Developer Showcase Series

Back to our Developer Showcase Series to learn what developers in the real world are doing with Hyperledger technologies. Next up is Sam Curren, Architect at Indicio.

Give a bit of background on what you’re working on and how you got into blockchain

Three things keep me busy: I am co-chair of the Hyperledger Aries working group, I lead the DIDcomm v2 working group, and I’m an architect for Indicio. I’ve been involved in various aspects of Identity prior, but I got into blockchain by working at the Sovrin Foundation. I was there when Indy became a Hyperledger project and later for the spin out of the Aries and Ursa projects. The Agent and Cryptographic aspects of Indy were applicable outside of the Indy project, and establishing them as independent projects allowed an expansion of their use.

What Hyperledger frameworks or tools are you using in your projects? Any new developments to share? Can you sum up your experience with Hyperledger?

I use Hyperledger Indy and Hyperledger Aries day to day, looking forward to the finalization of Didcomm v2 and helping the Aries community adopt it. I am also excited about the upcoming work with the did:indy method Indicio will be implementing as part of a BCGov project.

What do you think is most important for Hyperledger to focus on in the next year?

Keep up the good work in helping to boost projects through both bringing together developers and marketing. Also continuing to help educate the average person is super important.

What advice would you offer other technologists or developers interested in getting started working on blockchain? 

Make sure you are using the right tool for the job. Carefully select a ledger when you need the features of a ledger, and stick with more traditional approaches when a ledger is not necessary. Understanding the technology and using it in the correct way is more important than trying to force a popular solution onto your project for bragging rights.

As Hyperledger’s projects continue to mature, what do you see as the most interesting technologies, apps, or use cases coming out as a result?

I am most excited by projects that get this technology into the hands and lives of regular people. It doesn’t matter how cool we make something – if it doesn’t positively impact people’s lives, I think we’ve fallen short of our goal.

What’s the one issue or problem you hope blockchain can solve?

I believe that properly deployed blockchain technology has the power to make people first-class citizens on the internet again.

Where do you hope to see Hyperledger and/or blockchain in five years?

Widely deployed

What is the best piece of developer advice you’ve ever received?

I have two. First, your contributions and insights are valuable; dont assume that people that have been in the industry a while are the ones who have all the answers. Secondly, just try it. Your solution will work more often than not, and you’ll learn plenty of useful stuff in the process.

What technology could you not live without?

Noise canceling headphones

Back to our Developer Showcase Series to learn what developers in the real world are doing with Hyperledger technologies. Next up is Christopher Cordi, Software Engineer at Splunk.

Give a bit of background on what you’re working on and how you got into blockchain

I’ve always been interested in computer and network security, so I was immediately fascinated with the security properties of Bitcoin and blockchain technology when I learned of them more than a decade ago. For the past five years, I’ve worked as a cybersecurity researcher focused on Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) with the goal of better understanding and improving their security. My experience includes building emulated models to evaluate the performance of different blockchain technologies under various network and adversarial conditions. This has allowed me to gain familiarity with many different permissioned and permissionless, established and prototype DLTs. At Splunk, I’ve been applying what I’ve learned toward making robust infrastructure and security monitoring tools for DLTs like Hyperledger Fabric.

What Hyperledger frameworks or tools are you using in your projects? Any new developments to share? Can you sum up your experience with Hyperledger?

I’ve primarily worked with Hyperledger Fabric, but I also have some experience with Hyperledger Besu and Hyperledger Explorer. I am currently working on the Splunk App for Hyperledger Fabric, which enables the real-time infrastructure and security monitoring of Hyperledger Fabric networks. I’ve found the Hyperledger community to be enthusiastic and helpful.

What do you think is most important for Hyperledger to focus on in the next year?

I think there’s always room for improvement with regard to ease of use/configuration, security, and monitoring

What advice would you offer other technologists or developers interested in getting started working on blockchain? 

It’s certainly helpful to have good motivation before starting work on any new technology. Anyone looking to work in blockchain would benefit from a fundamental understanding of blockchain technology, its security properties, and potential performance tradeoffs. Essentially, make sure you have an understanding of why a given application would benefit from a blockchain. There are plenty of resources available like Coursera, Udacity, Udemy, YouTube, books, and blog posts. Of course, reading and watching videos alone isn’t optimal. Get your hands dirty by running your own blockchain nodes in a test network and writing/deploying/running your own chaincode and smart contracts.

As Hyperledger’s projects continue to mature, what do you see as the most interesting technologies, apps, or use cases coming out as a result?

Some of the more interesting use cases I would expect are supply chain, digital identity, central bank digital currency, and NFTs.

