A new partnership will produce scholarships and a specialised blockchain project that is focused on safe, secure, and low-energy programming toolchains.
The University of Sydney will now have a dedicated blockchain group, thanks to a new partnership with secure smart contract and cryptocurrency payments platform, Fantom.
According to a recent report, the initial funding will support a specialised research group which will build a new programming toolchain through open source research and software artefacts.
The group aims to create automatic bug-checking software for safer smart contract development.
Aided by the research grant and support from the company, the project will help the University deliver research papers, software artefacts, and opportunities in higher education that have never been seen before in the blockchain space.
It is the job of the educators to provide students with as much experience and as many tools as possible to succeed in the industries of today.
Blockchain has played a dominant role in the evolution of programming, and the University is looking forward to contributing its advancement through its work with the company.
There are four key areas that the research partnership will focus on. They are:
- Programming methodology for smart contracts. This includes education and tutorials on blockchain’s new programming environment.
- Programming language for smart contracts. This aims to extend the current programming language solidity so it becomes safer to use.
- Producing a verifying compiler that translates solidity (or an extension of it) to a virtual machine.
- A new, energy efficient, virtual machine with a compact bytecode format.
Moreover, the partnership will sponsor post-doctoral degrees and professors with the goal of increasing blockchain-focused research and initiative in higher education.
Developers will be given the opportunity to have the hands-on research experience necessary to develop programming language techniques and formal methods.
The company’s CEO describes the partnership as an opportunity to accelerate the mainstream adoption of blockchain technology, putting the University at the forefront of the industry.
The company is very excited to partner with the University since it believes that the experienced faculty and talented students are uniquely qualified to improve smart contract functionality and to create a new programming language that can help advance the entire ecosystem.
The research group wishes to address the need for solutions, which encourage scalability and address security concerns, being created by the growth of cryptocurrencies and distributed ledger technology.
This partnership will enable safer smart contract programming while also providing the hands on experience necessary to drive blockchain innovation and development.
Based in South Korea, Fantom is a fast, scalable and secure DAG-based smart contract platform that is creating efficiencies within cryptocurrency.
Moreover, the company is helping augment existing public distributed ledger technology.
