news
Blockchain
revolution
University launches online
course to meet demand for
blockchain knowledge.
B
lockchain is the word on every
technologist, investor and
academic’s lips at the moment.
Accordingly, RMIT has just introduced an
eight-week, online short course on the
digital technology – the first university in
Australia to do so.
A course cornerstone will be explaining
what blockchain is and how it can be
applied. Put simply, it’s the technology
behind giant, decentralised online ledgers,
campusreview.com.au
which are viewable by anyone. Although
transactions are visible, people’s personal
details (for instance, their names) are
hidden. Only users have control over their
inputs and outputs, known as blocks, which
makes blockchain highly secure. And if a
user makes an alteration to their initial entry,
it has to be approved by all users.
Blockchain was invented to host
transactions pertaining to the big-name
cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (indeed, by the
same anonymous person), but it can be
applied to any kind of transaction.
Helen Souness, CEO of RMIT Online,
says while the technology is still new,
“there has been early adoption in
[the] finance, insurance, government,
professional services, energy and supply
chain [industries].”
She promises the course will offer
both theoretical and practical blockchain
knowledge that participants will be “able to
immediately apply back in their workplace”.
“Blockchain is being vaunted as doing
for data what the internet did for networks.
It’s exciting to consider what this could
mean,” she says. “When Forbes compares
blockchain to where the internet was 20
E
Funding freeze
won’t help unis
close the gap
Calls for the government to
reconsider funding freeze and
boost Indigenous enrolments.
6
ducation professionals have issued
an urgent plea to the government
to quarantine university places for
Indigenous students against the current
funding freeze.
The request comes from the National
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Higher
Education Consortium, whose members
say the funding freeze will prevent efforts
to close the gap between Indigenous
and non-Indigenous Australians at the
university level.
NATSIHEC chair Professor Peter
Buckskin said universities had set
themselves targets to grow the number of
Indigenous student enrolments, and any
changes to funding were likely to disrupt
this strategy.
“We would like to have places continue
to be uncapped for every Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander person enrolling
in university, so the university has the
capacity to ensure that they can accept that
enrolment,” he said.
Universities Australia chair Professor
Margaret Gardner also put her support
behind this request.
“Last year, Australian universities set
themselves ambitious growth targets
years ago, businesses and leaders sit up and
take notice.”
But is the hype warranted?
At least for now, all signs point to yes.
For instance, in the third quarter of last year,
freelancer database Upwork reported that
blockchain was the second-fastest growing
skill on its platform.
Yet many experts are questioning how
long this expansion will last, and how
revolutionary the technology is. Some offer
that even if taken up en masse, by banks
for example, blockchain might merely
perpetuate the status quo, albeit a little
more efficiently. Others, like the authors of
a recent Harvard Business Review piece,
claim that blockchain “is more likely to do
to the financial system and regulation what
the internet has done to media companies
and advertising firms”. That is, totally
restructure but not kill them. Then, there’s
the prospect that blockchain-providing
companies themselves might die off before
they get a chance to attract mainstream
customers.
So, ultimately, blockchain is a long-term
gamble, one that RMIT is clearly willing
to take. ■
to help the nation close this gap,”
Gardner said.
“We need to ensure that every policy
and funding decision is pulling in the right
direction to keep making strong progress
to close the gaps in both education and
employment.
“We ask government to