What’s the one issue or problem you hope blockchain can solve?

Generally, I would like to see blockchain helping to bring tamper-evident audit trails to as much data as possible.

Where do you hope to see Hyperledger and/or blockchain in five years?

Over the past few years, the mainstream perception of blockchain has shifted away from being just about Bitcoin or cryptocurrency. In the next few years, I would expect to see blockchain represented more in computer science curriculums, not only for its utility in certain decentralized applications, but also as a mechanism to teach security, trust, and decentralization. 

What is the best piece of developer advice you’ve ever received?

Be able to articulate why anyone should care about what you’re building.

What technology could you not live without?

The internet.

Back to our Developer Showcase Series to learn what developers in the real world are doing with Hyperledger technologies. Next up is Anitha Radhakrishnan, Senior Software Engineer at KrypC Technologies.

Give a bit of background on what you’re working on and how you got into blockchain

I’m working on the development of several blockchain use cases and also on our product, KrypCore, which helps us to deliver various business solutions. We have delivered many supply chain, trade finance and microfinance solutions by implementing using our KrypCore. 

KrypCore is a managed service where one can easily manage Hyperledger Fabric networks, chaincode and channel management (supports both 1.4 and 2.x versions).

What Hyperledger frameworks or tools are you using in your projects? Any new developments to share? Can you sum up your experience with Hyperledger?

Hyperledger Fabric is our primary DLT. We also use the Hyperledger Fabric SDK to develop our projects. We have added a DeliverWithPrivateData service in Fabric Go SDK, which delivers blocks with private data (which is available in Node SDK). We also added a function for fetching certain blocks with private data from a peer.

What do you think is most important for Hyperledger to focus on in the next year?

• Focusing on increasing the awareness about how the technology works, which will help to increase the adoption of blockchain technology
• Improving scalability especially for public blockchains
• Developing interoperability with a large number of blockchain networks
• Including blockchain technology in academics

What advice would you offer other technologists or developers interested in getting started working on blockchain? 

Hyperledger Docs are a good way to learn the concepts. However, before starting to develop a use case/project, it is better to experiment with the Fabric test network available in GitHub. That is a helpful way to get a solid understanding of basic concepts.

As Hyperledger’s projects continue to mature, what do you see as the most interesting technologies, apps, or use cases coming out as a result?

Central Bank Digital Currency and crypt collectibles (NFT)

What’s the one issue or problem you hope blockchain can solve?

Corruption

Where do you hope to see Hyperledger and/or blockchain in 5 years?

• Broad adoption by the government for managing various registrations, managing identities and finances
• Wider blockchain education in academic

What is the best piece of developer advice you’ve ever received?

• Learn the basics
• Be clear about what you learn and try implementing it to understand things better
• Explore new technologies

What technology could you not live without?

Cloud computing

Back to our Developer Showcase Series to learn what developers in the real world are doing with Hyperledger technologies. Next up is Lucas Saldanha, Blockchain Protocol Engineer at ConsenSys.

Give a bit of background on what you’re working on and how you got into blockchain

I’ve been working on the Ethereum protocol for almost three years. It all started when I joined ConsenSys and started contributing to the project that would become Hyperledger Besu. I didn’t have much experience with blockchain or distributed systems when I started. Still, I have met some incredible people in the blockchain space, and, with their help, I was able to learn more and be an active member of the community. At the moment my time is dedicated to working on enterprise features in Besu, like Private Transactions, Network Permissioning and more.

What Hyperledger frameworks or tools are you using in your projects? Any new developments to share? Can you sum up your experience with Hyperledger?

Regarding Hyperledger projects, my hands-on experience is limited to Besu. I haven’t had the chance to deep-dive into other Hyperledger projects yet. I am also on the Hyperledger Architecture Working Group, which has given me the opportunity to hear from other developers their experiences and learn from them.

What do you think is most important for Hyperledger to focus on in the next year?

I believe we are now getting into a new era for blockchain technology. It is time to take everything that we learned so far and start solving real-world problems. I predict we will see exciting projects in this coming year, and Hyperledger should keep an eye out for projects that can benefit from joining the group and help them flourish.

What advice would you offer other technologists or developers interested in getting started working on blockchain? 

Don’t wait another day to start! Blockchain technology has the potential to change the status quo on how technology is used and affects our day-to-day life. Now more than ever, the world needs technologies that can help us. 

There are many projects and a bunch of questions that need answers. The blockchain community needs all the help that we can get! Every day is a learning day when we are working with blockchain, and it is exciting to be a part of it. You don’t want to miss out!

