Blockchain Impact Lab Launched in Hyderabad-Based Indian School of Business: Details

A dedicated impact lab aimed at developing and working around blockchain technology has been set up at the Hyderabad campus of the Indian School of Business (ISB), complete with an Ethereum virtual machine, Hyperledger Fabric, and support for multi-chain ecosystems — making for an adequate space for testing blockchain-based protocols and solutions. The launch of this facility comes at a time when international blockchain firms are turning to India, seeking developers and technologically advanced engineers.

ISB's Blockchain Impact Lab will operate as a physical facility, as well as a virtual establishment to ensure that it can benefit developers outside ISB as well.

Training sessions around blockchain uses will also be provided via this lab to benefit developers.

DLabs, which was set up within the ISB campus last year to incubate potential start-ups, has teamed up with S&P Global, an intelligence and tech firm, to back up the Blockchain Impact Lab.

“We are providing a platform for students, faculty, start-ups and upcoming entrepreneurs to create a significant societal impact,” Nilam Patel, Managing Director - India Operations, S&P Global India, said in a prepared statement.

India, that has the largest and the youngest population in the world, is known to produce skilled engineers. The government of India has been putting a lot of focus on supporting up-and-coming startups in the nation and blockchain is a new technology that has triggered an interest in India.

In January this year, government-backed think tank NITI Aayog launched a blockchain module to help local developers explore the potential of the sector with experimental use-cases, trials, and possible errors. The move backed Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's repeated statements over India's inclination to explore cryptocurrencies' underlying blockchain tech to its potential, despite scepticism towards cryptocurrencies in general.

Blockchain protocols from different parts of the world have shown an inclination towards onboading Indian engineers to their teams, the most recent being Algorand.