Ripple Announces $50 Million Blockchain Research Initiative

Ripple to partner with universities in order to encourage the development of an ever more robust and valuable ecosystem according to Insights, the companies blog.

The company states that as one of the most mature entities in the space Ripple is uniquely situated to act as a partner with academic institutions to lead blockchain development projects. That is why it has started the University Blockchain Research Initiative (UBRI) to support research and technical developments in the fields of blockchain, cryptocurrency and payment systems.

According to the company, 17 prestigious schools around the world have been chosen for their first wave of funding. The company is committing $50 million as well as their technical resources and collective expertise in the space but the schools will determine their own areas of research while working with Ripple to:

Ripple has listed the seventeen institutions chosen on their blog and has gone on to flesh out some of the details of the individual partnerships. For instance, Princeton University is creating a UBRI program to study the impact of cryptocurrency and blockchain in the US and internationally through their center for Information Technology Policy (CITP).

Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab will partner with UBRI along with almost a dozen companies in the financial services industry to perform research on the blockchain, cryptocurrencies, cybersecurity and global payments.

Internationally UBRI will contribute to the University of Luxembourg and Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands new Blockchain research program to be part of their individual Departments of Computer Science and Engineering.

The announcement ends with a statement that claims universities to be the traditional “backbone of innovation” and that they uniquely offer an environment for independence and rigor in research that the private sector cannot. The company claims that by supporting the research and study of blockchain and cryptocurrency at universities around the world they are preparing the workforce who will provide the talent to solve the difficult problems to come in the future.

Ripple’s announcement comes as universities around the world struggle to keep up with student demand for courses in cryptocurrency and blockchain related fields. As the space and technology develop teachers who themselves are learning at the same curve are forced to improvise syllabus and often put together resources with little funding or from their own pocket.