As Hyperledger’s projects continue to mature, what do you see as the most interesting technologies, apps, or use cases coming out as a result?

I am happy with the way that Hyperledger Besu has evolved since it joined Hyperledger. Besu started as a “new kid in the block,” but now it has proved to be a reliable Ethereum client with significant adoption, both by individuals and enterprises. By following Hyperledger processes and getting an active status, we have shown the world that Besu is a serious project with great potential.

What’s the one issue or problem you hope blockchain can solve?

I would love to see blockchain being used on democratic voting systems. It would be great to have a decentralized system that could replace paper-based vote (like in the US), and centralized electronic voting systems (like in Brazil). Both methods have their issues, and, unfortunately, we haven’t found a better replacement. But there is so much at stake in an election that I believe a trustworthy blockchain-based voting system would be amazing!

Where do you hope to see Hyperledger and/or blockchain in five years?

I hope to see Hyperledger projects being the number one option for everyone when it comes to blockchain technology. I also want to see different blockchain technologies working together. From the user point of view, I would love to see more accessible blockchain technologies to the end-user, with massive adoption worldwide.

What is the best piece of developer advice you’ve ever received?

Be pragmatic! Find the balance between time, money and quality and remember that, at the end of the day, we implement solutions to solve real problems. Don’t neglect a solution but don’t over-engineer it either. The best developers I have ever worked with weren’t the smartest ones but the ones that knew how to share their ideas, to listen, and to compromise.

What technology could you not live without?

Well, this will probably be a bit controversial, but I’m a big fan of Java! I know it has got some problems, but it is my go-to language (probably because I have been working with it for so long that I know that I can do anything I want with it).

I would also say that my laptop is essential because it is where I can do all my coding!

Back to our Developer Showcase Series to learn what developers in the real world are doing with Hyperledger technologies. Next up is Karthik Mohan, Enterprise Blockchain Research Engineer at KrypC Technologies.

Give a bit of background on what you’re working on and how you got into blockchain

At KrypC, I work on the development of the KrypCore Blockchain as a Service Product Suite. This suit extends our KrypCore Product, which is a designer studio built over Hyperledger Fabric for network, chaincode and fabric component management. I am responsible for the managed services that are provided through two different channels in the market. 

KrypCore Managed Services uses our in-house deployer tool “BaaS Central” to create managed clusters in multiple cloud environments along with other storage and key management services. KrypCore Managed Services provides on-demand network expansion by providing features to add and run setup for organisations and to add peers to existing networks. I handle the research, design and development of everything under the managed services category.

I learned a lot during the design and development of our managed services and still continue to learn as cloud native development of blockchain systems, especially Hyperledger Fabric, is still a long way from being perfect.

The second channel of managed services is provided via Azure Marketplace in the form of Infrastructure as Code. I have been part of this research and implementation activity over the last six months and have worked on different cloud environments and marketplaces in this period. Cloud marketplaces are a great way to understand which model appeals to actual consumers. 

I took a liking to blockchain while I was with IBM as the concept of decentralization and a tool that enables it in such scale seemed fascinating. I read blockchain content available online and took mentorship programmes during my free time. All the effort I put in during this phase of my career has helped me become a very productive developer in this technology. 

What Hyperledger frameworks or tools are you using in your projects? Any new developments to share? Can you sum up your experience with Hyperledger?

We work with Hyperledger Fabric and Hyperledger Fabric SDK Go. We have done our fair share of research and development with Hyperledger Explorer, Cello and Caliper as well. 

Hyperledger Fabric essentially is the bespoke enterprise blockchain protocol. We are able to build multiple use cases of varying complexities in a short amount of time, and we see a solid roadmap being laid out for its development by the community. These are all encouraging signs for anyone to start developing with Hyperledger. At the start, we advocated using Hyperledger projects for enterprise use cases. Now, as the projects have matured, we are observing the market preferring Hyperledger projects over others without any nudge in that direction from us. Overall, the experience has been great, and the community for Hyperledger is very active. It’s great to be a developer.

What do you think is most important for Hyperledger to focus on in the next year?

Interoperability with public blockchain protocols where a set of few keys and their read-write information can be transcribed to become available as public information would go a long way in helping present Hyperledger Fabric as the baseline blockchain framework. If this could come as a native feature, it would be very beneficial. Better monitoring and analytics capability on Fabric’s infrastructure and transactions is another important milestone for the community to focus on for the next year.

What advice would you offer other technologists or developers interested in getting started working on blockchain? 

