Blockchain University Teaches “Bleeding Edge Content”

At a startup incubator home to several of Silicon Valley’s blockchain companies, Consensus HQ – Mountain View California, BlockchainU’s Cohort #2 had its first session yesterday morning. In a room filled with hungry and passionate entrepreneurs some students want to study bitcoin, while others want to look into more abstract concepts like decentralized applications. Blockchain University facilitates multiple modes of learning with a semi structured curriculum and diverse instructor pool.

“Blockchain University instructors are teaching ‘bleeding edge’ content.”
— – Robert Schwentker, President of Blockchain University

The Blockchain University team is made up of Robert Schwentker, Atif Nazir, Tom Ding, Srinivasan Sriram, and Christian Peel, prominent members of the bitcoin industry, and bitcoin entrepeneurs in their own right. President of Blockchain University Robert Schwentker made time to discuss the project with BNC:

“I love working with developers and startups; educating them on new technologies, to foster new networks of technologists and to provide an ecosystem for innovation. This not just a blockchain educational class, but also a kind-of pre-incubator for startups.”
— – Schwentker

Blockchain Universities first class of 40 students, Cohort #1, recently graduated. Students attending the course were provided with instruction from some of Bitcoins most recognized figures, with guest teachers such as Vitalik Buterin of Ethereum, Ryan X Charles of BitGo, Atif Nazir of Block.io, and Juan Benet of Inter Planetary File System.

“The student and instructor talent here in Silicon Valley is exceptional and absolutely inspirational.”
— – Schwentker

Cohort #1 was beneficial to both the students and the industry at large, resulting in three new decentralized projects. Microwork.io, a platform for contractual tasks using bitcoin and the blockchain, uses Ripple Lab’s Codius to implement smart contracts. Spritzle.io, a trading platform, is built on top of Ethereum and uses smart contracts to settle and facilitate trades. Forum rounds out the trio, a blockchain project where  ‘Yelp meets OpenTable’, combining reputation and merchant payments.

After the inaugural 6 week course a number of students were hired by crypto companies. Coin hired graduates, as did SkuChain – a company that applies blockchain technologies to supply chain management.

“Blockchain University’s curriculum is designed to include coders at all levels, as well as non technical persons. Some students are looking for jobs, some are looking to build out a startup idea, others are bringing new ideas & projects into enterprises in which they work.”
— – Schwentker

While hiring was mostly done by companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area, a Bitcoin technology hotspot, you do not need to be a local to participate in BlockchainU. During Cohort #1 there was a student who commuted from Arizona every week, while a student in Cohort#2 commutes from Los Angeles. The university also offers online communities, and videos of the  class sessions are uploaded to YouTube. The Blockchain University YouTube channel features classes taught by over ten notable industry contributors, as well as Cohort #1 project demos.

Cohort #2 includes a wide variety of students, ranging from software engineers to an employee of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank. The class also includes representatives of Stanford University, Silicon Valley Data Science, BitPay, Coinbase, and winners of the most recent Texas Bitcoin Hackathon.

Schwentker says that Cohort #2 will have a similar curriculum to Cohort #1, with improvements based on student feedback. The first half of the program is geared towards building bitcoin applications, and learning the intricacies of wallets , block explorers, and transactions. The second half focuses on learning about, and creating, decentralized applications.

Currently, you can attend the course locally in Mountain View, CA – or you can follow along virtually. Live tweets complement all the sessions, their videos are uploaded on YouTube a few days later, and class slides are on a subreddit.