The initiative was born thanks to the agreements that exist between the international virtual platform of Stanford University, Coursera, and the Austral University of Argentina, to develop courses in Spanish open to the entire student community. In this way, Federico Ast proposed the constitution of a virtual classroom that would allow the discussion on distributed accounting technologies, this being a topic with a large audience and very little high quality academic material in Spanish.
Universidad Austral has an agreement with Coursera for the development of courses in Spanish. As there is a huge interest from the public to learn about blockchain, with authorities from the Austral, it occurred to us to present to Coursera the proposal of the course "The Blockchain Disruption". The idea loved it.
The economist stressed that "The Blockchain disruption" was a project that was developed extensively in 2017, year where he worked in the production and filming of each of the classes of the course. This initiative was dedicated exclusively to distributed accounting technologies and their multiple applications, being a deepening on the practical and theoretical aspects of DLT solutions.
Many people already know bitcoin and are familiar with cryptocurrencies. But few have a broad view of the blockchain as a technology of multiple uses, with a disruptive impact on many industries in the coming years. The course aims precisely at offering a broad vision on technology and its impact on finances, laws, governments, and the construction of a decentralized Internet.
The educational program does not need prior training. Also, it is not a technical course, so students will not be taught about programming distributed accounting networks, nor about the creation of applications that work with DLT. In the words of Federico Ast, the only thing the student needs is "an open mentality that many of the social institutions that we have always taken for granted are about to be radically transformed".
The philosopher pointed out that some issues to be discussed are the creation of a first purse address and the purchase of the first bitcoin fraction, as well as other more complex operations within the wallets. Similarly, the course will be dedicated to analyzing the value of cryptoactive for investment, the impact of these tools on finance, smart contracts, DLT in the public sector, the potential of blockchain to transform current business models, the discussions about the scalability of these networks and the collective financing with the ICO.
The course still does not have an exact date of emission, but all the preparations point to that it will be transmitted in the first months of the year 2018: "Although the final date is not yet defined, it would be launched at the beginning of March," said the philosopher. Also, the course has no registration limit and those interested can register directly from a form with their basic information.
Federico Ast notes that the need to educate people about what distributed accounting technologies really are and how they can benefit the economy, society and politics of a country is becoming more and more imperative, a reality that many are unaware of.
The economist points out that, for the moment, blockchain solutions are well known for their link with cryptocurrencies and financial applications. Two realities that have motivated a large number of people to ask themselves what these technological tools are about and to get involved with them.
In general, people link to blockchain through cryptocurrencies. The first thing is financial applications. Is that everyone has a friend who invests in crypto and that generates curiosity. So the first thing they ask me is: what currency do I buy? Will it go up or will it go down?
However, Ast wants to go beyond finance and teach the community all the options offered by DLT for the various national and international industries: "Cryptocurrencies are just the tip of the iceberg. From a broader perspective, blockchain is a technology that will democratize access to finance, laws and government. Even, it will transform the operation of the Internet itself, "he said.
