We were excited to announce yesterday the release of two new innovation programs related to blockchain technologies. The two releases include the Blockchain Innovation Accelerator as well as an internal, employee-focused crypto marketplace built on blockchain technologies.
The Blockchain Innovation Accelerator is focused on accelerating customer projects related to understanding and applying blockchain technologies in market today. Focused on a loyalty points scenario in which a sample airline utilizes blockchain to allow customers and vendors to redeem and exchange airline frequent flyer miles (or “tokens”) using smart contract technology, the accelerator offers reference architecture and sample code to create a more approachable scenario as well as accelerate development efforts. The Blockchain Innovation Accelerator is built on Microsoft Azure using the Ethereum blockchain and implements the ERC20 Token Interface with custom smart contract modifications to restrict the flow of tokens between and among whitelisted participants. This is the second Innovation Accelerator released by Valence, coming after the most recent release of the HoloLens Innovation Accelerator this past May. Built by the Valence Innovation Team, the Innovation Accelerator program strives to provide a specific — and often vertical, industry-oriented — framework to help “jumpstart” real-life solutions.
“At Valence we focus exclusively on digital transformation technologies and how they work together to deliver real business results for customers,” said Jim Darrin, Managing Director of Valence. “We believe blockchain will change the nature of distributed systems, and so we have assembled a set of software components and reference architectures to accelerate the ability to both build integrated loyalty points solutions as well as make blockchain more approachable generally for enterprise customers everywhere.”
Additionally, the company today announced the release of their internal, employee-focused crypto marketplace. Built on Hyperledger Sawtooth blockchain technologies, this internal marketplace enables the issuing and redemption of Valence cryptocurrency called Valence Electrons (symbol: VLE). When joining Valence, new employees get a fixed number of VLE which they can spend on the internal Valence marketplace to purchase unique goods and services. Each step of the transaction is recorded on the blockchain and over time, VLE will have increasing value correlated with the growth of the company. Additionally, the company expects to enable employees to post their own offerings and create a barter environment to increase the number of unique goods and services available.
“I am incredibly excited to release this internal marketplace based on the core concepts of blockchain,” said Matthew Carlisle, Technology Director at Valence. “We strive to make all our digital transformation technologies approachable to employees, and we believe this idea of creating our own internal token system for redemption of goods and services will be a great way for employees to experience blockchain and token technologies firsthand. And we’re thrilled to be able to share our experience with the rest of the world as well.”
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