AUSTIN, TX, February 23, 2021 — The DecentraTech Collective, an open community with a common focus on accelerating the understanding, development and adoption of decentralization technologies, announced today that it has commenced operations as an independent organization. Previously, decentralization technology and decentralized applications (DApps) has been a focus area of the Austin Blockchain Collective, which has operated since February 2018.
DecentraTech – short for decentralization technology – underpins the implementation of decentralized business. It comprises a set of innovations, including blockchain, cryptographic proofs, peer-to-peer messaging, decentralized storage, edge and serverless computing, as well as Web 3.0 concepts such as self-sovereign identity. The DecentraTech Collective has defined a DecentraTech Stack to encompass technologies appropriate to decentralization, and their roles in enabling it.
Interest in decentralized business models has accelerated in recent years, driven by an increasing and palpable belief that traditional centralized approaches, as typified by the business models of Big Tech companies, are increasingly detrimental to individuals’ rights and freedoms. Recent controversies related to the censorship of political leaders on Twitter and the exploitation of personal information by Facebook and Google are examples of the perils of centralized control.
“As with FinTech, MarTech and RegTech, we expect DecentraTech to be adopted as a shorthand term among innovators looking to lead businesses toward decentralized models,” says Peter Harris, Executive Director of the DecentraTech Collective. “With a global outlook that has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic’s shift to remote work, the DecentraTech Collective will work with a roster of world-class partners to provide both education and practical advocacy initiatives to accelerate the journey to a decentralized future.”
The DecentraTech Collective will initially work with innovators in the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and Decentralized Healthcare (DeHealth) spaces. It will also support technology innovation for decentralization in artificial intelligence, supply chain, business commerce and ESG projects. As well as working with corporations, startups, investors and educational establishments, it will support open-source projects that show promise as DecentraTech building blocks.
Three specific activities that are already underway at the DecentraTech Collective are:
•Publication of ongoing research related to how blockchain and related technologies are being leveraged in industry responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
•Promotion of the open-source Baseline Protocol initiative, which enables secure and private business processes at low cost via the public Ethereum blockchain.
•Championing the adoption for multiple use cases of MyPass, an open-source codebase originally developed by the City of Austin to provide a secure online document repository for those experiencing homelessness.
The DecentraTech Collective will also support its affiliate, the award-winning Austin Blockchain Collective, which celebrates its third birthday this month. Founded by Peter Harris and Dustin Byington with a mission establish Austin, TX as a recognized hub for blockchain and crypto innovation, the Austin Blockchain Collective will continue to engage with the vibrant Austin community.
About the DecentraTech Collective
The DecentraTech Collective is an open community with a common focus on accelerating the understanding, development and adoption of decentralization technologies, including blockchain and Web 3.0 approaches, to address fundamental business challenges and opportunities. The Collective focuses on a number of decentralization technologies (the DecentraTech Stack) – including blockchain, cryptographic proofs, peer-to-peer messaging, self-sovereign identity and edge computing. For more information, visit www.decentratechcollective.com.
The award-winning Austin Blockchain Collective continues as an affiliate of the DecentraTech Collective, focused on innovation within the vibrant Austin ecosystem. Since launching in 2018, the Collective has collaborated with Dell Medical School to host the Blockchain and Digital Transformation in Health 2020 symposium and has worked with Capital Factory, the City of Austin and the University of Texas at Austin on blockchain advocacy and education initiatives involving the local startup ecosystem.
