The team from the IC3RE and Digital Catapult ran a policy hack day for government officials on 26th April.

The team from IC3RE and Digital Catapult ran a policy hack day for government representatives on the 26th April in order to help government officials identify possible applications of blockchain technology in public service delivery.

The event was well-attended with a large number of representatives from policy, academia and government and there were in-depth discussions around how and when blockchain could be applied in a broad variety of use cases for government.

Several student projects were also showcased at the event including Jack Thorp's (MEng 4th year) "Go-Op" project, which uses smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain for the automatic creation of co-operatives and Alan Vey's (MEng 4th year) project that investigates how independent film makers can apply blockchain technologies for distribution of films. The group project of MSc (Computing Science) students Adrien Boukobza, Anne Mottram Aubrianna Zhu, Jack Bridger, Miguel Cansado Carvalho, Pierre Eugene Valassakis on the applicaiton of smart contracts in Local Authorities was also well-received.

In his keynote address, the Rt Hon Matt Hancock reinforced the importance of digital technologies not just for digitising exisiting processes but also for transforming the manner in which government services are delivered for the benefit of citizens.

Liam Maxwell, CTO for HMG, presented the outcomes of the policy hack session which covered a broad array of possible applications for Distributed Ledger Technologies in government from identity management, automating contracts in local authorities, tracking provenance in food supply chains and even a blockchain-based DVLA.