't have enough words to express my, my, my player. And let me come to the program how perfect there are many questions that's already come in in the chat. Okay, you just probably take our stop here and then look at the program a little later, and probably take up some of the questions. Right. Maybe I'll just start with the question. The first question that came from Dr. Mohammad kushida. After talking about why CIOs and CTOs are not recommending it for the organization, so generally I mean, I will probably do my answer, so that you can take from there after that.

stop sharing so that they can see the screen better. Okay, just

so clearly what is happening, Dr. occur is that the whole market, the startups are adopting blockchain technology faster than large companies. And for me from a business side of it, it is not looking surprising, because end of the day, blockchain as a concept is giving control to people. organization as a concept is taking as much control as they can keep. Right. That itself is probably the starting point while it takes a larger organization longer time to get into it. Right. The ideal place to use blockchain with a distributed ledger and public consensus mechanism is against decentralization and organizations look for centralization and that's probably the first what you say macro reason why things are pretty slow. The second part I would really look at it is I

Think as a concept, this technology has proved itself in certain areas. But large organization which has a huge brand will wait for certain what is a momentum to build, both in terms of availability of talent on one side, and comfort and confidence and more importantly, the, what you call it the the ecosystem pertaining to the technology to be available on the other side to invest heavily into this area.

Right. The startups on the other side is probably investing it very differently looking at it saying that is a great opportunity. I have an opportunity to challenge the biggest in the market and so they take the better, faster adoption to all new technologies, including blockchain. So we would like to add anything. Yeah. Let

so the factor is that

If I say your

conclusion or your understanding of opportunities around blockchain technology, I would say that you might be right up till first half of March 2020. But if you see what has happened from mid March to till today, when we are reaching in August 2020, things have moved very, very dramatically. To be honest, I would say, what has happened in few weeks could not have happened in few years. The factor is let me give you two examples. First of all, let's just talk about supply chains at present in most of the countries. Everybody wants to know what is the source of a particular product, what is the source, where this particular product has actually emerged from which means, traceability and trackability of all

goods and services is becoming a very, very important challenge. For example, if you're buying something online then you would like to know where this particular product was manufactured at. Now, at present to ensure that traceability and trackability the only solution available to us is blockchain. Because the only blockchain you can build this layer of trust, that's the first thing. Second example credit rating, you will be surprised in India,

just around six months back

11 banks have come together to share credit rating of all the SME companies, which are in hundreds of thousand. The issue the major issue here is that most of Indian banks are suffering from the problem of non performing assets. And the problem here is that when

SME has some non NPA from Bank A, they go to bank B and take loan from Bank B and bank B doesn't know what has happened at a bank a level. So the issue here is if Bank A is sharing credit rating credit information of that SME with bank B, then this is something where blockchain is required, because that's where you can actually stop bad loans from piling up. So, similarly, there are multiple other sectors where blockchain is actually turning out to be a far more potent choice than it was in pre March zone. So I think in last four or five months, things have changed pretty dramatically. Yeah. So So tell us asking what are the use cases on blockchain other than cryptocurrencies you already talked about supply chain as one. I will probably take two more examples right. For example, if you really look at it international money transfer

Today it is still one of the biggest unsolved areas. The most take money transfer is solved. I can transfer through UPI within three seconds it will hit your account, international money transfer 2436 48, sometimes 96 hours, you really don't know what's happening. Right. So that's an area which blockchain is solving doctrine consortiums are getting created. SME funding that Sunil talked about is an area where blockchain is coming in. And one other area where blockchain is

really making ripples is the area of healthcare. Right? I mean, it can probably we'll look at integration when

when you really look at supply chain and the quality of medicines and things like that. A lot of startups we see are coming in the pharma side, either from supply chain side or from the the instrumentation center of instrumentation, great stuff that's happening there. So those are the areas I'm sure

We can talk about

there are many such things we can look at

any other area that you would like to highlight other than these before that we talked about, see, let me share a few more areas with some examples. So it Do you know that entire chit fund industry of Telangana is already on to on blockchain

already

contribute 60% of the Indian state fund industry. Exactly the the size of chit fund industry only in Telangana is 30,000 to 40,000, corrodes and already more than 500 to 600 crores of monthly volumes are on to blockchain based chit funds system already. And the fact is Nithya Yoga has actually green as given the green light to that project to be implemented in response.