Understand the infrastructure needed for the blockchain systems to function in early stages of learning. Each protocol comes with its own trade-offs so understanding the underlying infrastructure helps paint a picture in your mind regarding the architecture, transaction flow and applicability of those protocols to your use case.

What’s the one issue or problem you hope blockchain can solve?

Public transit could be the gateway for blockchain to enter everyday lives of the population. This use case could mean that the commuters won’t have to deal with poor treatment when they resort to public transportation. A blockchain-based solution could deliver greater visibility of transportation availability, maintenance schedule and transit equality. A token-based payments and incentive system could further the green cause.

Where do you hope to see Hyperledger and/or blockchain in five years?

I hope to see blockchain systems in smart cities governing public transit in the next five years and then moving onto becoming an all encompassing nervous system for our future metropolises. 

Hyperledger could grow much further by incubating more supplementary projects that enhance the distributed ledgers that have seen large-scale mainstream adoption. The improving support system for the DLTs will drive the enterprise blockchain economy with a clear view of return on investment in a shorter period of time.

What is the best piece of developer advice you’ve ever received?

Leave the code cleaner than you found it!

What technology could you not live without?

An Android Smartphone – data at your fingertips.

Back to our Developer Showcase Series to learn what developers in the real world are doing with Hyperledger technologies. Next up is Sergio Torres who is a blockchain architect at Signeblock as well as  Hyperledger developer at Alastria and an instructor at Coding Bootcamps.

Volvemos a nuestros capítulos “Developer Showcase”, para conocer sobre lo que están haciendo los desarrolladores en el mundo real con las tecnologías Hyperledger. La siguiente persona es Sergio Torres, arquitecto de blockchain en Signeblock, desarrollador de Hyperledger en Alastria e instructor en Coding Bootcamps.

What advice would you offer other technologists or developers interested in getting started working on blockchain?

First things first – blockchain technology is related to three or four other previously established technologies. I say this because you not only have to know about the mechanics of blockchain, but you also have to have previous knowledge in programming, networks, virtualization and operating systems. To know blockchain in depth, you have to have different computer skills and a well established basis to understand a network like Hyperledger Fabric. Also, when I teach at Coding Bootcamps, I tell students that you get a university degree to obtain all this knowledge and then you can understand the different problems and solutions that can occur on a day-to-day basis when you put your acquired knowledge into practice. 

¿Qué consejo le ofrecería a otros tecnólogos o desarrolladores interesados en comenzar a trabajar en blockchain?

Lo primero, es lo primero: la tecnología blockchain implica conocer otras tres o cuatro tecnologías previamente. Digo esto porque no solo tienes que conocer la mecánica de blockchain, sino que también tienes que tener conocimientos previos en programación, redes, virtualización y sistemas operativos. Para conocer blockchain en profundidad, debes tener diferentes habilidades informáticas y una base bien establecida para comprender una red como Hyperledger Fabric. Además, cuando imparto clases en Coding Bootcamps, les digo a los alumnos que se puede obtener un título universitario con el que adquirir y comprender todos estos conocimientos necesarios y ponerlos en práctica el día de mañana.

Give a bit of background on what you’re working on, and let us know what made you want to get into blockchain.

I am currently working at Signeblock as a blockchain architect. Specifically, we have developed two applications, Uruk and Gouze, that have Hyperledger Fabric in their core. We use blockchain technology to provide more security to digital documents within digital signature processes and also to be able to guarantee the traceability of any type of asset. These are applications that are having a lot of popularity here in Europe and parts of Latam.

I  started on blockchain a bit by chance as I was introduced to it by a friend from university and then I continued researching. I liked it so much that I decided to sign up for the first blockchain  job opportunity I saw in Spain. 

Brinda un poco de información sobre en qué estás trabajando y cuéntanos qué te hizo querer comenzar con la tecnología Blockchain.

Actualmente trabajo en Signeblock como arquitecto de blockchain. Específicamente, hemos desarrollado dos aplicaciones, Uruk y Gouze, que tienen Hyperledger Fabric en su core. Utilizamos la tecnología blockchain para brindar mayor seguridad a los documentos digitales dentro de los procesos de firma digital y también para poder garantizar la trazabilidad de cualquier tipo de activo. Estas son aplicaciones que están teniendo mucha popularidad aquí en Europa y en parte de Latam.

Comencé con la tecnología blockchain un poco por casualidad, cuando un amigo de la universidad me lo presentó y posteriormente continué investigando. Me gustó tanto, que decidí apuntarme a la primera oportunidad de trabajo sobre blockchain que vi en España.

What project in Hyperledger are you working on? Any new developments to share? Can you sum up your experience with Hyperledger?

