The IOTA Foundation Participates in UZH Blockchain Center Summer School

TL;DR:
In the latest collaboration between the IOTA Foundation and the academic community, two IOTA experts have recently presented to students at the University of Zurich’s Blockchain Center Summer School, where two students also received grants from the IOTA Foundation.

On 12 July, the IOTA Foundation participated in the University of Zurich’s Blockchain Center Summer School. The UZH Summer School is a leading academic venue for introducing students from diverse fields to the world of distributed ledger technology (DLT). The school is multidisciplinary, spanning fields such as DLT theory, engineering, law, and various social sciences. UZH Professor and Academic Director of the UZH Blockchain Center, Claudio J. Tessone, served as course director. The Summer School was a wonderful occasion for the IOTA Foundation’s researchers to deepen their academic collaboration with Professor Tessone.

The IOTA Foundation sponsored two students at the summer school, for a total sponsorship amount of CHF 3,000. Additionally, two IOTA Foundation team members, Luigi Vigneri (Senior Research Scientist) and Michele Nati (Head of Telco and Infrastructure Development), presented sessions at the summer school. Luigi gave an overview of the IOTA 2.0 protocol, covering both the primary use cases and benefits of the technology, as well as explaining its major components. Michele spoke about IOTA Foundation governance, IOTA Identity, IOTA Streams, tokenized assets, and smart contracts, as well as IOTA adoption in various domains. Students were also invited to test the decentralized digital identity tools that the IOTA Foundation is building as part of the ENSURESEC Project. Interested readers are invited to look through the presentation slides.

Luigi and Michele also participated in a project in which students used the IOTA 2.0 DevNet to build a distributed app (dApp) for colored coins. Both Luigi and Michele were very encouraged to see this type of student engagement with the IOTA protocol.

The UZH Summer School was a rewarding experience for the IOTA Foundation's representatives, and it is hoped that the experience spurred continued interest in IOTA among the participating students. This was the second year in a row that the IOTA Foundation has actively participated in the Summer School, and we look forward to developing deeper ties with this growing academic community.

To learn more about IOTA research, connect with our research team members in the #tanglemath channel on the IOTA Foundation’s Discord. You are also welcome to follow and participate in technical discussions on our public forum: IOTA.cafe.