Blockchain as an emerging technology has the potential to disrupt business models.
In India, the technology gathered steam in 2016 and was largely adopted by banks and other financial institutes for various use cases. The technology with its decentralised mechanism comes with an inherent layer of security and transparency and have expanded its use cases to other industries like startups and media as well.
According to Indeed, a leading global job site, the number of blockchain-related jobs is on the rise in India with Bengaluru leading the way by over 36 per cent. The designation of the jobs ranging from blockchain developer to blockchain system.
In addition to this, the Indian central government’s initiative like IndiaChain and various state governments have been mulling the incorporation of the blockchain into their everyday-working.
The government is also diversifying job recruitment by looking for people who are capable of delivering new age technology solutions.
Recently, The National Payment Corporation of India (NCPI), opened a new challenge hiring challenge for blockchain developers. Called the NCPI Hiring challenge 2019, the government subsidiary is looking to hire blockchain developers who can be a part of the NCPI, an umbrella organisation for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India.
Hence, with the demand for blockchain-related jobs on the rise, the number of students who are taking up the course are also rising, thus leading to mushrooming of many institutes and colleges offering blockchain-related courses across India.
Catching up with several private institutes and online courses that are currently available for students and professionals alike, several public institutes like the IITs and IIMs are also offering crash-courses targeting blockchain enthusiasts.
We take a look at some of these courses and what it entails:
IIM Calcutta: Advanced Programme in Banking and Fintech
Advanced Programme in FinTech and Financial Blockchains is a collaborative attempt between IIM-C and TalentSprint to provide a digital platform for professional education. Keeping this in mind, IIM Calcutta has come up with a new course targeting management and finance professionals, with the aim of equipping them with modern-age digital tools.
Duration: 6 months
Fee: : ₹ 3.36 lakh
Who can attend: Banking Professionals interested to enhance their knowledge. Junior & Middle managers with 3-7 years of experience.
Course content: Uses knowledge and network within the FinTech sector to curate and offer start-of-art capstone projects for programme participants, and actively leverage its digital platform for the purpose of accelerated experiential learning
IIT Kanpur: Blockchain Technology And Applications
Who Can Take The Course: Ph.D., Masters, 3rd And 4th Year UG Students
Duration: 40 hours
Who can attend: Ph.D., Masters, 3rd And 4th Year UG Students
Requisite: Expertise In Programming, Basic Knowledge Of Computer Security, Cryptography, Networking, Concurrent Or Parallel Programming Would Help A Student To Understand The Topics.
Course content:
- Basic Cryptographic primitives used in Blockchain – Secure, Collison-resistant hash functions, digital signature, public key cryptosystems, zero-knowledge proof systems
- Basic Distributed System concepts – distributed consensus and atomic broadcast, Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus methods
- Basic Blockchain (Blockchain 1.0) – concepts germane to Bitcoin and contemporary proof-of-work based consensus mechanisms, operations of Bitcoin blockchain, crypto-currency as the application of blockchain technology
- Blockchain 2.0 – Blockchains with smart contracts and Turing complete blockchain scripting – issues of correctness and verifiability, Ethereum platform and its smart contract mechanism
- Blockchain 3.0 – Plug-and-play mechanisms for consensus and smart contract evaluation engines, Hyperledger fabric platform
Note: This course is open to students of IIT Kanpur
IIT Madras: Foundation of blockchain technology
Who can attend: Anyone
Fee: Free of charge
Duration: Jan 2019 – May 2019
Prerequisite: Should have attended their programme on Programming and Data Structures and Advanced Data Structures and Algorithms
Course content: A gist of what the course entails include: Understanding emerging abstract models for Blockchain Technology and Identify major research challenges and technical gaps existing between theory and practice in cryptocurrency domain Syllabus
IIM Lucknow: Advanced Blockchain certification Course
Duration: 25th June 2019 – 30th June 2019
Last day of application: 5th April 2019.
Course fee: ₹3,00,000 /- plus GST
Who can attend: The In-residence Blockchain Course for Executives and Entrepreneurs is open to all the Blockchain enthusiasts.
Course content: Blockchain Fundamentals, Introduction To Ethereum, Technicalities & Implementation Of Blockchain, Architecting Blockchain Solutions and New Generation Technology & Shift Of Blockchain
IIT B: Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Technologies
Duration: 1 Day
Who can attend:
- Software engineers interested in pursuing a career in cryptocurrencies and blockchain.
- Academics looking to conduct research on Bitcoin, altcoins, and blockchain.
- Students interested in pursuing an academic or industry career in the field of cryptocurrencies.
Fee: Academia: ₹3540
Govt. Organisation: ₹3540
Industry: INR 4720
Overseas / Foreign National: ₹14160
Student (Full TIme): ₹1770
Course content: Challenges in Decentralized Digital Currencies
Bitcoin’s blockchain as a solution to the double spending problem
Bitcoin Mining
Block Format
Transaction format
Bitcoin’s scripting language
P2PKH and P2SH Address Formats
Elliptic Curves over Finite Fields
Private and Public Keys in Bitcoin
Smart Contracts
