Deadline: IBM and Berkeley Offer New Online Blockchain Courses for the Summer

IBM is collaborating with the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) in India to offer a 12-week online course in the fundamentals of blockchain architecture, design and use cases.

The syllabus provides an extensive framework for any student who wants to explore blockchain and sharpen relevant skills to become a developer. The course framework also shows how rapidly blockchain is growing as it becomes so much more than just the core tech of Bitcoin. It’s the foundation of a new and improved, decentralized internet. It’s also the driving tech behind revolutionary enterprise solutions to power efficiency, generate transparency and reduce costs. Course concepts and applications include business process management, smart contracts and IoT.

Registrants who perform well in the class may also qualify to receive a certificate from NPTEL and IIT Kharagpur.

If you can’t take the online class, take a look at their recommended reading list and some of the highlights from the course framework.

Reading List

• Mastering Bitcoin: Unlocking Digital Cryptocurrencies by Andreas Antonopoulos
• Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy by Melanie Swan
• Hyperledger Fabric
• Zero to Blockchain – An IBM Redbooks course by Bob Dill, David Smits

Highlights from the Course Framework

• Cryptographic Hash Function
• Creation of coins
• Consensus in a Bitcoin network
• The life of a Bitcoin miner
• Permissioned blockchains
• Blockchain for enterprise solutions
• Hyperledger Fabric
• Cross border payments
• Supply chain logistics
• Blockchain in energy, healthcare, media
• e-Estonia: A Case Study
• Digital identity
• Blockchain for tax payments
• Blockchain security
• Blockchain for science

The course starts in July. For a basic primer on blockchain, check out this visual guide from Reuters.

UC Berkeley is offering a new online course on edX that goes live on July 8. The course is a reboot of “Blockchain Fundamentals”, a popular Berkeley class designed and led by students. “Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies” will run for six weeks, available online for free. The course is intended to make sense of the many concepts surrounding blockchain and its growing lexicon. It’s for students who have no computer science background.

The course covers Bitcoin’s cryptographic hash functions, Bitcoin Script, privacy and hash commitment schemes, and its roots in the Cypherpunk movement and Libertarian ideals. It also covers how to destroy Bitcoin, including various network attacks, and the properties behind the second largest blockchain platform, Ethereum.

Taught by a team of students and lecturers, the students break it down and make it easy enough for your grandma to grasp.

Berkeley will launch a second online blockchain course in September. Both courses will offer a professional certificate to graduates for a fee of $180.

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