As part of its Fall 2018 calendar of events, the AUIS IT Department, in cooperation with the non-profit organization Re:Coded, hosted a seminar and a workshop on blockchain technology on October 30 and November 10, 2018, respectively. Ehsan Ibrahim, a blockchain specialist and trainer from Re:Coded led both the seminar and the workshop.
Ehsan provided an introduction to blockchain technology during the seminar, explaining key terms about the topic, and how it is used in the IT industry from a non-technical perspective. The workshop followed the seminar, in which Ibrahim delivered a more technical presentation on blockchain, with examples, hands-on practice, and coding. During the second part of the workshop, AUIS students in attendance were guided through a practical session with a virtual network called Ethereum using Ganache, then students uploaded their own code to the virtual blockchain.
Dr. Hemin Latif, Assistant Professor and Chair of the IT Department at AUIS stated, “Creating and maintaining an intellectual link between the IT faculty and the IT practitioners from the industry is vital to the success of education.”
“In a field such as IT, neither industry nor university alone can give the full breadth of the knowledge to the students,” Latif continue. After the workshop, student participant, Kamaran Ashraf said he anticipates this new technology will change the way people look at connections on the Internet. “The concern lies in saving milliseconds on transaction times and having reliable point-to-point security, essentially eliminating mediators,” he said.
The blockchain events were just one of several seminars and workshops arranged by the AUIS IT Department this semester as part of an effort to introduce students to trending topics in the tech world.