The All Party Parliamentary Group on Blockchain (APPG Blockchain) that has been running workshops since January 2018 and has helped increase the awareness with MPs, about the challenges and opportunities that Blockchain technology offers. The APPG Blockchain events, coordinated by the Big Innovation Centre, has this week organised a showcase in Parliament for ten companies to illustrate how Blockchain technology could impact, and in some cases how it is already changing the way that business is carried out.
The companies explained how they were using Blockchain technology to help improve transparency and traceability, reducing transaction costs of transferring money in the UK or overseas.
The UK is the only Western country to meet the United Nations foreign aid target donating $13.9billion i.e. 0.7% of the UK GPD. It has been calculated that it costs the UK government £13million in foreign exchange and banking costs to send this aid overseas. This cost could be cut significantly using Blockchain. Likewise, the technology can be used to help in the insurance, healthcare, energy, education and finance sectors.
Blockchain technology and Digital Assets are not only able to help in the commercial world, but can have a positive influence on society. In a recent article, Breakermag looked at how 73 Blockchain initiatives are having a positive impact for social good.
The report stated “… in the food and agriculture sector small farmers get left out of the market, food waste abounds, and sometimes we get poisoned by lettuce. The Blockchain solution is - Supply chain tracking and according to the Stanford Graduate School of Business report, there are many organisations in Europe, Australia, and U.S. aiming to help people in places like sub-Saharan Africa.”
It is encouraging that UK government is gaining exposure to businesses that are engaged and using Blockchain technology as it cannot afford to let the UK get left behind. In a recent survey, the UK was second only to the US in terms of job opportunities, of the 5,700 jobs being globally advertised currently that include the word Blockchain in the job description - the UK had 1,015 nearly 20% positions available.
