Is The $70M University Blockchain Agenda Going Anywhere? Posted on : Oct 16 - 2018

Seventy-million dollars is a lot of money donated to one cause.

In this case, the cause is the future of blockchain and the donors are the Ethereum Foundation and Ripple’s University Blockchain Research Initiative.

Committing $20 million to over 70 organizations in 2018 alone (according to Executive Director Aya Miyaguchi), the Ethereum Foundation (EF), once named the richest blockchain company, is poised to be a leader in new waves of blockchain innovation. The EF is committed to funding blockchain-related initiatives across to a diverse range of organizations from universities to  Hackternships. “It is our natural desire to bring in talented researchers, and universities are looking for new and interesting topics to research in both computer sciences and in economics,” says Miyaguchi. A leading player in blockchain innovations at universities, EF is a major grant maker to Stanford University. The university is currently the considered number one for studying blockchain according to CoinDesk and to Coinbase, which calls Stanford “the epicenter of crypto courses.”  

Simultaneous to the Ethereum Foundation’s donations, Ripple has committed $50 million over a period of five years to 17 universities through its University Blockchain Research Initiative (UBRI). Recipients of funding include MIT and Princeton. Eric Van Miltenburg, Ripple's SVP of Global Operations at Ripple UBRI believes that these partnerships only have upside. “We're a little biased; Ripple certainly would benefit from [research on the potential of blockchain], but primarily as a philanthropic endeavor.” Alex Bouaziz, CEO and co-founder of SciDex protocol and an MIT alumnus who conducted blockchain research while enrolled at MIT, likewise believes that university partnerships with companies produce a positive mutual benefit and will “lead to the development of exciting new advancements."

Even though both the Ethereum Foundation and Ripple have committed at least $70 million, there is a loose agenda for how universities will spend this money. Lacking one specific objective for the donations, Miyaguchi says that implementation is “rather flexible” and Miltenburg says that there’s “no prescriptive” way for universities to use the funds.

As these partnerships become increasingly popular, it is important to assess the progress of how they are working for both companies and universities. Andrew Moore, Dean of Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science tells the Computing Research Association, “Like any relationship, industry-academia partnerships do best when each member understands the other’s needs...and exactly what it takes to fulfill them.” The “sweet spot” of university-industry partnerships is where “the company, faculty, and students can explore areas that are high risk but might prove important in the future.” View More