Microsoft’s principal architect, Marley Gray, and Enterprise Ethereum Alliance’s former executive director, Ron Resnick, on Tuesday launched the InterWork Alliance, a nonprofit organization aimed at bringing global standards to the token-based ecosystem. At launch, the IWA included more than 28 blockchain, technology and financial organizations from around the world, including Microsoft, Chainlink, Hyperledger, IBM, Nasdaq, Accenture and others. The IWA indicated that startups presently working on tokenized ecosystems are mostly focusing on their individual solutions and marketing their platforms to other businesses. Setting global standards, it said, will help focus this wide-scale innovation to make a collective impact on businesses. …

The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) has invested a further $550,000 — paid in XLM — in Berlin-based instant payment platform SatoshiPay. The SDF’s third investment in SatoshiPay brings the Enterprise Fund’s investments for the year up to a total of $6.3 million. Branching out SatoshiPay has processed more than 650,000 Euros from over 200,000 accounts, and their wallet, Solar has been downloaded by 25,000 users spanning 40 countries. The latest investment will help grow SatoshiPay’s new product, which allows businesses to conduct cross-border B2B payments, branching out from their original micropayments solution targeted at online content producers. “As one of …

The COVID-19 pandemic is prompting supply chain actors worldwide to focus their energies on becoming more resilient through better digitization — and in particular through blockchain technology. One of the world’s leading ports operators, DP World, announced on May 28 that it would be joining TradeLens, the blockchain shipping platform created by IBM and Danish logistics giant Maersk. TradeLens is a global supply chain solution with a focus on containerized freight and logistics, which was first launched by IBM and Maersk back in April 2018. The platform’s broadening geographic scope and support for efficient, blockchain-based digital documentation flows appears to …

The largest multi-port operator of India, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited (APSEZ), has partnered with the blockchain-based supply chain solution platform TradeLens. APSEZ plans to integrate TradeLens’s blockchain solutions across 10 of its major courier management facilities across ports in six Indian states — four in Gujarat and one each in Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Goa, Chennai, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. Digitizing to curb supply chain shortcomings exposed by the pandemic According to the local business news outlet, Business Line, APSEZ’s move to digitize its supply chains comes as an effort to reduce the impact of vulnerabilities of the …

RMIT University, an Australian public research university, is adding two new postgraduate programs in the field of cybersecurity and blockchain technology. The university announced May 26 that it was partnering with IBM, Palo Alto Networks, and Stone & Chalk to offer a graduate certificate in cyber security and graduate certificate in blockchain-enabled business. The programs are expected to start in October 2020 and will last for nine months. Meeting demand for blockchain jobs RMIT introduced the new programs in order to meet the rising demand for industry professionals in cybersecurity and blockchain. The announcement cited reports that showed the Australian …

As per a detailed report released by accounting giant Deloitte at the World Economic Forum on the subject of blockchain interoperability, this fast-evolving technology still has some distance to tread before it can be ported into action for mainstream purposes such as large-scale supply chain management, secure data sharing and other processes. In this regard, a number of big-name web service providers such as IBM, Oracle, Azure Blockchain Services and SAP have been vocal in their support for cross-chain platforms and have made a firm commitment to solving many of the issues that currently plague this fast-growing technology. For example, …

U.S. berry producer California Giant Berry Farms joined the blockchain-based food tracking solution IBM Food Trust. Fruit and vegetable news outlet The Packer reported on May 17 that California Giant will use a blockchain to share data between all the points of its supply chain. The firm employs Glassbit’s Glasschain IBM Food Trust integration compliance as a service solution. According to California Giant’s senior director of operations Thomas Taggart, the integration with IBM’s blockchain network will allow the firm and its partners to find ways to improve the efficiency of product transportation. Senior director of global food safety at Walmart, …

In an interview with Cointelegraph, Rupert Colchester, the head of blockchain at IBM Australia and New Zealand, discussed how distributed ledger technology is transforming supply chain systems worldwide. Colchester also provided insight into some of IBM’s current blockchain initiatives and the state of the industry in Australia, and he shared his excitement for the emerging era of digitization that DLT is driving. Cointelegraph: What is the state of blockchain adoption within Australia at present? Is Australia behind or ahead of the curve regarding DLT? Rupert Colchester: I think Australia's progress on DLT as a technology over the past two years …

Data privacy issues have been escalating in 2020 as personal data is increasingly being used to fight COVID-19. The Linux Foundation, a non-profit technology consortium, has today announced a new data privacy project featuring dozens of cross-industry giants like Mastercard and IBM. Called the ToIP Foundation, the new data trust coalition aims to provide a trusted exchange of data over the internet and establish a global standard to ensure digital trust. Blockchain consortium R3 outlines Corda’s potential for private transactions According to a May 5 announcement, the ToIP Foundation’s participants include a wide list of companies, governments and nonprofits across …

Shortages of personal protective equipment, or PPE, used by health care professionals are posing a tremendous challenge to the United States health care system as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, PPE helps protect health care personnel from potentially infectious patients and materials. The CDC recently released a guide on strategies to optimize supplies of PPE. In addition to these guidelines, technology solutions are being implemented to enable more trustworthy information and accelerated discovery, resilience and adaptation to meet current medical supply demands. For example, technology giant IBM launched its Rapid …

Northwell Health, a New York-based healthcare group comprising over 800 hospitals, has joined IBM’s Rapid Supplier Connect network. IBM’s network is a cloud-based application that uses distributed ledger technology to assist businesses providing coronavirus relief supplies to connect with buyers. IBM will provide Rapid Supplier Connect free of charge to qualifying suppliers until August 31. NYC’s largest healthcare organization IBM Blockchain’s network New York’s largest healthcare group spanning 800 hospitals, Northwell Health, has joined IBM’s blockchain-based network of buyers and sellers of coronavirus relief provisions. In an interview with Forbes, Northwell health vice president and chief procurement officer, Phyllis McCready, …

I have a feeling that a lot of businesses still don’t understand why they need blockchain, while others may believe they need it just because they think it’s another fashionable tech trend or something. I’ve been involved in technology for 30 years, and it is always interesting to me how people respond to the introduction or invention of new tech. There is always an ecosystem of people in the sector championing a particular type of technology as well as business users ever-seeking solutions to their problems or creating new opportunities for their businesses. You might be a champion in blockchain, …