Displaying items by tag: Blockchain
Friday, 28 August 2020 14:35
Improving the Cannabis Industry With Blockchain
From the opioid epidemic to the COVID-19 pandemic, such events have intensified the need for complete transparency and trust in supply chains to ensure packaging and products are contaminant free. Now, perhaps more than ever, supply chain partners and customers want details and information about industry practices and products.
Currently, medical marijuana is legal in 33 states and blockchain, which is steadily gaining adoption in other markets, could be the next game-changing technology for the cannabis industry across the country. Proven in mainstream food safety, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and other sectors, blockchain-backed platforms offer benefits for everyone, from breeders with new genetics to consumers shopping dispensary shelves.
The following are some of the ways blockchain technology could benefit the cannabis industry:
- Rapid, real-time traceability and tracking.
Blockchain’s secure technology ensures an accurate, permanent record, but it also allows rapid access to specific details within the large amounts of stored information. With blockchain, businesses can instantly get a specific product’s full history and access present and past locations in the supply chain. In a seed-to-sale tracking system, all cannabis seedlings would be given a unique identifier and registered in a manifest. Plants are tracked through the entire supply chain, allowing regulators to identify cannabis products along with attributes such as seed origin, plant strain, and supply chain transaction history. Plant strain DNA could also be a key attribute tracked through this system. This real-time record keeping aids in preventing diversion with the illegal market, facilitating prosecution of illegal diversion, and enabling rapid product recalls. It would also ensure that medical and recreational cannabis products are kept apart throughout their life-cycle.
- Improved efficiency and reduced costs.
Few people understand how massive the Cannabis industry has become. As lawmakers in the U.S. and Canada are pushing for decriminalization, the industry now employs more than 250,000 people. That’s about five times the amount of U.S. coal miners. Labor remains one of the largest expenses for cannabis businesses, whether they operate cultivation facilities, retail shops or both. Blockchain can streamline time-consuming tracking, reporting and auditing, and eventually reduce the need for staff and oversight related to those functions.
- Product validation and standardization.
Cannabis has long been identified primarily by street names. Under blockchain-powered programs, genetic cultivar information could be collected, registered, tested and published through the secure, permanent infrastructure blockchain provides.
Growers can protect their IP. Researchers can identify specific genetic and chemical profiles. Medical providers and retailers can be sure they receive consistent products and verify provenance, testing results, patient outcomes and other immutable information.
- Consumer confidence.
Blockchain-powered scannable codes and other technologies can increase transparency and provide end consumers with secure, verified product identification and information to drive confidence and brand loyalty.
Product diversion can be accomplished by inserting illegally grown plants into the regulated distribution system, or selling legally grown plants in an unregulated fashion. With blockchain, distributed ledgers and proof of work algorithms create a transaction system that is secure, irreversible, and auditable; no single party has sufficient power to alter a past transaction record. This limits product’s diversion risk by reducing tampering, and collusion, in the database system. To reduce tampering with the physical assets (plants), plant tags can be linked with producer and retailer metadata such as business name, location, and employee ID. Associating each plant tag with multiple metadata properties would limit illegal transaction of plant tags within the system.
As noted, there are many issues within the cannabis industry that can be tackled with the help of blockchain technology to make it stronger, safer, and more transparent.
BlockSpaces Solution:
BlockSpaces Solution:
As blockchain technology becomes more pervasive across industries such as cannabis, it is becoming more apparent that systems and processes will involve communication and integration with multiple blockchain networks and technologies.
BlockSpaces has created a system that is designed to serve as an integrated message bus for blockchain-based applications and their underlying blockchain technologies and platforms while, client-side, hiding the technical complexities associated with integrating the various blockchain networks.
To learn more about BlockSpaces Connect or to set up a time to talk to with team, visit our website.
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Tuesday, 23 June 2020 18:20
BlockSpaces fights Medical Fraud with HealthClear
COVID-19 has certainly changed the way we conduct everyday business. For many employers, dealing with new COVID-19 regulations, guidance, and recommendations within the work environment is only the beginning. Employers are responding by taking into account the level of disease transmission in their communities and are revising their business response plans as needed in order to successfully manage the health and safety of their employees while in the workplace. While a vaccine is still in clinical trials for COVID-19 at this time, employers are at the mercy of self-reporting or requiring regular testing of its employees, which can be very difficult to manage.
Recently, an employee provided a doctor’s note to his employer that he had been diagnosed with COVID-19 and was subject to quarantine per CDC and state guidelines. The employer took the necessary steps of notifying all employees of the positive case and added specific notifications to those who had come in direct contact with the COVID positive employee. Additionally, the employer took an added cautionary step of having their warehouse cleaned and disinfected in order to ensure the safe return of its workforce as soon as possible.
