Blockchain Supply Chain and The Smart City.

May 22, 2019

People from around the world are moving from rural areas to major city centers every single day and this number is only increasing with time. Rapid urbanization, largely occurring in developing nations, presents challenges for governments all around the world.

How can governments create an environment that’s conducive to economic growth?

Blockchain is a decentralized immutable ledger. This not only makes it safe, secure and transparent but it is also excellent at denying corruption and inefficiency from smart cities.

The potential benefits that blockchain can provide a smart city are many.

The blockchain is a platform on which the mass of new data derived and collected from smart cities can be safely stored and accessed by those who should have access to it. The blockchain can also serve as the platform that gives residents of smart cities greater say in the decisions affecting their local communities, from budgeting to elections and everything in-between. It may also serve as a management tool, as these cities tend to be full of citizens who demand a certain standard from individuals and businesses when it comes to communal and environmental care.

A smart city is defined as a city that incorporates information and communication technologies to enhance the quality and performance of city services such as energy, transportation, and utilities to reduce resource consumption, wastage and overall costs.

Simply put, a smart city uses technology to enhance liveability and sustainability. Such a city caters to the needs of citizens, increasing efficiencies and maximizing environmental sustainability efforts. Creating a smart city is not an easy task, and requires a sufficient amount of resources and effort.

This is where blockchain comes in and can help governments create smart cities effortlessly.

India unveiled its Smart Cities Mission in June 2016 which is continuing to build and move forward on this mission even today. According to the initiative, the country will develop 100 smart cities by providing affordable housing solutions, integrating multi-modal transport, and managing waste and traffic properly.

The mission includes city improvement, renewal, and extensions. The cities that will be upgraded will be selected based on the Smart Cities challenge. By January of last year, 99 cities had already been selected which is a huge result. The expectations are that the developments will be an example to be followed by other cities. A blueprint of sorts. With the latest 5th Smart Cities India 2019 currently running, the future seems bright for smart cities.

By leveraging advances in technology, such as blockchain, and smart urban planning, we can create the smart cities of tomorrow.

In other words, smart cities will be able to sustain larger populations of productive people contributing to the success of the nation. Let’s take a look at a few projects supporting the smart city revolution by leveraging blockchain and similar technologies.

The smart city initiatives involving blockchain include: smart waste management, decreased pollution, improved transportation, and supply chain, increased business productivity, peer-to-peer (P2P) green energy networking, decentralized identity management, and improved government efficiency.

This is where VeriDoc Global comes into play, and let's look at the supply chain as an example.

VeriDoc Global has developed among others a finished supply chain solution that leverages blockchain technology and smart contracts. Our system verifies that each step in the supply chain has registered a digital handshake that marks exactly when and where the goods have changed hands. Just by adding a VeriDoc Secured QR code to all products, anyone with a free QR reader on any smartphone or scanner can quickly verify a product within a few moments. This means that you do not require or need any special equipment or expensive hardware to use this finished solution. The modern supply chain is global and complicated but with VeriDoc Global providing blockchain-enabled supply chain solutions which improve efficiencies and reduce costs for the supply chain industry.

The VeriDoc Global app also comes preloaded with Change of State (CoS) technology. This would allow supply chain operators to control and view all changes relating to that item. CoS technology allows customers to verify on the blockchain in real time, the full journey of a product with benefits including, including improved product safety, reduction in fraud and scams and corruption, and increased accuracy of information about the product.

And when you’re building a smart city, all of these things are important.

VeriDoc Global is now partnering with forward-thinking service providers and supply chain operators who value transparency, innovation and understand blockchain’s potential.

Smart cities of the future will be powered by blockchain technology and other distributed ledger technology and VeriDoc Global plans to be at the forefront.

Download our free VeriDoc Global App from the Play or App store now. Scan the QR code in the image and try out the technology today using any smartphone.

To learn more about our finished solutions and explore how VeriDoc Global’s software select the use cases at the top of this page.