NEW YORK, Nov. 2, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Blocktech, the New York-based blockchain technologies company, is partnering with Taibah Valley to launch the Blockchain Lab at Taibah University in Madinah, Saudi Arabia. Directed by internationally recognized artificial intelligence expert, Professor Walaa Alharthi, it will be the kingdom’s first research and development lab dedicated to blockchain technologies.

Dr. Alharthi and several colleagues traveled to Blocktech’s New York headquarters this past summer to train alongside its CEO and founder, renowned blockchain expert, Nick Spanos, who guided her team in an intensive study of cutting edge blockchain development, specifically smart contracts, oracles, curation markets, and Zap bonding curves— all crucial to launching the lab.

“Mr. Spanos gave a keynote address at Taibah University earlier this year that opened our eyes to the immediate relevance and importance of blockchain,” explained Dr. Alharthi. “Our team was honored to be invited to New York to train with an original pioneer of this technology. We are excited to share what we learned with our students while using the vast applications of blockchain technologies to serve the entire region.”

The Blockchain Lab will operate in conjunction with the Taibah University Faculties of Computer Science, Law and Business with the goal of catalyzing blockchain adoption in the Middle East. Advanced programming and smart contract development will be used to solve pressing national and regional problems in the fields of finance, oil and gas, and supply chain management, among other industries.

“Decentralized blockchain technologies are disrupting every industry. We work with companies and institutions of all sizes and with all levels of blockchain literacy to create new solutions,” explained Mr. Spanos, who also founded the Bitcoin Center in New York City in 2013. “Dr. Alharthi is a trail blazer in her own right. We look forward to working with her so the lab can play a pivotal role in the nascent blockchain ecosystem in the Middle East.”

Blockchain labs are a relatively new phenomenon, with top institutes of higher education recognizing their necessity over the past few years. Taibah Valley’s Blockchain Lab will initially focus on bonding curves for tokenized services, curation markets for data integrity, and the Zap Oracle Platform which was also created by Spanos.

“The team at Blocktech is the original and foremost authority in a plethora of blockchain verticals and as such we knew any lab we created would need their involvement,” said Kumail Akbari, blockchain instructor to Taibah Valley.  “Taibah Valley invests in innovations with clear economic value. At this point, anyone who doesn’t see the enormous potential of blockchain is at risk of being left behind in obscurity.”

Taibah Valley is the investment arm of Taibah University run by CEO Dr. Abdulrahman Alolayan. Taibah University is a public university founded in 2003.  Nearly 70,000 students are currently enrolled in programs across wide-ranging disciplines. The Blockchain Lab and its underlying partnerships align with the university’s goal of meeting market and national developmental needs of high qualified graduates to allow them to effectively compete in today’s knowledge economy and globalized world.

About Blocktech

Blocktech is an international blockchain venture studio guided by the leadership of Nick Spanos. Our origins date to the founding of the Bitcoin Center in New York City, the world’s first live cryptocurrency exchange, located right next to the New York Stock Exchange. At the Bitcoin Center, we have taught thousands of students, journalists, technologists, and finance professionals about cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, Now, through the development of our own projects and technology platforms, we are expanding and pioneering permissionless blockchain innovation all around the world.

Find out more at blocktech.com.

About ZAP

Zap is an oracle curation platform monetized by the ZAP utility token, an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token that powers an oracle marketplace for smart contracts. The platform’s mission is to foster the creation of a standardized and self-sustained platform-agnostic smart contract data layer enhanced by the world’s best open marketplace for oracles, which connect real-world data to the blockchain, dramatically lowering barriers to entry into the multi-billion dollar alternative data industry and the smart contract ecosystem. The Zap project is managed and directed by the Synapse Foundation, whose mission is to oversee development, increase community engagement, and sponsor participation within the Zap ecosystem.

Find out more at zap.org.

Media Contact: Hamdan Azhar
+1-814-880-3988, hamdan@blocktech.com 

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SOURCE Blocktech