The project we are currently working on is the Signeblock blockchain with which we provide blockchain services to other clients and with which the Gouze and Uruk applications work.

At the same time, I am in a deployment group within a network in Spain called Alastria. Within Alastria, we are creating a new network with Hyperledger Besu to support projects for the companies that make up Alastria. This is an interesting project because we work with different people from different companies who collaborate on a common goal. It’s nice to see this kind of collaboration between companies that are normally rivals. And I have to say that I quite like  Hyperledger Besu. One of the main reasons is that it has  very elaborate documentation so  people with little computer knowledge can install the technology and test it. I think solid documentation was one of the success factors for Hyperledger Fabric.

¿En qué proyecto de Hyperledger estás trabajando? ¿Algún nuevo desarrollo para compartir? ¿Puede resumir su experiencia con Hyperledger?

El proyecto en el que estamos trabajando actualmente es el blockchain Signeblock con el que brindamos servicios blockchain a otros clientes y con el que funcionan las aplicaciones Gouze y Uruk.

Al mismo tiempo, estoy en un grupo de despliegue dentro de una red en España llamada Alastria. Dentro de Alastria, estamos creando una nueva red con Hyperledger Besu para apoyar proyectos para las empresas que integran Alastria. Este es un proyecto interesante porque trabajamos con diferentes personas de diferentes empresas que colaboran en un objetivo común. Es bueno ver este tipo de colaboración entre empresas que normalmente son rivales. Y tengo que decir que me gusta bastante Hyperledger Besu. Una de las principales razones es que cuenta con una documentación muy elaborada para que personas con pocos conocimientos informáticos puedan instalar la tecnología y probarla. Creo que la documentación sólida fue uno de los factores de éxito de Hyperledger Fabric.

What do you think is most important for Hyperledger to focus on in the next year?

The project that I see as very promising is Hyperledger Besu, although it has to be polished to address quite a few bugs before releasing new versions. It is true that Besu has  great technical support that fixes bugs when they are communicated through official channels. 

¿En qué crees que es más importante que Hyperledger se concentre el próximo año?

El proyecto que veo como muy prometedor es Hyperledger Besu, aunque tiene que pulirse para corregir algunos errores antes de lanzar nuevas versiones. Es cierto que Besu cuenta con un gran soporte técnico que corrige errores cuando se comunican a través de canales oficiales.

As Hyperledger’s incubated projects start maturing and hit 1.0s and beyond, what are the most interesting technologies, apps, or use cases coming out as a result from your perspective?

As I mentioned before with Hyperledger Besu, when version 1.0 appeared, we decided to test it as a network for the Alastria project. 

A medida que los proyectos incubados de Hyperledger comienzan a madurar y alcanzan la versión 1.0 y más, ¿cuáles son las tecnologías, aplicaciones o casos de uso más interesantes que surgen como resultado desde tu perspectiva?

Como mencioné antes con Hyperledger Besu, cuando apareció la versión 1.0, decidimos probarla como red para el proyecto Alastria.

What’s the one issue or problem you hope blockchain can solve?

For companies like Signeblock, blockchain provides more digital security to documents and improves traceability. But where we have really noticed a competitive advantage is using blockchain to be able to register any type of digital file (audio files, 3D files, images, etc.) with a legal guarantee that, until now, could not be done. This has meant that we are growing exponentially since digital signature competitors still do not know about blockchain technology, so they do not know how to solve these types of problems. 

¿Cuál es el problema o problema que espera que blockchain pueda resolver?

Para empresas como Signeblock, blockchain proporciona seguridad digital a los documentos y mejora la trazabilidad de muchos procesos. Pero donde realmente hemos notado una ventaja competitiva es utilizar blockchain para poder registrar cualquier tipo de archivo digital (archivos de audio, archivos 3D, imágenes, etc.) con una garantía legal que, hasta ahora, no se podía hacer. Esto ha significado que estemos creciendo exponencialmente ya que los competidores de firmas digitales aún no conocen la tecnología blockchain, por lo que no saben cómo solucionar este tipo de problemas.

Where do you hope to see Hyperledger and/or blockchain in 5 years?

I think Hyperledger, in particular, will be the most important blockchain project since it is doing things well and has an umbrella strategy that supports a diverse range of  blockchain technologies.  

¿Dónde espera ver Hyperledger y/o blockchain en 5 años?

Creo que Hyperledger, en particular, será el proyecto de DLT más importante a nviel mundial, ya que está haciendo las cosas bastante bien y tiene una estrategia que admite una amplia gama de tecnologías DLT

What is the best piece of developer advice you’ve ever received?

