PhD Course - European Blockchain Center Summer School 2019

Website: www.blockchainschool.eu 

Organizer(s): Roman Beck (ITU), Peter Sestoft (ITU)

Lecturer(s): Roman Beck (ITU), Peter Sestoft (ITU), Michel Avital (CBS), Fritz Henglein (KU), Boris Düder (KU), Omri Ross (KU)

Date(s) of the course: Monday, August 12^th to Thursday, August 16^th, 2019

Time: 09:00 to 17:00 on Monday to Thursday

Room preferences: TBA

Course description:
While blockchain-based applications such as Bitcoin are still in their infancy, a dramatic increase in industrial and academic interest in blockchain technology is evident. In addition, start-ups, as well as industry initiatives, are presently working intensely on blockchain-based innovations, making the technology one of the most promising drivers of innovation in many sectors and industries. However, the design and implementation of blockchain-based systems requires know-how in several areas, as well as mindful consideration of larger economic and societal issues. These objectives provide the starting point for this summer school.

In this fourth blockchain summer school organized by the European Blockchain Center, this course/summer school will focus on educating students in blockchain technology to develop solutions within different industries. The participants will learn how blockchain technology is disrupting existing business models and will gain insights in paradigmatic changes occurring from economic, organisational and computer science viewpoints. As a result, the participants will be able to develop their own, new value creating information systems, designed as decentralized autonomous systems. As learning outcomes, the participants will be submerged into computer science, information systems, and business knowledge background in order to analyse existing business processes and their potential to convert them into blockchain-based solutions. In so doing, they will be able to co-create new blockchain-based cryptographic economic systems.

Within the summer school, participants will learn how to set up a development environment and how to work with proven platforms such as Ethereum, NEO, and others. They will be able to design and implement their own smart contracts and will code their own Dapps (decentralized apps). Once basic blockchain elements have been introduced, participants will work on their own blockchain development projects, supported by the participating industry partners. The outcomes will be functioning demonstrators as well as a written documentation and reports that illustrate the business process or transaction realized in a blockchain implementation and how, in so doing, a real-world challenge is addressed.

In contrast to the three successful Blockchain Summer Schools in 2016 to 2018, this year we will lift it to the next level by establishing three parallel tracks on Wednesday and Thursday:

1. Track one will be the continuation the successful format from previous years, where students will work together with case organisations from industry and public sector on developing blockchain prototypes in a hackathon.
2. Track two will offer the opportunity for students with prior experience around blockchain prototyping to work with organisations which have already prototypes developed. The intention in this hackathon is to further improve demonstrators, or design them anew, to meet the more advanced requirements and level of know-how among participating students as well as organisations.
3. Track three is the protocol track where technical issues in existing Blockchain / DLT systems are discussed and potential solutions are developed. This is a makerthon, where not necessarily code is written, but where potential solutions are developed conceptually.

All students will be encouraged to further improve their work in form of academic papers. We will work on special issues and fast track options in leading journals to allow teams who would like to publish their results in academic outlets can submit their work.

Programme:

Prerequisites: Students interested in participating in the summer school must be enrolled as PhD or master students in a computer science, information systems, engineering or other cognate programs at a university. At least introductory programming experience is a requirement for track 1. Advanced experience is required in track 2, while in track 3 a degree and research in computer science and blockchain is required.

Applicants must submit a CV, a motivation letter (1 page), as well as a proposal (specification or idea) of a blockchain-based application they wish to work on or would like to extend during participation in the summer school. The proposal should be 2 pages at maximum.

As part of the admission process, the organizers will assess the quality of the submitted application material before finally accepting the participants. We encourage students to apply as a team and will prioritize proposals submitted by teams. Accepted summer school participants must make themselves familiar with the teaching material made available before the summer school starts.

Exam: Participants will present their blockchain solutions at the end of the summer school and defend these. In addition, they will produce 15 pages of report after the summer school and/or write a paper that is to be submitted to an academic outlet, such as conference or journal, coached by the PhD Summer School organisers. The presentation, report as well as the working paper are mandatory deliverables and after they have been assessed at a satisfactory level, the ECTS points will be granted and a certificate issued.

Independently, all participants will receive a certificate that they participate in the summer school

Credits: 5 ECTS points

Amount of hours the student is expected to use on the course:

Participation: 48 hours (4 days 8 hour each and 16h hackathon at one day)

Preparation: 36 hours (proposal writing, self-study and preparation of mandatory material)

Post-processing: 60 hours (finalizing the 15 pages report on the developed blockchain solution and writing a paper)

Required Readings: 
Antonopoulos, A. M. (2014). Mastering Bitcoin: unlocking digital cryptocurrencies. " O'Reilly Media,
Inc.". (first 2 chapters)
Antonopoulos, A. M., & Wood, G. (2018). Mastering ethereum: building smart contracts and dapps.
O'Reilly Media. (first 2 chapters)
Bano, S., Sonnino, A., Al-Bassam, M., Azouvi, S., McCorry, P., Meiklejohn, S., & Danezis, G. (2017).
Consensus in the age of blockchains. London: University College London and The Alan Turing
Institute.
Croman, K., Decker, C., Eyal, I., Gencer, A. E., Juels, A., Kosba, A., Miller, A., Saxena, P., Shi, E., Sirer,
E. G., Song, D., & Wattenhofer, R. (2016). On scaling decentralized blockchains. In
International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security (pp. 106-125). Christ
Church, Barbados: Springer.
Gervais, A., Karame, G. O., Wüst, K., Glykantzis, V., Ritzdorf, H., & Capkun, S. (2016). On the security
and performance of proof of work blockchains. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM SIGSAC
conference on computer and communications security (pp. 3-16). Vienna, Austria: ACM.
Meiklejohn, S., Pomarole, M., Jordan, G., Levchenko, K., McCoy, D., Voelker, G. M., & Savage, S.
(2013). A fistful of bitcoins: characterizing payments among men with no names. In
Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Internet measurement conference (pp. 127-140).
Barcelona, Spain: ACM.

How to sign up: Please see: https://blockchainschool.eu/how-to-apply/