Bitcoin Association for BSV announces sponsorship of CBCAT Blockchain Sustainable Development Goals Challenge

Zug, Switzerland, 13 July 2022: Bitcoin Association for BSV is pleased to announce its sponsorship of the Centre Blockchain de Catalunya (CBCat) innovative Blockchain 4SDG Project for 2022. The overall project comprises 17 challenges, one for each of the UNGA Sustainable Development Goals (2015), which aim to eradicate poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and curb climate change, among others and achieve sustainable global development.

The Blockchain 4SDG project, now in its third year, consists of a series of challenges inviting students from international universities to propose solutions in order to solve the many problems exposed through the SDGs, with a different subject matter taken each year.   The theme for 2022 is Decarbonisation, with the challenge: “Calculation of CO2 absorption of a specific forest area and the subsequent monetization of this absorption as an incentive for decarbonisation.” 

These events are promoted by the CBCat and the BSV Blockchain Association, together with other collaborating institutions and companies. It is an opportunity for companies to interact directly with students and find, jointly, solutions to the different problems that arise. The organisation and judges will be looking for entries that demonstrate collaboration, ideas that can be turned into real life business models and find solutions to the problems. The prize for the winning team will be an iPhone for each of the students in the group. Each of the participants who reach the final will be awarded a certificate of blockchain challenges, signed by each of the representative partners.

Patrick Prinz, Managing Director, Bitcoin Association for BSV said: “We are delighted to be sponsoring this excellent initiative as it launches for its third year. Encouraging adoption for real life issues of the BSV blockchain is the fundamental purpose of the Bitcoin Association. We are always excited to be able to support projects that encourage that and demonstrate the huge benefits and opportunities working on the BSV blockchain can bring.  This is an amazing opportunity to work with and learn from experts in the field who will help guide the students through the project. We wish all the applicants luck with their entry and look forward to seeing the final presentations.”

“We are looking for students from any field of study, from engineering and computer science to law, economics or biology, as well as communications and humanities,” says Carles Agustí, director of the BlockchainxODS program at CBCat, “With the experience we have so far, we have seen that the teams composed of people from different backgrounds and knowledge areas are the richest, and the ones that provide more complete solutions from all points of view and, therefore, also more interesting”.

For this year’s challenge, teams are expected to identify the best way to obtain, store and guarantee measurements of the tree growth and its CO2 absorption (e.g., low-orbit satellites, drones, sensors etc.) in a specific forest area prepared for this purpose and in agreement with its owner, who was already working on a similar project. It is also mandatory for the teams to ensure economic sense and monetisation of the proposed solution. Student teams are expected to present a comprehensive challenge solution and demonstrate a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) using BSV Blockchain as a core technology for data collection and storage as well as for payment transactions.

Further information & how to register:

Students interested in participating can register using this form.

Those who sign up can do so as part of a group of four that has already been created, or individually, and wait for the organisation to allocate them to a group. The groups can mix students from different universities, and the organization encourages the creation of multidisciplinary groups (engineering, law, health sciences …). The organizers also reserve the right to redo the groups based on the profile of their members.

Each working group will design a solution to the problem posed. This challenge will strengthen their skills for teamwork, organisation and presentation. In addition, it will consolidate its competence to be able to solve the problems presented. It is not necessary to present the proposed solution in a state of full development, it may be a prototype, but the state of development of the solution will be one of the decision criteria of the jury.

The prize for the winning team will be an iPhone for each of the students in the group. Similarly, each of the participants who reach the final will be awarded a certificate of blockchain challenges, signed by each of the representative partners.

All participants, partners, collaborators and representative universities will be invited to the final presentation, the awards ceremony and the formal lunch.

TIMINGS:
Registration period: until 31st July
Development of the solutions: September – October
Project delivery: 31st October
Jury deliberation: First week of November
Awards ceremony: 10th/11th of November (during the Democracy4All event in Barcelona)

Lightning Sharks on behalf of BSV Blockchain Association
Key contact: Tania Littlehales
Email: t.littlehales@lightningsharks.co.uk
Mobile: +44 (0)7881 343353