India’s Leading IT Body Partners Canadian Blockchain Institute for Digital Economy Indian IT industry trade

body NASSCOM has partnered Canada’s Blockchain Research Institute (BRI) to fast-track the adoption and deployment of blockchain technology in India.

India’s National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) is collaborating with Canadian government-backed BRI to educate Indian organizations and government departments on blockchain technology as a part of a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the two entities. The two groups, according to Inc42, will co-invest in fosters skillsets among developers domestically to further blockchain adoption and deployment in the country. Further, the collaboration will also see case studies, joint webinars and other research sharing activities facilitated by the BRI.

The collaboration sees a 2-phase roadmap wherein Phase 1 will “create an awakening in India [to] showcase the power of Blockchain,” BRI co-founder Don Tapscott revealed. Phase 2 will involve the installation of a research institute to develop blockchain solutions in the country.

“We need to understand it’s not a plug and play we can do tomorrow but there is huge potential in developing this,” added NASSCOM chairman Raman Roy who underlined the collaboration as a means toward creating a “world-class sustainable blockchain ecosystem in India”, a move geared to enhance the industry body’s vision for a “digital economy.”

BRI co-founder Tapscott, who also serves as the think tank’s chairman, added:

“We strongly believe that India has the potential to lead the Blockchain revolution.”

NASSCOM’s foray into exploring blockchain technology began in 2017 with the installation of Blockchain SIG, a special interest group geared to educate and inform the public on the decentralized technology.

The group’s partnership with BRI comes within days of India’s prime minister, the highest-ranking public official from the world’s largest democracy and second most populous country, calling for the “rapid adoption” of blockchain technology in society. “Disruptive technologies such as Blockchain and the IOT will have a profound impact in the way we live and work,” prime minister Narendra Modi stated this month.