Smart Contracts: Blueprint for Sustainable Development Goals?
SmartContracts are blockchain-based solutions first applied on Bitcoin’s virtual currency. The blockchain is a Distributed Ledger Technology in which operations are no longer handled or stored by a central location, instead of in the database located in each of the participant’s computers and managed automatically in a decentralized manner in real-time. The Blockchain not only creates high data security, but eliminates the intermediaries such as banks, notaries, trustees, business intermediaries, and so on. With SmartContract, complex transactions can be processed: contracting, contract processing, government and court inputs, and those complete automated. The blockchain technology will support the achievement of the sustainable development goals, the SDGs immense. The UN applies the blockchain technology as one of the tools to generate “smart contracts” to accelerate the creation of Public Partnerships (SDG 17) and for the achievement of SDG 16 by focussing on a variety of areas related to transparent government and fair justice systems.
To see the blockchain in action, access www.bluehorizon.network. It is a project of IBM Blue Horizon, a platform, applying the blockchain technology to sensor the air quality worldwide in cooperation with PurpleAir.org (http://www.purpleair.org/) and private participants using the Raspberry PI, a minimal computer, 5 cm × 12 cm small, with appropriate sensors.
Roland Leithenmayr, VfV
NGO Committee on Sustainable Development Vienna 