Every day we hear about new use case for blockchain technology. Joining that picture is the port of Rotterdam, which happens to be Europe’s busiest port by cargo tonnage.
Together with the Municipality of Rotterdam, the Port of Rotterdam Authority is launching a field lab for the development of “concrete applications and solutions” based on blockchain technology. Called BlockLab, the initiative is also supported by the regional development corporation InnovationQuarter.
“There’s this huge buzz about ‘blockchain’, but actually, there aren’t that many fully functional applications,” Maarten Struijvenberg, Rotterdam’s Deputy Mayor for Economic Affairs, said in a statement. “We’ll be changing this with BlockLab. This is important, because we need real innovations to launch the next economy. And blockchain can help us realize them.”
One of the main premises of blockchain is that it enables transactions without intermediaries, with the technology guaranteeing the necessary checks and balances. For example, blockchain allows users to set up a finely meshed decentralized power network, in which companies can trade residual heat and city dwellers can trade electricity. This gives new impetus to the energy transition in the port and the city.
Port Authority President and CEO Allard Castelein thinks of other blockchain applications as well, which — he argues — can be realized within logistics chains, allowing the port to organize cargo flows more efficiently. “This step is seamlessly in line with our ‘smartest port’ ambitions,” he said.
One of BlockLab’s first concrete projects will be a blockchain application for stock financing in the port logistics sector, which was developed in partnership with Exact and ABN AMRO. In addition, it will be announced which innovation partners have been awarded funding for the development of blockchain applications for the energy sector.
The BlockLab will be starting with a core team of five, who work from the Cambridge Innovation Center in Rotterdam. In the field lab, theoretical blockchain ideas are developed, tested and worked out into concrete opportunities in a real-world environment, together with consortia of developers and users. Furthermore, the lab will serve as a knowledge centre for the regional private sector. The team will be working together with Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences to develop a curriculum intended to marshal the influx of new blockchain researchers…