The government of Ireland is hosting a blockchain hackathon this week to identify and analyze potential real-life use cases of blockchain in public services.
BlockAthon Ireland, taking place between January 25 and 27, 2019, aims to explore how blockchain can be utilized in public services to improve current processes, development, citizen user experience, efficiency and more. It is being hosted by the department of public expenditure and reform in association with the department of finance at the Innovation Academy in Dublin.
“Blockchain technologies have proposed new economic, business, social and technological models that have the potential to significantly impact business and society,” said Paschal Donohoe TD, minister for finance and public expenditure and reform.
“As part of Our Public Service 2020[1], our government has pledged to drive innovation in policy design and service delivery, as well as promote a culture of innovation across our public service. We believe this can partially be achieved through the use of novel and alternative mechanisms, new platforms and unusual channels.
“Consulting and engaging experts on innovation from across the public sector, academia and the private sector to share ideas is a valuable action under the strategy, and this hackathon offers an opportunity to do so.”
Ireland’s Our Public Service 2020 plan focuses on accelerating digital delivery of public services. The government has committed to driving innovation in policy design and service delivery, as well as promoting a culture of innovation across our public service.
Participants will be presented with potential public services business cases and problems to solve over the course of two days. These uses cases and business problems are:
- Medical device tracking in health, safety and environment (HSE);
- State aid tracking;
- A solution to verify central statistics office (CSO) data with appropriate security and privacy controls;
