Can governments use Blockchain technology to provide new solutions to difficult service-delivery problems? Can blockchain improve local public service delivery? BLING (BLockchain IN Government) is a €5M Interreg Vb innovation project I put together in 2017/8 for the Province of Drenthe and Gemeente Groningen in the Netherlands to answer these questions.
BLING will facilitate the use of Blockchain in government services by bringing together the expertise of knowledge institutions, municipalities, governmental organisations, businesses and citizens. This collaboration will deliver the next generation of innovative services for citizens, communities and SMEs across the North Sea Region of Europe.
Why blockchain?
Blockchain is a key enabling technology that will underpin a wide range of efforts to deliver innovative services that contribute to the Digital Agenda for Europe. Blockchain makes it possible to build systems that share information and record transactions in a verifiable, secure and permanent way. Based on a ‘distributed ledger’, blocks of information are chained together with cryptography to produce a system that stores, manages and verifies information.
Blockchain-enabled systems will allow governments to deliver a range of new solutions and service designs that have the potential to redefine the relationship between governments, citizens and SMEs in terms of transparency, trust and data-sharing.
BLockchain IN Government (BLING) builds upon the substantial investments by the EU, national governments, corporations, SMEs and wider networks to provide one of the first dedicated platforms to bring these tools and approaches into local and regional services.
The BLING approach to Blockchain
BLING combines public authorities, knowledge institutions and SMEs who will work to develop and deploy blockchain-enabled public services focusing on Identity, Direct Democracy, and Customer Services.
BLING’s partners will move beyond proof of concepts to deliver real services in real live governmental settings: this will allow BLING to accelerate and de-risk the development and deployment of blockchain-enabled services.
It’s important to understand that BLING isn’t a technology project. BLING will use the explore/enable/deliver approach to accelerate the adoption and deployment of blockchain across the North Sea Region. This approach will enable the development and delivery of the next generation of smart services for citizens, governments and SMEs.
Want to know more?
Read the BLING case-study on dere-street.
Follow BLING here: https://northsearegion.eu/bling/ and on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/blockchain-in-government.
Can I help you set up an innovation project?
You can find out more about other collaborative innovation projects I’ve set up. Or get in touch with me and let’s collaborate!