IBM teams up with Columbia University to Launch Two Accelerator Programs for Blockchain Enterprises

According to the IBM News Release on November 19, IBM and Columbia University have announced two blockchain accelerating programs, which aim to help startups in space innovation.

Both programs are part of the Columbia-IBM Center for BlockChain and Data Transparency,a joint venture established by the technical giant and U.S. ivy league school this summer.

According to the release, each program will support ten startups, which will give them access to business consultants, technical support, Columbia’s student talent and “research community,” design support, and IBM cloud technology resources.

The purpose stated is to help network creators translate ideas into “durable and scalable” blockchain enterprises, which in turn will “adopt blockbuster meaningful enterprise and drive the business efficiencies in industries”.

Columbia Blockchain Launch Accelerator, which is to be held in New York City, is designed for designed for pre-seed “idea-stage” companies which are either affiliated with Columbia or another NYC-based school as a release states.

The second eight-week program, IBM Blockcon Accelerator, has been targeted at the later stage companies globally and aimed at helping the participants establish a business network and customer base for their blockchain application. This will partly be run in-person in New York and San Francisco, and partly  “in combination with virtual programming” to give participants more free time to devote to their business scaling efforts”.

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Each participating startup on both programs will be supplied with the reach of about $ 400,000 for technology and services. Neither program takes equity or charges for participation.

As reported before this fall, New York-based school New York University (NYU) has claimed to be the “first” American school to present a major in the blockchain technology to be provided by the NYU Stern School of Business. Many other top-ranking universities at the global level already host the courses related to blockchain and crypto.

IBM, whose own Hyperledger-operated Cloud Blockchain platform, has made major inroads in the Enterprise Blockchain space. In the case of the number of patents related to Blockchain filed till August 31, 2018, the firm has been placed second, first is China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba.