DLE & AD

Distributed Ledger Engineering and Application Development

Participants of this Qualification Seminar will acquire basic and advanced knowledge in the field of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) such as Cryptocurrencies, blockchains and smart contracts. Especially in DLTs and Cryptocurrencies, errors and security gaps are often directly and immediately connected with monetary losses. Due to this criticality, IT security and maintainability, which are essential for the sustainable operation of these infrastructures, are in the foreground. The synergy effects achieved within this project will strengthen business for participating companies and furthermore accelerate the establishment of the IT Security Cluster as part of a master’s degree program at the University of Vienna.

Project Outline

The “Blockchain” hype of recent years attracted attention due to the financial aspects of Cryptocurrencies and raised interest in the opportunities offered by the underlying protocols. These technologies, commonly referred to as distributed ledger technologies (DLTs), cover several application areas. When properly deployed and bundled, DLTs enable individuals and organizations to interact and conduct business in a reliable and secure manner without relying on a trusted central third-party or risking a single point of failure. Smart contracts further enable companies to embed all or part of their business logic as self-executable programs which are executed directly on those platforms.

The increasing use of DLTs in both large enterprises and SMEs has created a huge need for knowledge and skills for building and operating such systems. However, there is a lack of expertise and qualified personnel – a circumstance that significantly slows down the secure implementation and use of these technologies.

The goal of the seminar is to provide a profound understanding of the underlying blockchain and distributed ledger concepts as well as smart contract security. To this end, an in-depth training will be given to avoid problems in the development of distributed applications using Solidity as an example, with a clear focus on security and agility.

SBA Research and its partners will jointly design and hold course units on security, privacy and distributed ledger technologies, taking into account relevant ongoing research projects and recent findings in the respective areas.

Further Information

• The project is led by the University of Vienna.
• The initiative R&D Competences for Industry of the Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs (BMDW) supports measures in companies for the systematic development and qualification of their research and innovation staff and promotes cooperation between companies and tertiary education and research institutions. The focus of the initiative is on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).