August 7, 2024
Jackson College is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a $349,846 National Science Foundation Advanced Technology Education (ATE) grant! This three-year grant will fund the College’s new blockchain curriculum and education program.
Jackson will be the first college in the region to offer accredited, financial aid-eligible blockchain courses and degrees. The college will develop innovative curriculum aligned with industry standards and trends, recruit and retain students interested in blockchain technology, and provide professional development for faculty and community members.
“We are thrilled to receive Jackson College’s first National Science Foundation grant. Few community colleges receive NSF awards; this is a historic moment,” said Jackson College President and CEO Daniel J. Phelan. “Developing a blockchain program on campus will ultimately help our students in this growing decentralized network sector. We look forward to being at the forefront of this emerging field.”
Professors Angela Fonseca and Dianne Hill, from JC’s Department of Computing and Information Services, wrote the grant proposal with support from many departments across the College. They began planning with guidance from FORCCE-ATE, FORTifying Cybersecurity and Computing through ATE Grants. Through the process of learning the technology, both professors earned the Blockchain Essentials certification from Cornell University.
What is Blockchain
A blockchain is a new type of database that is shared between multiple computers. It is owned by peers and peer-reviewed for accuracy, with public and private keys provided for access. Once something is added to the chain, it is very difficult to change. It was originally created for Bitcoin and is often linked to cryptocurrencies, but it has many other uses. Blockchain is a powerful network where people can share and track things like orders, payments, and medical records. It is secure, reliable, and cannot be easily changed. More and more people around the world are starting to use blockchain, and its use is expected to grow significantly in the coming years, in areas such as energy, healthcare, manufacturing, and more.
“We are in the very early stages of blockchain in this country and around the world. The adoption of blockchain rivals the growth of the internet,” Fonseca said. “It’s a disruptive technology, just like how the internet has changed the way we do business, blockchain has a similar impact.”
For example, MIT pioneered the use of blockchain for student credentials in 2017, offering “digital diplomas” that are verifiable, tamper-proof, and verifiable by employers and other schools. Other universities have followed suit, including ECPI University and the University of North Texas. The state of Illinois created the Illinois Blockchain Initiative, which stores birth certificates and social service records, and other states are following suit. Blockchain has important uses in many industries. Amazon Managed Blockchain supports supply chain management. Walmart Food Traceability Initiative uses blockchain in the food supply chain to track product provenance and delivery, which is important for safety recalls. Deloitte’s Blockchain in Commercial Real Estate records titles and deeds for commercial and residential real estate sales. Blockchain applications continue to grow.
Next steps
With this three-year grant, the academic program will be launched by the third year, in 2027. In the meantime, faculty will be diligently preparing to make it ready.
“There is a lot of work to be done to develop a curriculum that supports our field. We will look for industrial partners interested in blockchain implementation and we will develop a curriculum to best support them. We will then be able to provide them with technicians who can help them with the implementation and ongoing management of blockchain,” Fonseca said.
The ATE program focuses on training technicians who work in high-technology fields that drive the national economy. Because two-year community and technical colleges are the primary sources of technician training in the United States, faculty at these institutions of higher education have played a leading role in most ATE projects since the program began in 1993.
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This work is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number 2349967. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