What the employer was unaware of was that the doctor’s note was forged. The FBI investigation estimates the company incurred over $175,000 in lost productivity due to the alleged fraud. In addition, one coworker of the alleged victim, believing they had been exposed to the virus, also faced personal financial loss after deciding to pay for a rental property where they could remain self-quarantined away from members of their family.
This is just one case of fraud in relation to employees taking advantage of the pandemic through medical fraud. Rooting out health care fraud is central to the well-being of both our citizens and the economy. Health care fraud costs the United States tens of billions of dollars each year.
BlockSpaces has been working in conjunction with several companies on an HR solution to help companies reduce risk and fraud associated with medical clearances. HealthClearTM utilizes a purpose-built distributed ledger system to create verifiable DID's (Decentralized Identifiers) that are globally unique and resolvable (via a ledger) without requiring any centralized resolution authority. Verifiable Claims are issued as a credential to the end user using a distributed ledger system with Zero Knowledge Proofs which prove that some or all of the data in a set of claims is true without revealing any additional information, including the identity of the end user.
Verifiable digital health clearances that conceal sensitive employee health data would allow employees to return to work after medical leave while mitigating employers’ liability risk and insuring the company’s regulatory compliance. Physician generated releases provide part of the solution, but human errors, inconsistent forms, alterations, and forgeries of information are possible and requests for detailed employee health data by employers runs the risk of violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
HealthClearTM is designed to bring trust, personal control, privacy, and ease-of-use for the issuance of health clearance credentials to employees and their physicians, while providing liability protection, consistency and efficiency to HR processes for businesses in order to allow workers to return to work quickly and safely after medical leave.
If you are interested in learning more about HealthClearTM, visit our website at: https://blockspaces.io, or call us to start the conversation.
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Monday, 22 June 2020 14:37
BlockSpaces Announces Key Changes
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BlockSpaces, Inc.
Contact: Rosa Shores
Phone: 727-483-3563
Email: rosa@blockspaces.io
BlockSpaces Announces Key Changes
BlockSpaces outlines a new operating model, management team and a seed round of capital.
TAMPA, FLORIDA, June 22, 2020 — BlockSpaces, Inc., today announced key leadership additions to their team, including the election of Gregory Pierce as Operating Chairman of Board.With expertise in cloud trends, systems integration, security, scale computing and emerging technology strategies, Pierce was the co-founder and Chief Cloud Officer of Concerto Cloud Services, an affiliate company of Microsoft Dynamics 365 integrator, Tribridge, and helped lead their strategic acquisition to IT services company DXC Technology, in 2017. In that capacity, he led the development of the Concerto Private Cloud with extension into Azure and AWS platforms with the company being recognized as a “Top 15 Cloud Services Provider” and “Coolest Cloud Vendor in the Country” with more than $30 million in revenue. He currently serves as Chief Strategy Officer & Vice President of DXC Microsoft Americas focused on infrastructure, managed services and cloud solutions for customers throughout the U.S. and is nationally recognized as an expert in the areas of emerging and disruptive technologies.
“Blockchain is poised for explosive growth,” said Pierce. “I couldn’t be happier to be part of one of the leading blockchain success stories in the country.”
“We are thrilled to make this election to our board,” said Rosa Shores, Co-Founder and CEO of BlockSpaces. “Greg’s experienced leadership within the enterprise software space, as well as his success at scaling startup ventures, will be instrumental in helping to lead BlockSpaces through our next phase of growth.”
In conjunction with the election of Pierce, the company introduced a new operating model and 2 additional members of their management team. The new operating model, which is centered on a new product-based business segment, will position the company to have a stronger emphasis on the development of their core Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Harmonia, which is aimed at mid-market companies seeking to integrate blockchain with their legacy systems. 
Also joining the team is Charles Dyer, also previously with DXC, who will be taking over the role of Chief Operating Officer, and Chris Tyler, from IBM, who will be leading the company's technology team, as Chief Technology Officer, with their shift to enterprise focused blockchain development. Both Dyer and Tyler bring with them decades of Fortune 200 enterprise software development and product go-to-market experience.
Also joining the team is Charles Dyer, also previously with DXC, who will be taking over the role of Chief Operating Officer, and Chris Tyler, from IBM, who will be leading the company's technology team, as Chief Technology Officer, with their shift to enterprise focused blockchain development. Both Dyer and Tyler bring with them decades of Fortune 200 enterprise software development and product go-to-market experience.“The opportunity for BlockSpaces now is to scale and support blockchain adoption in the mid-market enterprise with Harmonia." said Dyer. "I’m excited for the opportunity to reinforce and accelerate continued innovation, quality, and growth.”
