BTA @ SXSW

For ten days every year, Austin, Texas is home to hundreds of thousands of visitors in pursuit of art, music, gaming, innovation, tech, food, film...and blockchain! This year, day 6 of the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference included a track dedicated to exploring the future of blockchain. BTA Co-founder Tomicah Tillemann and Executive Director, Allison Price as well as Chris Doten, Chief Innovation Officer at the National Democratic Institute, and Rachel Pipan, Senior Communications Manager at the Bitfury Group presented “Trust Crisis: The Need for Blockchain."

The BTA has been exploring the potential for blockchain to enhance trust in a time of serious distrust in global institutions. Possibly one of the most significant innovations of our time, blockchain provides a mechanism to verify information and solidify human cooperation. Our panel sought to explore the various examples that we have seen or are seeing where blockchain is being harnessed for social impact.  

Around the framework of various global crises, the team lead a spirited conversation with the audience of tech enthusiasts that covered a wide range of issues. From human rights and labor issues to conservation efforts, natural disaster recovery, land management and property rights, democracy and governance, and health care management and the opioid crisis, the discussion crisscrossed the world to highlight solutions currently being piloted or pursued to meet a large array of growing challenges. At the center of each issue is the fact that blockchain provides a transparent and secure means of tracking information - a supply chain of information of sorts - information that we believe could restore trust in many of our institutions.

Our slides from the presentation are included below. We would like to thank SXSW for hosting us for our second time and we hope to continue this important discussion on how we can use blockchain for social impact.