Economic development company Kouvola Innovation owned by the Kouvola town in Finland has been awarded 2.4 million Euros in order to pay for a blockchain technology powered shipping project named SmartLog.

According to coindesk.com, there have been talks of streamlining supply chains by creating a single immutable record of products. This effort could find smart contracts being built into shipping containers themselves.

"Another aspect of the project is to use the blockchain’s trust and data integrity properties – smart contracts in short – and give cargo containers limited decision making authority in regards to their route planning, tendering for transport contracts and such," Mika Lammi, head of internet of things business development at Kouvola told coindesk.com.

The European Union INTERREG Central Baltic funded the project earlier this month. IBM is one of the most important technology to partner in this project. The project is designed to develop transport units installed in a prototype application that will provide information on location, environment, and the event for different ERP systems, the press released said (loosely translated).

A proof-of-concept for the SmartLog project will begin development in the month of September. It will be designed to create a global blockchain platform for the logistics industry. The press release said that the SmartLog project will run till 2019.