Of India and you will be surprised. one of the founders of that particular company was participating with our students in industry interaction seminars. And he said that we were able to do this on hyper ledger fabric 1.4 and somebody in the list was asking why hyper ledger fabric The fact is that hyper ledger is an industry standard. And if you want to do a blockchain consortium or a private blockchain based product, then hyper fabric hyper ledger fabric is actually your choice and chit chit fund industry is the first area. The second area is Land Records already for governments, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra has decided to issue all the land records on to blockchain and not just Land Records. Academic certificates

And Tyler government of Tamil Nadu has decided to issue all 10th onwards matriculation onwards academic certificates on to blockchain and that project is at the advanced stage of implementation. So there are multiple such examples, or during the highlight of all this as the Chinese currency

come again, the highlight of all this is the China's central bank digital currency. Yeah, that's it. That is a much much disruptive zone because I always say that there is a very serious geo economics of blockchain. And I would say that the biggest tectonic shift that is about to come is emerging digital currency wars. For example, China is going to launch its own digital Yuan. America is thinking of launching its own digital dollar already. Federal Reserve is talking about

That and Facebook has decided to launch its own a Libra. So, you can see that lots and lots of networks lots and lots of nations are thinking in these terms. And even IMF has said that all countries should move towards central bank digital currency. So, in that sense, blockchain is about to be become very, very hot, very, very

controversial zone also because everybody is not going to take one single blockchain model as a cbdc choice.

Yeah, okay. So the various other questions, I think, let me just take something interesting this business model is need coding. See, I think the most important requirement for somebody who's looking at business is to understand where the opportunities are and understand the power of technology and what can be used where, right and from there, I'm sure the other things happen. coding is not new.

But understanding the power of technology is extremely important and valuable. Right. And

there are other questions about Are there any incubators hackathons in the market? Currently, the system is not being utilized at this point of time, but there are certain special interest groups are working on these three areas. But as a part of the program, all these are part of it right? You are part of hackathon you are part of industry introduction seminar and you also look at adding we also have a scheme for helping companies who want to come out with this with our basic support in terms of advisory consulting, etc.

She did I have a question for you. I mean, okay. Yeah. I just would like to understand that I understand that program is very effective for those who are keen to learn startups good. Comment something on this and how we are going to help them or how what is your comment?

See, just like this.

And as it first said, these new technologies, there is an opportunity as somebody who asked the question, can this

future Microsoft and

it is definitely possible. I'm not sure how many of you know there is a web browser, which is extremely popular, which uses blockchain.

Right? And that time Sure. And I mean, as a business model, that sounds great, right? For example, today, every web browser pushes advertisements to you and you keep seeing it and the the Googles and Facebooks are getting paid and you are the product that is you meaning the person who uses the browser as a product, which are being sold to companies. Now, what what if the blockchain ensures that you allow what kind of ads you want to see and have a revenue share with the manufacturer or the advertiser? Right, at least the advertisement

Repetition that has to be looked at as a business model right. There are others who are really looking at customer loyalty as a currency

Okay, so not such things are coming up in the market.

Now, as talentsprint and as part of this program in association with purple it what we really look at is to firstly

understand the disruptive nature and the abilities of blockchain as a technology

number to

do projects and hackathons in such a way that it makes you think, based on an professionals background, as we really saw 50% of people joining in this field that are leaders and start thinking about how do I use this technology better to challenge somebody paid, or someone does come with a product with challenges or becomes a new product category itself. So our objective is

To help them think through that, bring it as part of the project, convert that into your business model. I think Sunil spends a lot of time with those people. And some of them come to me from the business modeling side, my other senior colleagues in talentsprint, to look at the business model side and polish it to take it to the next level. The third area we also do is use the top performing project that's in the group is their top couple of projects, and they want to make it public and take it forward both talentsprint and total it based on Drupal eight is system of intubation, teacups and other things that are there and our abilities. We would like to support that and take it to the logical end, including basic funding support as well. Right now performance, just a starting point. I mean, it could be seen it is not going to be a billion dollar billion dollar throws kind of numbers, but just to get started and then go to the next level.

Have, I think 10 lakhs per cohort set aside to help startups go into the next level. And that will help people to ideate Petters reasonably get the research and come up with a business model and go to the next level. And that's, I think, is

the monetary support. But I think the most important thing is to make them think about new opportunities, Ida discuss converter possible market, a product market fit, which we'll talk about.