The best advice I received in my early development stage was to take the time to understand how Hyperledger Fabric works. It was from my boss (Ignacio Bustillo).  I knew that using Fabric would be  complicated because I had to gather different skills to solve a problem that no one had done before. We have a lot more documentation now, but in the beginning with Fabric, it was test, test, test and test. I think that without those tests and without time, patience and being able to share mistakes with other people who were there with me in the room, I could not have been what I am now. It was a very stressful experience but with a very great reward.

¿Cuál es el mejor consejo para desarrolladores que ha recibido?

El mejor consejo que recibí en mi etapa inicial de desarrollo fue “tomarme el tiempo que necesites para comprender cómo funciona Hyperledger Fabric”. Era de mi jefe (Ignacio Bustillo). Sabía que usar Fabric sería complicado porque tenía que reunir diferentes habilidades para resolver un problema que nadie había hecho antes. Tenemos mucha más documentación ahora, pero al principio con Fabric, era prueba, tras prueba, tras prueba y más pruebas. Creo que sin esas pruebas y sin el tiempo, la paciencia y el poder compartir errores con otras personas que estaban ahí conmigo en la sala, no podría haber sido lo que soy ahora. Fue una experiencia muy estresante pero con una gran recompensa.

What technology could you not live without?

It is clear that without mobile devices we could not live today. That goes along with other technologies such as networks or programming; they could not work by themselves. But I think that our mobile devices are  what we use the most on a day-to-day basis, and they are covering functionalities of other devices such as radio, cameras, home phones, and, as the screens are getting bigger, even tablets.

¿Con qué tecnología no podrías vivir?

Está claro que sin dispositivos móviles no podríamos vivir hoy. Eso va de la mano de otras tecnologías como las redes de telecomunicaciones o la programación; no podían trabajar por sí mismos. Pero creo que nuestros dispositivos móviles son los que más usamos en el día a día, y están cubriendo funcionalidades de otros dispositivos como radio, cámaras, teléfonos domésticos y, a medida que las pantallas se hacen más grandes, incluso tabletas.

Back to our Developer Showcase Series to learn what developers in the real world are doing with Hyperledger technologies. Next up is Kamlesh Nagware, CTO Blockchain at Snapper Future Tech.

Give a bit of background on what you’re working on and how you got into blockchain

I am currently working as the CTO Blockchain at Snapper Future Tech (SFT). SFT is a global blockchain development company offering blockchain solutions development and training services and creating versatile tracing and authentication products and platforms powered by  blockchain. We create various products to empower enterprises, academia and government to achieve efficiency never experienced before. An innovative technology product company, SFT is connecting global ecosystems through its suite of Trust as a Service (TAAS) products and platforms powered by blockchain. 

My blockchain journey started when I was part of IBM India and, at the same time, the Hyperledger project was started by Linux Foundation. I can say proudly that I was one of the mentors in the IBM accelerator program for blockchain start-ups and mentored 10+ start-ups during early enterprise adoption. I started with Hyperledger Fabric 0.6 and have been consistently part of the Fabric community from 0.6 to 1.0 active status to first LTS release 1.4.x and now another LTS 2.2.x. 

I have been closely associated with Hyperledger from its founding days. It’s been a very good experience to co-lead the Hyperledger India chapter and build the Hyperledger community in India.

What Hyperledger frameworks or tools are you using in your projects? Any new developments to share? Can you sum up your experience with Hyperledger?

I have been part of the Hyperledger Fabric journey from 0.6 to 1.0 active status to first LTS release 1.4.x and now another LTS 2.2.x. It is always interesting to be part of the early journey of any open source project. Other than Hyperledger Fabric, I’ve used Hyperledger tools like Explorer for blockchain dashboard and Calliper for benchmarking Fabric networks. 

Hyperledger has umbrella projects, great suits of projects, tools to solve different kinds of business problems. Hyperledger Indy and Aries are for solving identity management problems. In Hyperledger, other than Fabric, the most used and talked about projects are Indy and Aries. The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated interest in the identity and credential solution using Indy and Aries. Immunity passports is an example of such use cases.

What do you think is most important for Hyperledger to focus on in the next year?

I think there should be more focus on cross-Hyperledger project collaboration for interoperability between different Hyperledger projects. Hyperledger Aries is a very good project for building credential solutions, but it only supports the Indy blockchain protocol. It will be fantastic to see Aries supporting other Hyperledger projects like Fabric.

What advice would you offer other technologists or developers interested in getting started working on blockchain? 

