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The plan to make Cleveland become a center for the nascent blockchain technology will begin on Monday, December 3, with a two-day event called the Blockland Solutions Conference.
The event, which is expected to attract 1,000 attendees, was promoted by car trader and technology entrepreneur Bernie Moreno and others as the kickoff of a plan for Blockland Cleveland, an "initiative to" put the region in the forefront of blockchain thinking leadership "and to show that the region can offer technology companies a good home.
"It's the next generation of the Internet," Moreno told itla.net, the website of the International Legal Technology Association, in August. "We have an extraordinary opportunity to take advantage of this next wave of innovation".
Blockchain is a decentralized digital technology that, as its developers and supporters claim, can not be changed or deleted by anyone except by its owner, but can be available to a large group of people or organizations. Blockchain was originally developed as an accounting system for Bitcoin, a "virtual currency" that allows individual users to manage the exchange of funds just as in a transaction directly with a bank or another intermediary.
The skeptics cite the fear that the low speed of technology, storage requirements and the intense use of energy will slow down acceptance and use. But these issues, support its supporters, will be overcome by its potential to create more secure and transparent transactions.
Although they are several years away from traditional adoption, Moreno and others, both here and globally, they believe that blockchain technology will find its first use in business and public administrations to securely store things like license registrations. driving and medical records.
Moreno has assembled a "governing body" that includes more than 20 eminent Clevelanders to guide the development of this effort, and most are attending the conference. They come from companies, law firms and nonprofit organizations in the region, including Case Western Reserve University, Destination Cleveland and JumpStart Inc.
A key part of the plan to create a blockchain hub in Cleveland is a $ 150 million Blockland Cleveland incubator, a privately funded private enterprise Moreno said it will build to be a place where blockchain entrepreneurs could come to develop new activities, making Cleveland an international center for blockchain technology.
He said the plan is to include a K-8 school on the campus of the incubator and make the campus accessible to others, including internships for high school students.
"We want to make sure that when we do it here in Cleveland, we integrate technology into the fabric of the community," Moreno said in August, when he announced his plan. "It is a community effort full of will."
Jon Pinney, managing partner of the Kohrman law firm, Jackson and Krantz and early recruitment to Blockland Cleveland, is conducting efforts to find a suitable place and incubator project.
Conference participants, 86% of them from Northeastern Ohio, based on a conference data sheet, will have the opportunity to listen to 151 speakers in over 50 sessions, including programmatic discourses, round tables and case studies on the impact that blockchain could have on a variety of industries. Speakers included Joseph Lubin, a blockchain pioneer and co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain computing platform.
Perhaps, more importantly, however, Moreno and others see him as a blow to the arm for employment in the region. When he started Blockland Cleveland in August, he said that he would like to see the 1,000-year blockchain coding region in 2019 (see the sidebar).
The preconference workshops begin Saturday, December 1, with sessions to provide software developers an overview of the blockchain technology and offer them the experience of learning the code on different blockchain platforms.
The promoters have deployed 38 sponsors, many of them local. Key sponsors are KeyBank and Hyland Software Inc. Other local sponsors, or companies with local offices, include Ashland University; Baker & Hostetler LLP; Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan and Aronoff LLP; CardinalCommerce; Case Western Reserve University; the city of Cleveland; Cleveland Clinic; the Cleveland Foundation; Cleveland State University; Cohen & Co.; Cuyahoga Community College; Cuyahoga County; Deloitte; FirstEnergy Corp.; Hardy Wealth Partners / UBS Financial Services; the society of health management and information systems; IBM Corp.; Jones Day; KPMG; McDonald Hopkins Co. LPA; Ohio Medical Mortgage; the MetroHealth / MCPc system; Oswald Cos.; Ownum; PNC Bank; Progressive insurance; PricewaterhouseCoopers; Skoda Minotti; and Vantage Agora.
Some of the sponsors and other companies have joined as exhibitors at the conference, and another 34 technology startups and blockchain will field a "Startup Alley".
