IOTA and the Department of Informatics at UiO, Norway’s Largest University, Join Forces to Research Digital Trust and the Tangle

The IOTA Tangle is a new open-source Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) protocol designed to serve as the backbone for the Internet of Things and the new data economy. As the technology matures towards production-readiness, the IOTA Foundation, the main engine behind the development of the Tangle, is scaling its cooperation with research institutes and academia. This ensures critical access to research capabilities and transparency towards public authorities and a growing business ecosystem interested in leveraging the Tangle for new products and services.

Over the past years, IOTA has been growing a research and innovation ecosystem in Norway. This resulted in a number of initiatives in the smart city and industrial IoT domains such as Positive City Exchange, Dig_IT, Future Farm demo, Sustainable Energy Traceability showcase. As Norway further accelerates its transition to a leading digital and sustainable nation, UiO’s Department of Informatics and the IOTA Foundation will cooperate in areas of Basic Research, Applied Research and Education.

The group of Distributed Infrastructures and Systems at the University of Oslo (UiO) has been a leading center in DLT-related research and education in Norway. In line with national prioritization on information security, the group has been conducting basic research in technologies underlying DLT for the last decade, combining it with applied research in popular DLT application domains.

The collaboration will initially focus on Decentralized Digital Identity and GDPR compliance of the IOTA stack and its use across multiple application domains. The research will cover:

Research collaboration toward building a technical solution to facilitate GDPR compliance for IOTA technologies in the context of a decentralized digital identity platform
Set up an IOTA DLT/Blockchain Lab at the UiO Department of Informatics

The Department of Informatics at UiO will also join the Tangle Enterprise Edition Working Group, a collaborative initiative hosted under the Eclipse Foundation. Digital Identity is one of the key focus areas where several enterprises, SMEs and academic institutions are cooperating to research, co-develop and ensure the market fit of IOTA’s digital ID stack for people, organizations and machines.

Wilfried Pimenta de Miranda, IOTA Foundation BD Director for the Nordics: “A new Data economy is in the making. Decentralized Digital Identity lies at the heart of many new opportunities within smart cities, eHealth and many human-centered and cross-silo innovations. We are delighted to welcome UiO in our research and innovation ecosystem and accelerate together the development and adoption of DLT for real-world applications.”

Roman Vitenberg, Blockchain Lead at UiO: “We are living in exciting times that allow us to witness how the DLT technology is transforming the conventional methods of storing and sharing data central to the functioning of the society, in areas such as decentralized digital identity and certificates, eHealth, smart cities, trading, and more. From the data safety, authenticity, and nonrepudiation point of view, DLT is considered a perfect fit for dependable data storage since it provides an easily accessible, immutable, and transparent history of all related data, adequate for building applications with trust, accountability, and transparency. We are eagerly looking forward to a successful collaboration with IOTA and to leveraging on our joint expertise towards the design of real-world applications.”

A broader range of further activities will be fostered over time including:

Empower Academics and educate students with the skills and tools needed to understand and use the IOTA technology for societal and for-profit purposes
Collaborate in the field of core research related to the IOTA Tangle technology through joint initiatives including joint research grant projects
Share knowledge and insights, and explore the integration of academic research and IOTA technologies through joint applied research & innovation projects and public-private partnerships in Norway and internationally
Promote the excellence of the university and the impact of IOTA technology through joint research and thought leadership publications

To explore collaboration opportunities with UiO, IOTA Foundation and its partner ecosystem, please get in touch with:

Wilfried Pimenta de Miranda, will@iota.org
Roman Vitenberg, romanvi@ifi.uio.no

About IOTA Foundation

IOTA is a global non-profit foundation supporting the research and development of new distributed ledger technologies (DLT), including the IOTA Tangle. The IOTA Tangle solves the fundamental shortcomings of blockchain: scalability, environmental sustainability, and cost. IOTA is an open-source protocol connecting the human economy with the machine economy by facilitating novel Machine-to-Machine (M2M) interactions, including secure data transfer and feeless micropayments. To learn more visit www.iota.org, the IOTA Foundation YouTube channel, and follow @iotatoken on Twitter.

About the University of Oslo (UiO)

UiO is a leading European university and Norway’s largest. It is one of the highest-ranked institutions of education and research in Norway and one of the World’s Top 100 universities according to us.news Best Global Universities Ranking and Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). Department of Informatics (IFI) has contributed substantially to research, innovation, and education in the ICT field. www.uio.no.