In Focus: StackTrek

Today’s In Focus features StackTrek, a private enterprise working with various governments in creating tech economies in developing countries. Its goal is to attract foreign investments, generate new tech job opportunities, and improve tech education quality. 

As the tech scene rises globally and more industries thrive in the tech economy, careers and jobs in the digital space form a significant foundation in contributing to these world economies. Big tech cities such as the Silicon Valley, London, Stockholm, Bangalore and Singapore may lead this drive and are often seen as the go-to places for tech careers. However, new and mid-sized cities emerge to be the next generation tech hubs, leveraging the blockchain technology and its development to further its growth.

StackTrek has chosen the city of lloilo, located at central part of the Philippines and also where it discovered a high concentration of developers among thousands, to launch its enterprise. Co-founder Billy Yuen thinks that it is unfair for these talented developers and software engineers to leave their cities and not have the privilege of going to these big tech cities to build a career. He saw an opportunity to create StackLab, a blockchain-focused training program, in the city that will help these pool of developers and engineers build their skillset and work on the blockchain technology.

In April 2018, CoinGeek announced its commitment to fund this program and has commissioned nChain, the global leader in blockchain research and development based in London, to help shape the training program curriculum, and provide projects for the trainees to work on. The training programs will be focused on coding on the Bitcoin BCH chain, the one true public blockchain.

More than 50 developers will be trained on developments skills focusing on the Bitcoin BCH blockchain. Trainees were selected at a coding tournament using a the world’s most unbiased programmer capability evaluation test, which was funded by the World Bank and is recognized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). After they complete the six-month training program, the developer trainees will receive support from StackLab to find employment—with the aim of transforming developing cities such as Iloilo into new technology centers for the Philippines.

This initiative is one of Calvin Ayre’s many social initiatives for the Philippines. The CoinGeek founder and Antiguan entrepreneur is an early and vocal advocate of Bitcoin BCH. In his speech at the recently held CoinGeek Bitcoin Rebirth Party in London, Ayre stressed the need to “complete the task of fully restoring the original Bitcoin protocol, and then locking it down so that future application development on top of this battle tested platform.”

If you’re interested in helping the growth of merchant adoption of Bitcoin BCH, join the bComm Association, an industry group that intends to be the focal point for miners, merchants, exchanges, developers and members of the BCH community. Members of bComm Association can avail tickets to the CoinGeek Week, happening on Nov. 28-30 in London, at discounted prices. To purchase tickets or learn more about CoinGeek Week Conference, visit the official website here.