The School of Computing at the National University of Singapore (NUS) has collaborated with IBM Center for Blockchain Innovation (ICBI), in a move to promote fintech and blockchain training in the country. The partners will be working to develop and deliver blockchain module to better equip the students essential knowledge and skill sets in the sector.

The new module focusing on fintech and blockchain is expected to be introduced in January 2018. With the module, students will have an understanding of the fundamentals of the blockchain technology as well as its potential use cases in various sectors, from banking to digital currencies to supply chain management.

“Blockchain is one of the most disruptive technologies in computing today, and it is impacting many industries including financial services, trade, healthcare and supply chain,” Robert Morris, Vice President Global Labs, IBM Research, stated. “This collaboration with the NUS School of Computing will help prepare a future workforce that is born on blockchain, ready to implement, improve and innovate: core skills required for Singapore to achieve its vision as a Smart Financial Centre and Smart Nation.”

With the partnership, ICBI will offer the technology support through the IBM Cloud to the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain framework. The curriculum will be co-developed by expert NUS faculty members with IBM researchers at ICBI to enable students to learn about the latest developments in blockchain technology as well as encourage to contribute to developing the technology.

NUS academic staff and ICBI staff will co-teach the module using fintech software such as Hyperledger Fabric to deliver the course content. The software will be available to NUS researchers for research purposes.

“The new module forms part of the newly enhanced Information Systems degree program in which a new specialization in fintech has been introduced. We are confident that our graduates will be well-prepared for the wide-ranging career opportunities in this fast-growing sector,” Associate Professor Hahn Jungpil, Head of the Department of Information Systems at NUS School of Computing, said.