“I have been working with BlockSpaces for over two years now as an advisor to them and their partner organizations on enterprise blockchain and IBM partner programs,” said Tyler. “They have always been a thought leader in the use of multiple blockchain technologies and I’m excited to be a part of their future. Harmonia will simplify our customers’ adoption of blockchain by easily integrating the multiple systems and processes they use with a variety of blockchain networks, and will allow our customers to fully recognize the benefits promised by these networks.”BlockSpaces opened its doors in Tampa in late 2017. At that time, co-founders, Rosa Shores and Gabe Higgins, both early adopters of blockchain, saw local demand for a collaborative space dedicated to developers and enthusiasts of the technology. Over the past year, the company has shifted focus to internal product development of enterprise solutions and raised $100,000 from a local angel investor in January. After completing a blockchain based distributed ID Proof of Concept for the Seminole County Tax Collector's office in March, the company had just kicked off a seed round of investment in March when the COVID-19 pandemic closed down their Embarc Collective office in downtown Tampa. “Although the pandemic initially stalled the seed round in Q1, we have seen an uptick in interest around blockchain solutions which added a significant pipeline to our existing funnel and solidified product-market fit for our PaaS integration platform,” said Dyer.
“We have been in this industry since 2012, and our mission has always been to accelerate the adoption of blockchain technology to transform business, industry and society,” said co-founder, Gabe Higgins. “As enterprise blockchain adoption continues to explode, we are seeing mid-market companies left under-served and unable to easily integrate with enterprise blockchain solutions and participate in networks that will impact their entire industry. Our new model will allow us to be more nimble and pursue new growth opportunities in a disciplined way that ultimately meets our customers’ needs no matter what stage of development they are in with this transformative technology. We are excited about the plans Greg and our new leadership team members have developed to move BlockSpaces to greater levels of success, as we kick off this capital raise.”
BlockSpaces, based in Tampa, Florida is a blockchain and distributed ledger technology focused product development company that offers end to end business solutions, including blockchain consulting and education, custom full-stack software product development, technical support for enterprise, and community support for a marketplace of blockchain applications. For more information visit blockspaces.io or contact rosa@blockspaces.io
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Wednesday, 17 June 2020 01:00
Is the mid-market being left behind on blockchain?
Blockchain adoption within the enterprise has continued to increase over the past year, despite the impact of COVID-19 on the business landscape. In fact, we have seen an increase in real-world blockchain use cases within specific industries. The recent survey conducted by Deloitte on Global Blockchain in 2020 reveals that blockchain has moved from promise to reality.
When blockchain made its debut over 10 years ago, it was widely viewed as a one trick pony supporting the novel cryptocurrency phenomenon. Today, we have an emerging technology that has become a game-changing, disruptive and foundational technology within many industries.
Deloitte’s latest survey shows that almost 40% of respondents from major technology companies worldwide currently have blockchain in production and almost nine in ten think blockchain will become more important in the next three years.
Large enterprises (over $1B in revenue) have emerged as early adopters of the technology with 55% of them stating that blockchain is not only critical, but it is in their top 5 strategic priorities over the next 24 months.
While large enterprises continue to implement these solutions within their business and ecosystem; mid-market companies are being left behind. The pandemic has been devastating to many mid-market companies, gutting their revenues, and causing them to pull back on any investment. Additionally, mid-market companies are discovering that blockchain is hard, and they don’t have access to resources and talent to help them implement, or even connect, into these blockchain enabled ecosystems.
BlockSpaces has focused its collective efforts by developing a cloud-based middle-ware PaaS that simplifies integration of systems and software connecting mid-market companies to enterprise blockchain solutions and networks.
BlockSpaces Connect enables integration of both private and public blockchains allowing transactions that require different blockchain protocols to be executed efficiently from a single source. Although there are now hundreds of blockchain networks in operation, they are unable to integrate with each other, and interoperability solutions have primarily been focused on public (permission-less) blockchain networks leaving enterprise-focused, private (permissioned) blockchain integration solutions lacking.
If you are interested in learning more about blockchain or how BlockSpaces is bridging the gap between mid-market and enterprise, visit our website at: https://blockspaces.io, or call us to start the conversation.
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Monday, 18 May 2020 17:00
BlockSpaces Announces BlockSpaces Connect
Tampa, FL— May 18, 2020 — Today, BlockSpaces announced that their core product, BlockSpaces Connect, entered private beta with select partners. BlockSpaces Connect is a platform that enables integration of both public and private blockchains that allows transactions that require different blockchain protocols to be executed efficiently from a single source.
