The Royal Institute of Technology of Melbourne (RMIT) announced on Tuesday its first course on blockchain technology, which will be delivered online and will last for eight weeks.
Spokespersons of this Australian public university cited the disruption of distributed accounting technology and its great potential as motivations to offer the first formal online course, which they have called "Blockchain strategy development".
The initial level course in the blockchain technology, which will begin on March 19, has a cost of 1,300 Australian dollars (1,024 US $). The RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub, other industry experts such as the Asian FinTech Stone & Chalk and the service company Accenture were involved in the design of their curriculum.
A dedication to the course of about 50 hours is expected, between 5 and 7.5 hours for each of the 8 weeks, explained the RMTI in the motivations that gave rise to the course.
Taking into account that blockchain development is the second most required skill in the job market, students will have the opportunity of experience according to their requirements, including a strategic understanding of blockchain and how to apply it to their industry and business.
Melbourne Royal Institute of Technology (RMIT)
During the development of the course, the RMTI points out, topics such as the conceptualization of blockchain technology and its impact on society, cases of use in different types of industries, blockchain value proposals, strategic frameworks to apply blockchain to specific businesses and a deeper technical understanding of the applications that can be deployed on the platform. The CEO of RMIT Online, Helen Souness, argues that blockchain will play a critical role in the future of business, with applications already deployed in finance, government, energy and the health sector.
In addition to online courses, in the MOOC modality, such as the one offered by Coursera, there is a history of universities that have recently started blockchain courses, including the University of Illinois in the United States and the University of Carabobo in Venezuela.
The demand for applications of blockchain technology, both in the field where it started, finance, and in the rest of the sectors, generates a great demand for trained professionals, while the supply of these is reduced. Professor Andrew Miller, from the University of Illinois, told CriptoNoticias, that for every 10 blockchain specialists required in different industries, there is only one trained. There is a lot of self-learning, because it is an open source technology, and universities have begun to fill that gap.