This is great did and you know, one of the

questions he's talking about.

There are other questions about putting row headers as a participant.

We have three are asking some question, why don't you ask her to

unmute and then speak, and then we'll go back to the presentation after 10 minutes.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay, can see there is one question from Karen Kadam. Would you like to touch a little bit on talentsprint has two programs FinTech and blockchain and blockchain and distributed Okay. See Yes, block talentsprint has two programs. blockchain and distributed ledger technologies is in partnership with triple it Hyderabad and FinTech and blockchain is in partnership with am Calcutta. see both the programs have a different flavor. To be honest.

In FinTech and blockchain, the FinTech part is actually dominant part. And when I say blockchain and distributed ledger technologies with triple it, Heather about this is all in all for blockchain. And when I say all in all for blockchain, you name anything under the sun of blockchain, it is there you name private blockchains. It is there you name public blockchains. You it is theory, you name crypto regulations. It is the you name

autonomics it is the unique history of tokens it is there you name, Bitcoin mechanics, everything is there. And what I'm trying to say here is that in blockchain and distributed

ledger technologies we have focused on three kinds of talents. One is blockchain developers. Second is blockchain architects and third is blockchain business model builders. So, these are the three categories which we are trying to enable. In this particular program. In FinTech blockchain, around 65% of the content is dedicated to the FinTech part, and the blockchain part is basically we are they are teaching foundations of blockchain technology and about cryptocurrencies. So, our focus is not cryptocurrencies, as per se our focus is wider universe of blockchain in this particular program in collaboration with triple IIT Hyderabad,

I'd like to just add here I think I should clearly noted let header bar is a technical institution I am Calcutta is a top management institution. So, the one on the curve on GitHub it is focusing on the technology of blockchain and its power, right and how it can help in various areas. On the other side, when we look at I am Calcutta program, it is on FinTech as a focus how fintechs can use as much as they can use Gae and data science how they can use blockchain because digital currencies are becoming a reality and the financial segment is going to be highly disrupted because of blockchain. So, I think that also in addition to work,

so,

yeah, there is one question from Saturday narayen. This is, does the course involve training cloud managed blockchain? see something around to be honest,

recently, after having some interesting feedback from our participants have lost

For cohorts, we have done one very interesting change. And that interesting change is that we have introduced one more blockchain platform with us. And that is called hyperledger besu. hyperledger. besu is basically a interface between hyper ledger and aetherium. And multiple tech platform at tech companies like pega. They are offering cloud as a service,

cloud cloud based blockchain as a service solutions. So we have

introduced that part into our program as well. So I think this answers your question.

getting low in order to speak you can unmute yourself and

I will

unmute.

Yes. Can you hear me now? Yes, yes.

So there was a question asked by one of the guys about cloud managed blockchain. First of all, I don't know about that. So if you can touch upon that a little bit, and

what exactly like you and there are two goals that have been talked about one is FinTech and blockchain and urban is blockchain and distributed hyper ledger. Which one is more suitable to someone like who is looking to get into the business side of blockchain?

Okay, so if you're really looking at the business side of blockchain, the financial services and FinTech space, right. Management Program is a program.

If you're really looking at it, because blockchain goes well beyond center,

right, be it supply chain, be it

connect healthcare areas, any area that you can think of

the FinTech is the focus that the the the industry of FinTech or industry

segment of FinTech is the focus of the IMO.

Because looking wonky largely at the management side of

technology, coding, and how to create applications.

Look at the triple A robot program. It's a combination of the blockchain technology and its power. And what can it be used for? Are the use cases are widespread. We're voting to supply chain to finance, right? You can choose based on your industry or requirement, you can choose any of those. And the objective of the program is how do you use blockchain as a technology for different use cases and specific to what you're interested in? It covers the business side of it, it talks about how to

look at

this.

What do you call for product market fit and things like that, but largely is a technology driven

program

and management driven program for the FinTech industry, or the I am Calcutta cluster.

Can you do an extended does and add one more question? And I'm sorry if I'm taking too much of time from everyone.

I might be going a little ahead of myself here. But

like, How is talentsprint going to help in case somebody long and looking to you know, launch something? Like I understand that it is going to teach about the technical stuff and the business stuff. So like you talked about, you are going to provide some economic help as well. You are providing some hackathons as well. Yeah. Sorry. I'm going ahead.

let let let me answer this. See, the fact here is that

I personally would say that we are not just a training company. We are basically a mentoring company.