As blockchain technology becomes more pervasive across industries and across business processes, it is becoming more apparent that systems will involve communication and integration with multiple blockchain networks and technologies, as well as seamless integration into legacy applications. BlockSpaces ConnectTM is designed to serve as an integrated message bus for blockchain-based applications and their underlying blockchain technologies and platforms while, client-side, hiding the technical complexities associated with integrating the various blockchain networks.
Some of the most current leading use cases for blockchain in business are in supply chain, provenance of goods, financial transactions and decentralized identity. Today, the early adopters of blockchain have built applications specific to the use case, whether that is food safety, logistics and tracking, digital trust and identity management, or building a marketplace for trusted suppliers and buyers. These are generally stand-alone applications built with different protocols and technologies and they’re managed by different organizations within different environments.
“Blockchain is not a stand-alone technology, it should be part of a business process; and to truly recognize the value, it must be seamlessly integrated into current systems and processes”, said BlockSpaces COO, Chuck Dyer. “We are seeing an escalating trend in enterprise adoption of blockchain technologies. Being able to facilitate easy connectivity and interoperability with these networks is where we are going to lead the pack.”
BlockSpaces Connect is designed to simplify the integration of your current business systems and processes with new or existing blockchain networks by leveraging an extensible, connector-based framework. To speed integrations, Harmonia provides a library of pre-built connectors for leading enterprise applications, such as Microsoft Dynamics 365, Oracle ERP/CRM, SAP, Salesforce and more. BlockSpaces ConnectTM also provides a marketplace of connectors for leading enterprise blockchain networks such as IBM Food Trust, TradeLens, WorldWire, Quorum and Bitcoin.
Even if you are looking to develop your own applications to integrate with a blockchain network or you’re looking to develop your own network for your ecosystem or consortium, the BlockSpaces ConnectTM Framework will allow you to build custom connectors which can be made available on our Harmonia marketplace.
“For years, BlockSpaces has remained focused on blockchain technology from an agnostic perspective, and we have seen the value in the entire spectrum of it’s innovation”, said Gabe Higgins, BlockSpaces’ SVP, Research & Development/CoFounder. “We are excited to add our expertise to the rapid advancement of this technology and inevitable movement toward a multi-blockchain world.”
BlockSpaces, Inc.
BlockSpaces is a blockchain and distributed ledger focused product development company located in Tampa, Florida. BlockSpaces offers blockchain consulting and education, custom software development, and technical support for enterprise, and community support for our marketplace blockchain applications.
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Sunday, 05 April 2020 14:28
BlockSpaces, FloridaMakes, BAMA presents COVID19 Supply Chain Best Practices
Tampa, FL— April 1, 2020— BlockSpaces, a blockchain and distributed ledger focused product development company, announced today that Co-Founder/CEO Rosa Shores and Chief Technology Officer Chris Tyler will be participating in a COVID-19 Best Practice webinar on April 6, 2020, titled “COVID-19 Best Practices: Blockchain, cybersecurity, and managing liquidity”. The webinar event, hosted by FloridaMakes, in partnership with Bay Area Manufacturers Association, will give a blockchain overview as well as discuss some of the supply chain challenges faced during the COVID19 outbreak. The talk will focus on specific blockchain solutions, and how blockchain can be instrumental in impacting global supply chain resilience.
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Friday, 20 March 2020 19:40
Blockchain & COVID-19: Through the Eyes of a Public Health Graduate
To preface, I am not a physician or epidemiologist. I am a recent summa cum laude graduate from the University of South Florida’s College of Public Health. I was inspired to major in public health with a minor in health education and biomedical sciences because of my passion to improve our current healthcare system through patient education and advocacy.
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Wednesday, 19 February 2020 08:00
BlockSpaces: Synapse Summit 2020
Another Synapse Summit is in the books, capping off 2 days of discovery, networking, and immersion for everyone in attendance. Synapse continues to carry the torch as a platform for Floridians to connect around innovation, business solutions, and emerging technology. BlockSpaces is proud to have participated for its third year strong, dating back to the event’s inauguration in 2018.
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Tuesday, 25 February 2020 08:00
Florida’s Growing FinTech Ecosystem
“The FinTech Revolution: Talents, Rebels and Disruptive Innovation” was the first official event hosted by BlockSpaces in their new home at Embarc Collective. With a great turnout, thought-provoking presentations, and lively discussions, this meetup made 2/20/2020 a date to remember.
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Monday, 02 March 2020 08:00
Blockchain Supporting Supply Chain Agility
Supply chain management is absolutely vital for navigating through times of heightened uncertainty in global markets. Presently, COVID-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak is proving just how valuable, accurate, real-time data is for supply chains and public safety.
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