Ripple Labs Inc., a U.S. based tech firm predominantly known for developing Ripple Payment protocol & exchange network, has recently announced to offer funds worth USD 50 million for universities. In March this year, the cryptocurrency firm had granted nearly USD 29 million to an American public-school charity, cite sources.
The tech firm is likely to provide the funds to universities via University Blockchain Research Initiative also abbreviated as UBRI. The donations are aimed at promoting academic research pertaining to online payments, blockchain, and cryptocurrency. Additionally, Ripple has promised to offer technical resources and subject matter expertise to universities through the initiative.
For the record, the Ripple Labs has so far teamed up with nearly seventeen universities around the world under the newly launched UBRI. The list includes IIT Bombay, Princeton University, UNC Chapel Hill, Australian National University, UC Berkeley, UT Austin, Korea University, MIT, Delft University of Technology, IIIT Hyderabad, University of Oregon, Fundação Getulio Vargas in Brazil, University of Luxembourg, University College of London, University of Waterloo, and University of Nicosia.
Reportedly, these academic institutes would design curriculum that will cover the topics based on cryptocurrency and blockchain. The key goal of the UBRI initiative is to encourage students to pursue research activities in the distributed ledger technologies. Sources reveal that Ripple has left it for the universities to select their own area of research and develop a customized curriculum.
Researchers have projected that the collaboration between academia, industry, and blockchain community will deliver favorable outcomes. It has been witnessed that some of the reputed educational institutes have been involved in blockchain & cryptocurrency research. Industry experts anticipate that the ongoing events taking place across universities will promote new developments & bring innovation in the existing blockchain & cryptocurrency technologies.