The Colombian city of Bogota, which houses 10.7 million inhabitants (agglomeration), is the largest urban agglomeration in Colombia and has now launched a series of free online courses on the subject of “New Technologies”. Blockchain technology is also part of these courses.

As part of these courses, the metropolitan area offers individual units blockchain technology. The programme, which was created by the Bogota Mayor’s Office, is called “Bogota Aprende TIC” and is designed to strengthen innovation and enable new technologies to make their way into the capital. Part of the learning contents are Cloud Computing, Big Data, artificial intelligence, internet of things, and blockchain technology.

Already in middle school, students should become familiar with blockchain technology.

The mayor of the city, Claudia Lopez, emphasizes that blockchain technology still has many unexplored potentials. Already in middle school pupils should get to know the functionality of blockchain in detail and work on initial applications. The blockchain course explains the importance of the technology, its advantages and disadvantages, areas in which the block chain can be used, and the use of Bitcoin in the crypto-currency area. The effects on transformation processes in companies in the digital industry will also be evaluated.

Blockchain courses can be taken in Bogota and worldwide

The initiative is aimed at people living in Bogota who are over 14 years old. However, users can register for the course from anywhere in the world, as it is held entirely virtually. The Bogota Chamber of Commerce is also using the current Covid-19 situation to hold virtual events on the “Challenges and opportunities of Fintech”.

In Colombia, there are some companies that have been using blockchain technology for several years and want to develop the advantages of the technology further. Exciting examples of companies that are currently working intensively with blockchain and promoting it are Qubit Labs and Ecopetrol. Colombia’s state oil company Ecopetrol recently provided around 91 million US dollars for initiatives related to artificial intelligence and blockchain technology.

*Originally published in German at CVJ.ch