Blockchain & Engineering

The international engineering profession itself is a good application for distributed ledger technologies (DLT) like blockchain which could ultimately help quantify the societal value of the engineering profession, as exemplified by the emergence of cryptographic tokens of value like Quant (generated by a series of claims and verifications submitted by engineers in a delegated proof-of-stake algorithm vs Bitcoins proof-of-work) and CoEngineers.io which claims to be the "First Blockchain Developed by Engineers for Engineers" and seeks to create a shared ledger of integrated engineering knowledge embodied in a global network of engineers from the infrastructure, energy, transportation, and construction industries. Use cases include the secure dispatch of credentials, transaction records, digital modeling, and the “verification of physical state” in support of, among others, novel financial and insurance products, IoT, AI, AV and applicable smart contracts. Use cases also include adjudicating contracts, analytics, as well as mitigating insurance and financial risk.  The CoEngineers.io platform contemplates using complex multi-agent game mechanics to distribute two cryptographic value-tokens which represent quantity and quality of engineering claims, thus promoting collaboration, validation, and fault tolerance, while thwarting trivial or malicious claims. The underlying concept is that engineering projects require separation of responsibility and chronological verification and that practice of engineering can be modeled as a “chain of interdependent blocks” resulting in complex structures, processes, or project delivery systems.  Think of a distributed ledger as a shared ledger where a consensus of replicated, shared, and synchronized digital data is geographically spread across multiple sites, countries, or institutions in a decentralized manner.

Two interesting and thoughtful papers on this subject are:

1. Blockchain Technology: Implications and Opportunities For Professional Engineers  - National Society of Professional Engineers; 2015-2016 FinTech Task Force; July 2016 Daniel R. Robles, P.E., Chairman Keith Beatty, P.E. William Begg, P.E. John Conway, P.E. David D’Amico, P.E., F.NSPE Mark Davy, P.E., F.NSPE, Rick Ensz, P.E. John Evangelisti, P.E. Bart Hogan, P.E. Bradley Layton, Ph.D., P.E. Tom Maheady, P.E., F.NSPE Robert Uddin, P.E. Chad Williams, P.E.

• The Revolutionary Blockchain – An Opportunity for Engineering Stewardship American Society of Civil Engineers Grand Challenge Contest Winner; Best Value – IoT, June 2017, Daniel R. Robles , P.E. and Matthew E. Bowers , P.E. ASCE Presentation Video 

Also of interested is the Alan Turing Institute and Lloyd’s Register Foundation recently published report which identifies significant potential for engineers to use distributed ledger/blockchain technology.

The international engineering profession itself is a good application for distributed ledger technologies (DLT) like blockchain which could ultimately help quantify the societal value of the engineering profession, as exemplified by the emergence of cryptographic tokens of value like Quant (generated by a series of claims and verifications submitted by engineers in a delegated proof-of-stake algorithm vs Bitcoins proof-of-work) and CoEngineers.io which claims to be the "First Blockchain Developed by Engineers for Engineers" and seeks to create a shared ledger of integrated engineering knowledge embodied in a global network of engineers from the infrastructure, energy, transportation, and construction industries. Use cases include the secure dispatch of credentials, transaction records, digital modeling, and the “verification of physical state” in support of, among others, novel financial and insurance products, IoT, AI, AV and applicable smart contracts. Use cases also include adjudicating contracts, analytics, as well as mitigating insurance and financial risk.  The CoEngineers.io platform contemplates using complex multi-agent game mechanics to distribute two cryptographic value-tokens which represent quantity and quality of engineering claims, thus promoting collaboration, validation, and fault tolerance, while thwarting trivial or malicious claims. The underlying concept is that engineering projects require separation of responsibility and chronological verification and that practice of engineering can be modeled as a “chain of interdependent blocks” resulting in complex structures, processes, or project delivery systems.  Think of a distributed ledger as a shared ledger where a consensus of replicated, shared, and synchronized digital data is geographically spread across multiple sites, countries, or institutions in a decentralized manner.

Two interesting and thoughtful papers on this subject are:

1. Blockchain Technology: Implications and Opportunities For Professional Engineers  - National Society of Professional Engineers; 2015-2016 FinTech Task Force; July 2016 Daniel R. Robles, P.E., Chairman Keith Beatty, P.E. William Begg, P.E. John Conway, P.E. David D’Amico, P.E., F.NSPE Mark Davy, P.E., F.NSPE, Rick Ensz, P.E. John Evangelisti, P.E. Bart Hogan, P.E. Bradley Layton, Ph.D., P.E. Tom Maheady, P.E., F.NSPE Robert Uddin, P.E. Chad Williams, P.E.

• The Revolutionary Blockchain – An Opportunity for Engineering Stewardship American Society of Civil Engineers Grand Challenge Contest Winner; Best Value – IoT, June 2017, Daniel R. Robles , P.E. and Matthew E. Bowers , P.E. ASCE Presentation Video 

Also of interested is the Alan Turing Institute and Lloyd’s Register Foundation recently published report which identifies significant potential for engineers to use distributed ledger/blockchain technology.