Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology are creating more of an impact in communities all over the world. Enterprises, governments, and individuals are using virtual currencies and distributed ledger technology in order to improve their services and products.
As demand for cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology increases, the demand for education and courses in these areas has also reached new highs. Universities and schools are just starting to offer different specializations in blockchain and/or cryptocurrencies.
Countries like Australia, Argentina, Bulgaria, Russia, South Africa, and the United States have different crypto-related courses and are preparing new students to fulfil the market’s demand.
Australia
Australia is one of these countries where universities are preparing their pupils for the works that are in high demand. The Australian University RMIT has decided to sign a partnership with some important blockchain related enterprises, in order to offer a course focused on virtual currencies and distributed ledger technology.
Developing Blockchain Strategy, Course at RMIT
Accenture and Stone & Chalk will be helping RMIT so as to create one of the most advanced cryptocurrency courses in Australia. At the moment, the course will be priced at $1600 AUD (£880) and will last eight weeks.
The program will give pupils the necessary tools that will allow them to use blockchain technology and apply it to the real world.
Vice-Chancellor of RMIT, Martin Bean, commented about it:
“Blockchain is now becoming a core part of contemporary digital literacy and we are delighted to offer an industry-focused program built in collaboration with our partners at Accenture and Stone & Chalk, as well as RMIT’s Blockchain Innovation Hub.”
Representatives of Accenture and Stone & Chalk have also commented about working side by side with RMIT. They said that the course will be ridging the “skills and training gap,” and will be able to develop fintech services in the banking industry.
The Australian University of New South Wales (UNSW) was also working with LoyaltyX, an important blockchain loyalty research project. With this partnership, students would earn Ether every time they use the Unify Rewards app.
Argentina
Argentina is also preparing its students to participate in the blockchain and cryptocurrency market. One of the most important technological universities in Buenos Aires, the Instituto Tecnoloógico de Buenos Aires (ITBA), has decided to offer a new course related to cryptocurrencies.
Degree in Cryptoeconomy, Course at ITBA
The courses’s name is ‘Bachelor’s Degree in Cryptoeconomy: Blockchain, Smart Contracts and Cryptocurrencies.’
The description of the course reads as follows:
“The program is for every single person that wants to start and acquire the basic and intermediate knowledge in order to understand the world of cryptocurrencies, tokens, ICOs, smart contracts and different available blockchains.”
Blockonomi could contact the University and they explained to us that the courses will be held online, once per week, every Wednesdays from 8pm to 9:30pm. For those individuals interested, the inscription costs £900 or less if the person refers the course to other people.
The director of the career, Nicolás Collebechi, commented to local media:
“The course was created because we see that there are several industries that are working with blockchain technology – banks, health, digital advertising – but there is a lack of awareness and craziness about Bitcoin.”
The course started on March the 23rd and will last 3 months. The bachelor’s degree will allow pupils to understand what cryptocurrencies are, how they affect the economy, and how virtual currencies behave.
Bulgaria
Varna University of Management (VUM) is the Bulgarian university that is preparing Bulgarian and international students to adapt to the new blockchain and cryptocurrency environment. Bitcoin scholarships will be available for ten engineering bachelor’s degree applicants.
Bitcoin Scholarship at Varna
Students that want to learn about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies will have to pay €1000 (£875) if they want to have a bitcoin related diploma.
The Bulgarian school explains:
“The Varna University of Management is pleased to announce that ten applicants for Software Engineering bachelor’s program will now have the opportunity to earn Bitcoin scholarships, starting from Fall 2018 semester.”
The University says that cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology are going to change the way we live. The VUM wants to support and endorse bitcoin and disruptive technologies. The new program is specifically designed to give a future-oriented capacitation.
“We strongly believe that cryptocurrency is an inevitable technical development that will lead to significant innovation in all aspects of our lives,” informs the University. “Endorsing and integrating bitcoin is a rational choice for us. We are always interested in delivering disruptive technologies in our IT and business programmes and cryptocurrency is definitely one of them.”
Bulgaria is an active participant in the cryptocurrency markets. Several ICOs have been located in Bulgaria and many Bulgarian citizens have founded different kinds of ICOs.
United States
United States is one of the most important countries on earth. And in the cryptocurrency market it seems not to lag behind. Indeed, its participation in the virtual currency economy is one of the most important on earth.
Individuals and enterprises from the US, are very integrated with the financial, cryptocurrency, blockchain, and ICO world. That means that universities in the country should be ready to attract an important amount of students.
The Stern School of Business at the New York University (NYU), offers a cryptocurrency course for undergraduate students. At the moment, there are more than 100 students attending the course, and the number is expected to keep growing in the future.
“It is a fast-moving topic with tokenomics and cryptocurrencies changing whole industries. The more people can learn about it and what potential it has, the more understanding they will have of what financial services will look like in five years,” said Oliver Bussmann, former chief information officer at UBS.
The NYU Stern charges MBA students around $70,000 (£50,000) and undergraduate students more than $50,000 (£35,700).
One of the biggest problems that the university has, is to find the correct teachers to give the lessons. “Our biggest challenge is finding enough people to teach the courses,” says Professor David Yeermack.
Haas School of Business at University California at Berkley will also offer blockchain software related courses. According to Greg LaBlanc, Haas school lecturer, “blockchain technology will have an important impact on contracting, logistics and supply chains, healthcare, public administration, assets clearing, property, and transactions.”
Conclusion
This is a list of some of the international cryptocurrency and blockchain courses available. It is clear that the increased demand in experts in these fields will require universities to invest in new courses that will allow enterprises and governments find the right candidates that they are searching for.
All these countries are working with cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology in the public and private sectors. Additionally, salaries in the industry are higher than in other technological areas.
Furthermore, it will not be easy to organize these courses due to the fact that the material changes very frequently. New technological innovations take place and what was trending the last semester, the next one could be out-dated.
As Mr Yermack said:
“Year over year we will change well over half the course material. It keeps you young to be reading half the night just to keep up with the latest innovations.”
Other countries like Russia, South Africa, and China have universities that feature cryptocurrency-related courses. In the future, the demand will keep increasing, and there will be a lack of experts in the market if they do not prepare themselves for this competitive and growing industry.
1 Comment
Any Online course available to students in Canada? Appreciate your input. Thank you.