My experience with last four cohorts is that we literally enjoy interacting with our participants in on both the tech and the business side of things. And as I've mentioned for startups, and two more startups are already in pipeline. The fact here is that we actually create a very, very

accelerator kind of atmosphere, an incubator kind of atmosphere in our classroom. And that that actually helps. And

the factor is that the program looks 140 hours of delivery at at a visible level, but the fact here is that the actual engagement of students with the faculty or the program is far more deep than it is just

closed in 140.

Are the factor is that in some cases, participants come with two ideas or three ideas. And I have to give them possibilities that this idea is good, but it has this trade off. That idea is better, but it will have these kinds of frictions in the market. So basically, how to find a product market fit in blockchain world is a very, very important thing. And that's where we actually help and for a very important piece of information, which I want to share with all of you. The factor is people who don't understand who don't have a background of coding. Say that we cannot write code so we cannot build blockchain applications. This is a complete lie. The fact here is that in blockchain,

some people write code, some people build blockchain business models.

They build design architects. The factor is that we have designed the program as such that we have built developer track and manager track as two separate tracks. So a person who wants to become a developer or an architect can choose to be part of developer based projects. And the person who wants to build a business model can become the part of a manager track. And then the 140 hours spread over 24 weeks, we will give you three mini projects and one mega hackathon. So in that sense, you will be having both hands on experience and business modeling experience in one shot.

Is that fine, right?

Yes, one extented I need to answer my question as well. But I'm I'm getting a plethora.

questions right now but I will not chew any more time for the participants. You can catch up in person or separately.

Okay, let me see.

Chitty has asked as this blockchain space is constantly improving and developing like aetherium two is launched with peers for consensus how his courses by talentsprint are up to date with the latest development cheti you will be surprised when we taught hyper ledger fabric for the first time in first cohort we taught hyper ledger fabric version 1.4 and in cohort four, we were teaching hyper ledger fabric version 2.0.

And see Africa lt is top of top of India's faculty and you can't

imagine that they won't update themselves rather, they will be far far ahead of you but they will

So take into account what works, what doesn't work. It doesn't mean that if Ethereum to let's give it a context of aetherium to aetherium to is a very, very ambitious project, but the fact is it is yet to be launched.

So I'm trying to say is that we actually have been updating our slavers every time from cohort to cohort.

Three, we introduced crypto nomics, we introduced zero knowledge proofs and now in court after court four, we are introducing hyperledger presume. So, this particular chord design is very evolutionary in nature. Does that answer JT?

Okay, the Walker has asked very interesting question. What are the opportunities for researchers in blockchain domain and which course is fruitful for them. They work on it.

I'll give you two examples to justify my answers. In cohort. Two, one of our participants was from an NGO, you'll be surprised after going through our course she actually applied for a United Nations grant in a public welfare project in Hyderabad in state of

Telangana. Okay. That's one example. The second example is that in last cohort, cohort number four, there were two academics, two academics and two IPS officers were part of our program, and you'll be surprised.

The most important reason behind their choosing this particular course was not just building an application. They wanted to understand the regulatory side and the research dimensions of blockchain and the

factor is that since our faculty can handle all kinds of questions, whether they are research oriented, whether they are startup focused, or they are business modeling focus, they can handle all these multiple aspects. So that's where I would say that

we will be able to get to your requirements. For example, if students from Cohort One were capable of building a blockchain policy group or research Think Tank, then you can imagine that this program actually takes into account the research rigor of blockchain.

The Senate, can you just get back to the deck and meanwhile, I just want to answer one of the earlier questions about upcoming tools and new versions that are coming in. How are we ready? I think, though, more most important thing for all of us is what foundational knowledge do we build in this program, and how we can adapt to the changes that happen

Write it is that which is the starting point to develop a professional expertise for an individual right I started my career there was no computers first then I started using a computer the one dealer worksheet I can use was Lotus 123 then the Excel came then the current Excel is very different from what it is. But how do I use it based on how, what foundational knowledge we have created in terms of processing and analyzing data and content, specifically, numbers, number crunching in the business models and stuff like that. Things have evolved and we keep evolving with that when something new comes how do we adapt to it? Well, from the program side and as an individual professional, I mean, if triple it Faculty Director was here, he would have said our objective in triple it is not to make you ready for the first job or the next job, but your last job in the career, right? That's that's the motto with which they will call

And we are privileged to be partnering with them and creating it because it makes you ready for life. That's that's the objective integrated programs are invited.