Blockchain has become key technology for digital transformation strategies, but it’s not necessary to apply blockchain in every business case. Don’t try to use blockchain where it’s not required. Always follow a decision matrix for selecting use cases and the blockchain protocol that is best suited for any particular use case. 

For reference, please check out this decision tree by the World Economic Forum. The decision tree is composed of a number of questions that assist in defining whether a blockchain is the correct approach for a particular business or not.

If you want to start learning blockchain, this is the right time. As a developer, start with any one blockchain protocol first and build an application. Start with the Getting Started Guide (like this one for Hyperledger Fabric), understand the protocol’s components, get a clear understanding of its smart contract, consensus mechanism, SDK/API for smart contract and client application development. You can also start with any sandbox environment like minifabric or IBM Blockchain code extension, which makes blockchain application development easy. 

There are huge opportunities for open source contributions. Master one protocol and start contributing to its open source community.

As Hyperledger’s projects continue to mature, what do you see as the most interesting technologies, apps, or use cases coming out as a result?

In the coming years, the most interesting use cases would be in sustainable supply chain, e-governance, healthcare, digital identity, CBDC (Central bank digital currency), waste management and renewable energy. 

These are five use cases where I see more adoption and blockchain implementation in coming years:

• Sustainable supply chain
• E-Governance – citizen services, transparent government
• Digital Identity – self-sovereign identity & verifiable credentials
• Agriculture – traceability throughout the agri value chain
• Renewable energy – carbon emission tracking, energy trading

What’s the one issue or problem you hope blockchain can solve?

With “blockchain,” the first thing that comes to mind is trust and transparency, so blockchain can solve any kind of problems where those are needed. One specific problem that I hope blockchain could solve is in bringing trust and transparency to the agri product chain in India so that farmers get fair pricing for their yields/crops.

Where do you hope to see Hyperledger and/or blockchain in five years?

Blockchain technology is evolving so I hope to see many blockchain protocols and different consensus mechanisms. 

1.    I believe that everyone wants to see interoperability in blockchains. By interoperability, I don’t just mean blockchains talking to each other at the protocol layer but at the smart contract level. Interoperability of governance frameworks is also very important for mass adoption.

 2.    I hope to see performance and transaction throughput improvements so that blockchains will be able to process transactions like card processing or UPI companies are able to do. 

3.    I hope to see well-defined and adopted blockchain global standards. 

4.    And I hope to see trusted computing meet blockchain. This could happen with Hyperledger Avalon off-chain trust protocol adoption and integration with other Hyperledger DLTs.

What is the best piece of developer advice you’ve ever received?

One of the best pieces of advice I received from Sameer Pise, Program Manager at Mphasis, is that “It is just code and written by human beings only so, if he/she can write it, then obviously you can fix it. So don’t give up until you’ve fixed it.” Another valuable piece of advice I heard from Naresh Jain, COO/Co-founder of Snapper Future Tech, is that technically everything is possible. Don’t say “NO” without trying it.

What technology could you not live without?

Agriculture? Electricity? Computer? Internet? All are connected, and we can’t live without each of them.

Back to our Developer Showcase Series to learn what developers in the real world are doing with Hyperledger technologies. Next up is Anand Banik, Principal Software Engineer at Walmart Global Tech.

Give a bit of background on what you’re working on and how you got into blockchain.

When I joined Walmart Global Tech’s Supply Chain Tech team, one of the challenging tasks was how to do data reconciliation in multi-party transactions. Conventional technology stacks like API or Messaging frameworks were designed for transactions that involved data-transmission with minimum validations. For the most part, they were point-to-point and required complex architecture for use cases that involved multi-party transactions. Blockchain, with its distributed architecture, immutability and smart contracts, was an ideal candidate for multi-party transactions – especially in supply-chain use cases like food safety, where my journey with blockchain and specifically with Hyperledger began.

What Hyperledger frameworks or tools are you using in your projects? Any new developments to share? Can you sum up your experience with Hyperledger?

Most of the work I have done is on Hyperledger Fabric, but I have also dipped my toes in Sawtooth. I find Explorer to be a great tool for monitoring and Caliper for performance testing. Also, the Blockchain Automation Framework seems to be an awesome tool for deploying the network and maintaining its state in a cloud agnostic way. I am keeping a keen eye on Aries for the work being done on decentralized credentials.

What do you think is most important for Hyperledger to focus on in the next year?

As the adoption of blockchain increases across various industries, data and technology standardization would play a key role in their success. I believe one of the focus areas for Hyperledger should be making interoperability part of its core principles.

