The ‘Blockchain Week NYC’ has kicked-off yesterday on Monday, May 11, and a lot of blockchain events have been scheduled to take place in the global financial capital of New York. The state of New York has successfully managed to garner all the attention from the tech giants working in the blockchain space and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) is seen taking crucial initiatives that could help the city to spearhead establishing itself as the blockchain technology hub.
In order to bring the industry stakeholders together and to promote the public awareness, the city has floated an initiative of developing a “Blockchain Center”. However, one area where there is a big focus from the big industry players is the clarity in the regulatory air surrounding the crypto space.
The NYCEDC is also seen working for several blockchain solutions for the city’s administrative services and development. For e.g. over the last weekend, NYCEDC in collaboration with non-profit organization GrowNYC and CoinDesk has sponsored a hackathon at TimeSquare where developers were invited to work on innovative new ways in order to improve the efficiency and operations of the food supply for farmer markets, using the blockchain technology.
Moreover, ahead this year, the NYCEDC will be conducting a competition for generating new innovative ideas with blockchain implementation that enhances the services of the city’s municipal corporation. For all the participants of the contest, NYCEDC will be issuing a request for proposals (RFP).
Vice President of the NYCEDC – Karen Bhatia – said that the major focus for potential blockchain applications will be along the fields of media, finance, healthcare and real estate. In a word with CoinDesk, Bhatia said: “We’ve been looking into blockchain for probably close to a year now. We’ve been monitoring it”
She further added: “We saw an opportunity to be at the forefront of experimentation in blockchain as sustaining more of a foothold.”
For the establishment of the Blockchain Center, the NYCEDC will be getting an initial funding of $100,000 in the first year which will include pilot testing of blockchain solutions across the sectors and understand the improvements going forward. Bhatia said that private players will be sourcing the additional funding as per the requirement. Bhatia said that “Funding is not really the biggest issue when it comes to the blockchain.”
The Blockchain Center will be having a full-time staff while NYCEDC is still said to be exploring other possibilities at the moment. Bhatia said: “The goal of this is to be a community center where people can walk in and learn more about what blockchain is, both the public as well as people who are working on new ventures and want some sort of a roadmap for how they should proceed.”
Moreover, the center will also hold important discussions between the big players of the industry with one of their goals is getting regulators and entrepreneurs on the same platform. Bhatia said that we will “sit down and have a real discussion about how these regulations are affecting innovation and entrepreneurship in New York City.”
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