So, Neil, back to you. Okay. Thank you. So, now, I will just spend a few more slides on the program design. See, the fact is when we designed this particular program, we gave equal focus to both public and private blockchains. And not only that, we also took into account that the technological side and the business modeling side of blockchain technology and that's why we have designed a program where theory and practice is equally matched. So 5050 ratio, and within this period of 24 weeks, you will you will be doing three mini projects. first project would be in around week number 10 to in

One second project would be in week number around 15 to 63rd. project would be around week

number

19 to 20. And the final project which will be big project would be in the week number 23 and 24. So, not only that we have also ensured, as I've mentioned earlier that the people who want to excel in the blockchain business modeling can opt for those project assignments, which are basically business modeling, or crypto nomic design based projects, and those who want to go into developer kind of a thing they can opt for PLC building kind of projects. So we can give different assignments to these different tracks and why people are actually prefering this particular program, the basic reason here is that here

The peer group is exceptional. Here people from

top companies, top corporates, both large corporates and interesting startups upcoming together to build something very, very interesting. So, the peer group interaction is very, very good. And the second thing is that you are going to get a certification from one of the most prestigious center of

IIT Hyderabad, which has been funded by Ripple Labs. And Ripple Labs is one of the 17 only institutions in the world who have got this $1 million grant to build the center of excellence and it's a research focused center. And at present, this center the faculty from the center is going to teach you and of course, the curriculum is complete.

Based upon practice, what you are going to learn is something which you are going to practice outside. And the most important thing is that here, whatever you are going to learn for example, you have online class and the every session would be recorded, and that all assignments would be deposited online, and every everything will be happening in a completely Virtual Campus kind of atmosphere. And this would be happening on ipoll a new LMS technology platform, which has been built by talentsprint. And where you will be having all the videos where you can actually see which particular section of video you want to see. For example, lecture is around 90 minutes. You want to know at what point Professor we use the word distributed consensus, since these all videos will be

annotated and will be a

tack. So, you will be able to reach that particular section of video in just instant. So, and second thing is that you are going to be using this entire LMS 24 seven from any device from any part of the world. So you can read your

exercises while

walking, you can do it in your Metro ride you can you can you can do all those things almost 24 seven. So,

in one small point the first point is something which I think there are questions on that in terms of format, right, I would like to probably add color to that in addition to I mean, and so there is taking us taking it for granted that people know what the format is. So let me just add up here.

See the program is delivered live where you can interact with the family

Couldn't be like this webinar that we are having today. Right? You can ask questions you can chat you can come online, share your screen interact, it is not recorded classes. Yes, after the class is over the recorded archives are available for reference.

Okay. So that's a very, very important point that all of us need to know. It's a program that the classes delivered every week for every batch fresh.

Delivery of lecture is done. The that enables us to keep improving the topic as somebody said, How do we enhance topic? If it's a pre recorded session, that's it right it is archived and available for the next three years till somebody finds out that it needs to change here it is not. So it is delivered.

Live, every session is delivered live. And of course the archives are available for subsequent review. The second part is it gives us typical program impact that you

would have when you go to a classroom because you will work in groups you will be doing projects, except that in today's context because of safety requirements, you cannot travel and you should be at home. I don't know how long will it take maybe six months, three months, whatever time it takes. Till then it will completely be online and when things turn back to normal probably we will have some campus visits at the end going forward but I don't see it for the next six months because they the coronas situation is it's not great at this point of time. So this format is going to be interacting live interactive faculty ask questions get your answers clear and work along with peers right I proceed like in a typical classroom sorry Sunil for interrupting but I wanted to add that because okay good Yeah.

There are a few more questions are coming in the same format stuff that are Are they good are these classes are going to be weekday classes or weekend classes?

So I think I'll feel words for

classes this happens during on Saturdays and Sundays and all the classes will be delivered live as I just said, and all the labs that you are required to do will have better support and mentor will also be available live. This happens during the weekend. And we test of course, you will probably have a little bit of reading or quizzes and other stuff to do. But this is done weekend so that we'll be able to

completely in addition to the 40 Hour Workweek that you have, you should be able to do this

program comfortably.