What advice would you offer other technologists or developers interested in getting started working on blockchain? 

The best way to get started on blockchain is to start reading the “Getting Started Guide” to a framework (e.g., this one for Hyperledger Fabric) and then try to run and tweak any sample application you can get your hands on. It’s also important to understand the design principles of blockchain to effectively implement blockchain solutions to solve business problems.

As Hyperledger’s projects continue to mature, what do you see as the most interesting technologies, apps, or use cases coming out as a result?

In my opinion, one of the most complicated use cases that could benefit from blockchain technology is global trade. Personally, I am also rooting for an implementation of blockchain to maintain travel records like visas and passports.

What’s the one issue or problem you hope blockchain can solve?

To use transparency and visibility to establish trust.

Where do you hope to see Hyperledger and/or blockchain in five years?

In the next five years, I hope to see adoption of blockchain technology in the areas of trade finance, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and learning credentials.

What is the best piece of developer advice you’ve ever received?

Experience is gained through failures, not success.

What technology could you not live without?

Electricity

Back to our Developer Showcase Series to learn what developers in the real world are doing with Hyperledger technologies. Next up is Mohit Kumar Sethi, Enterprise Blockchain Engineer at KrypC Technologies.

Give a bit of background on what you’re working on and how you got into blockchain

At KrypC, I work on the development of KrypCore, which is our core offering. KrypCore allows organizations to accelerate their blockchain journey using Hyperledger Fabric. It abstracts complexities of deployment, governance and chaincode management and lets users focus on the business logic. We have used KrypCore to design and deploy a variety of use cases in production ranging from supply chain, provenance, trading and micro finance. 

I have also had the opportunity to work in the field of smart cards, cryptography and payments. The application focused on secure messaging, digital signatures and immutability. Bitcoin and cryptocurrency were natural areas of interest as they related to cryptographic security and payments. We did a deep technical study of Bitcoin and realized how it has stitched existing cryptographic concepts and P2P networks to form an immutable decentralized token network. The challenge we tackled was how to the advantage of immutability and autonomous contracts to the enterprise business and hide the complexity of the protocol. 

What Hyperledger frameworks or tools are you using in your projects? Any new developments to share? Can you sum up your experience with Hyperledger?

We use Hyperledger Fabric as the primary DLT. We use the combination of Hyperledger Fabric and Hyperledger Fabric SDK Go as part of our internal SDK to develop all Fabric-based projects. 

What do you think is most important for Hyperledger to focus on in the next year?

From a Hyperledger Fabric point of view, I think: Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP) & Privacy Enhancements. Hyperledger Fabric has evolved a long way since version 1.0. PDC (Private Data Collection) provided solutions to many of the privacy and compliance needs. However, further strengthening of privacy can be achieved using ZKP or some related privacy preserving  techniques. 

The introduction of implicit PDC policies have simplified adoption and management of PDCs in large member networks. The current features, capabilities and design approach for PDC are well suited for most use cases. However, there are scenarios where privacy demands are not just limited to the visibility of the data but demands privacy on actions. For example:

• The ability to hide the fact that selective members operated on some private key & value. The collection ids are visible in the read/write sets. This enables other members to be aware of the fact that some private information is processed between owners of collection members present in read/write sets.

What advice would you offer other technologists or developers interested in getting started working on blockchain? 

There are numerous online materials available on blockchain. It is good to start with reading the basics like how blocks are related to each other and the concept of digital signature. The next step would be to go deep on Bitcoin and Ethereum white papers. Hyperledger Fabric provides very good documentation and examples. The documentation covers both developers and technologists. 

Apart from knowledge of the technology, it is equally important to understand the suitability of the technology to solve a problem. Lets remember blockchain is not a replacement for traditional databases. Use cases should be evaluated for applicability of blockchain. There are multiple blockchain protocols each suiting different applications. For example: Hyperledger Fabric provides tremendous capabilities of enterprise networks where permission and governance are managed by the private consortium. However, if we need publicly auditable immutable trust records or exchangeable tokens, Ethereum is preferable. Complex networks can use a combination of protocols in public and private domains to suit multiple needs like scale, privacy, tokenized assets and immutability. 

What’s the one issue or problem you hope blockchain can solve?

Fake currency

Where do you hope to see Hyperledger and/or blockchain in five years?

Adoption in the field of voting, e-governance. Blockchains would provide the required secure sharing and discovery platform for IoT networks.

What is the best piece of developer advice you’ve ever received?

Try to keep the functions/methods small and reusable. 

What technology could you not live without?

Docker/Containerization! It is not going to be easy to manage local developments or deployments.