Blockchain 101 – What It Is and Why It Is Important

Nov 10, 2020 | Blockchain, Fall Meeting 2020 Videos

By Sharon Lo Managing Editor, Defense Transportation Journal and The Source

The NDTA-USTRANSCOM Fall Meeting Virtual took place October 5-8, 2020. The event brought together more than 1,500 attendees from government, military, and industry to learn and collaborate. The theme for the meeting was Innovative and Disruptive…2020 Vision for the Future.

In conjunction with the Fall Meeting, NDTA and USTRANCOM held Transportation Academy, which consisted of 80 educational classes covering ten topic tracks. Fittingly, the Blockchain track kicked off with the course Blockchain 101 – What It Is and Why It’s Important to Your Business Processes. Venkat Kodumudi, Director, Consulting, CGI USA, and Hudson Sutherland, Director, Consulting Expert, CGI Federal Defense programs were the instructors. The class explored Blockchain’s fundamentals, including what Blockchain is and how it works; technology, organizational, solution, and information considerations; and governance.

Kodumudi views Blockchain as a technology that allows you to both share the data and the operations on the data together as one entity. Blockchain uses distributed ledger technology, which decentralizes the storage of data and spreads it across multiple organizations. It makes sensitive data more secure because to be effective, a cyber-attack would have to target what could potentially be millions of computers. In addition to improving cybersecurity, Blockchain also enables collaboration and accessibility between partners.

Blockchain has many benefits:

  • Increased trust among all parties
  • Reduction in risk due to validation by third party participant
  • Decentralization of ownership across the network
  • Single source of truth for all stakeholders in the network chain
  • Immutable, therefore less susceptible to fraud
  • Reduction in auditing needs
  • Cost savings as there is no need for a trusted intermediary
  • Accurate, timely, verified compliance

While Blockchain is best known as a conduit for cryptocurrencies, it is used in a variety of industries such as data security, supply chain, complex lending, healthcare, international trade, and energy management. It also integrates with and enables several emerging technologies, including Artificial Intelligence, robotics, Internet of Things sensors, video devices, distributed ledger technology, and fog/edge computing.

A single block in the chain contains the private key and public key combination of the block’s owner or creator, the digital asset, the timestamp of when it was created, and the previous hash. The chain is a series of blocks tied together through that previous hash that adds over time. Existing blocks cannot be changed. If one block is modified, it will invalidate the entire chain.

When Blockchain first came out, people thought it could apply to nearly any use case. But that is not the case according to Sutherland, who said should have a network that is semi-trusted and that the use of Blockchain makes sense for that situation. The presentation was peppered with realistic or real-world examples to show how Blockchain can and should be utilized.

This class was the first installment of a three-part Blockchain discussion. A technical deep dive class and a hands-on, interactive lab that stepped through the construction of a Blockchain network completed the series.

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