Thank you and I think you can continue with the module okay. So, as far as the entire pedagogy is concerned, this entire program is into five modules and the first module is foundations of blockchain technology, where we will be discussing how blockchain technology is actually disruptive along with Bitcoin blockchain along

with zero knowledge proofs Krypton omics, Bitcoin privacy, Bitcoin layer two solutions, all these things will be discussed in the foundations of blockchain technology, then this module two would be dedicated to aetherium blockchain. And don't forget that at the conclusion of every module, there would be a lab. Okay, and after module one, there would be lab after two after three after for every time there would be a lab. And in Module Three, we have included both hyper ledger fabric and hyperledger besu. And that's where you can see that third module is actually longer than module number one, and two, they are 26 hours each but module number three is 34 hours. And module number four is blockchains in action, and this particular module four is bit interesting and bit different from

previous three modules Why? First of all, in this particular module, we are going to discuss very, very interesting topics like

corporate currencies like Facebook Libra central bank digital currencies like China's digital currency, crypto regulations and industry standard blockchain platforms like ripple Korda, multi chain, us and cosmos. So, we believe that though hyper ledger and aetherium are that are at present industry standard, but since technology is moving very fast, so, you should be aware of all those competitive platforms which are emerging in the market, but, we will be giving you an overview of these blockchains and how you can actually choose a one blockchain with respect to a particular use case we will be making you undergo certain exercises. We are

have given eight blocks in technology platforms, you can choose which platform for which use case and after module for the last module is the capstone, which is complete hands on, where you will be having your hackaton where you will be making project presentation. And don't forget, in every module, after every four or five weeks, we will be having to industry interaction seminars where people from industry will come and interact with you so that the distance between learning and application should be the closest, okay.

And why I feel that the time for action is now I'm just illustrating

a few a representative sample of blockchain companies only from India.

You can see that just if we see in the exchanges There are nearly 10 exchanges from India right now. Financial Services 10 projects. In fact, two projects dev tooling, three projects, already nine products and services are there and you'll be surprised to see investors finances the coin base is there fen bushi capital is their intellectual capital is there. So, Y Combinator is the bain capital is there. So, the factor is that blockchain Indian blockchain companies are attracting capital from outside the country. So, if you want to get into these kinds of zones, the time for action is now and applications are open. And please don't forget we have only 50 seats available and 13 enrollments have already happened and we are going to start

Session classes from fourth week of September. And those who want to apply, you can click here or you can call us at this particular number.

So, if there are a few more questions I can take up.

Oh, Sunil, there are many questions actually. But I have a question that if if they go to that site or if they enroll themselves for the program, but is there any selection process or how things are going to be, but yes,

we have to evaluate

every application and if you are a working professional, and you have more than two years of working experience, and I think if you are into that category, you can be selected, but of course,

it all depends upon how

Any applications that we have? So based upon that we will have to make a top top list?

Absolutely. I think oh, yeah, a few of the questions in the chat box who like to look at it?

Okay, so let me

move from bottom up.

Take it program for us around two lakhs

plus GST. At this point of time. There are some scholarship available, right up to 20% of the fee structure. There are scholarships available and depending on your eligibility based on this thing, you probably right. There are scholarships for women startups that are scholarship for young professionals right under our river scholarship, because the program is in September, and we are in July, August 1 today. So those things will be available and I'm sure our team will be able to help you out with that.

Okay, so let me take questions from bottom up.

There is one question. Hi, I am a software engineer turned lawyer. My question is what are the challenges going to face by lawyer with this blockchain technology?

See friend, the most interesting part of

these multiple startups which I mentioned when I said two more startups are in pipeline. One of those startup is basically in legal tech industry.

And they are basically going to use blockchain for registering smart contracts or natural language contracts on to blockchain. Because with this, they can actually record the entire case history and dire decisions and all those things. Because at present, more and more people are realizing that courts cannot work in this pandemic, the way they used to work. So when the end tired

Just as delivery mechanism has to shift online, then in that kind of a case, how you will ensure that

every contract, every recording, every proceeding is actually saved in provenance. So that's where blockchain becomes very, very critical.

Is that fine? So Neil, just doing just something informative to us to participants that we have launched a poll and something must have popped up to you some questions are asked, please give your opinion answers. What do you think about these questions? Okay. So let me see if there are more questions. So you can just stop the recorder videos or at screenshots so that they can see the screen.

Okay. Just so I think one of the questions I have for you submit. Yeah, right. In the legal you're talking about the IRS.

Very interesting question. And there is somebody who's talking about supply chain via DRP. consultant. Will this program beneficial for me if I'm not good in coding? I mean, I don't have a coding experience. Right? So as a faculty, you have people with large experience coming into the class in the leadership room. And you also have developers who have little context in terms of technology, in terms of business, but better understanding of technology, both categories are together in the classroom.

Do you think it's positive for the classroom or is it negative?

See, to be honest, these kinds of uncertainties or divergent thoughts I used to have before launching Cohort One. I was having that but to be honest, after going through the experience of successfully delivering for cohorts, all these such concerns are completely done away. The fact here is

When you actually enter the blockchain universe, my experience is that after first few sessions, the thinking DNA of our participants actually starts undergoing a very, very radical change their, their energies for assimilating new knowledge actually start sprouting in a very, very fast

manner. And that actually creates a certain kind of religious feeling. To be honest, blockchain is a new religion, new religion of innovation. And that's where I feel I have realized that people actually start sharing more and more new things. And that's where peer to peer effective learning happens. That's one set of the answer. second set of the answer is that

the factor is that there is one a one set of the teaching training which is mentioned in the obvious set of the topics, but the factor is that how to

Keep all these topics as a quality learning experience. That's where our faculty becomes very, very critical. Because these, this is a hands on training program where our mentors, our teaching mentors, our faculty, people are interacting with participants on a regular basis, not just on a weekend, you will be surprised every week there will be review classes, let's assume somebody has not not been able to understand a certain topic, well, that person can join the review class.

So, we will ensure that all those people will be through this experience in a very, very happy fashion. And another thing, this dichotomy between coding and non coding kind of a thing. See I used to have such kind of fears, but the fact is

In my last four cohorts, I have seen people who are investment bankers, people who are NGO running NGOs, people who are pharmacologist learning blockchain.

And these are the people who had zero experience of coding, but they always had very serious love for coding. And during 24 weeks, we will make you do dozens of small

practical assignments. See, this is a hand holding session, hand holding program where right from

week number two onwards, we will start training you into writing two lines of code four lines of code like this in you will be having a graded learning so that by the time you reach week number 2324, you will be able to participate in the hackathon in a completely

autonomous fashion. And I have seen that happening in last four cohorts. And of course, you are working in groups, you will have people who are coding experts will be able to bring it bring, of course.

I have heard from participants whom I have interacted with is

this brings in the real work environment, people with different experience in different roles work together to solve a problem. Yeah. But including somebody who was an architect, somebody who's having a domain understanding and a business understanding. I think all of them coming together is not the solution comes and not by only a developer or only the architect or only the business person, right. It's a combination of all the three and it reflects the real world situation.

Right. So I think we are already 15 minutes beyond our scheduled time.

Right. So, with that, I think we can probably take one more question if there is any

Otherwise we can close here because

I'm sure people have other schedules.

Okay, let me see if

Okay, is the poll done? Really? Suddenly? Yeah, yes. I think 70% of people participated in it. I request those who have not already. Given their feedback, please hold it up. I think most of the cushions are on placement, I think that we should take up. This program is a certification program and generally placement is not part of this. Having said that, we have a lot of industry interactions and continuous inbound requests from various companies, which are asking for

people with blockchain expertise because that's an area where the demand is high and the supply is limited. So what we do is we

Those who want to get such opportunities can register and those opportunities that we learn from the industry. We share it with you for you to take it forward. And I also seen that during the industry interaction based on the interaction with people that have people have got opportunities and got into the companies and the startups. Again, there are four or five people come together and start startups and recruit to other Junior people are available people to take it forward. So like this things have been happening. And though we don't promise placement as a part of the program, it happens as a natural corollary to the expertise that you're building as part of the program.

okay with this. Thanks, everyone. Thanks for spending 15 minutes or sorry, 80 minutes of time. It's great on Saturday evening.

Billy, over to you. Yeah, thanks a lot, Neil. Thanks a lot cheaters for giving. Thank you, Shawn. Molly. Thank you.

And thank you everyone. Thanks a lot for joining the session. If you are, if you would like to understand more about it, please visit our site. Try to reach to our people. We will definitely be there to help you out.

And have a good evening. Thank you. Bye bye

Watch the entire interview here https://youtu.be/rV_tCJ9qn18