Ripple partners with University of Michigan to drive blockchain forward

Financial technology research and education at the University of Michigan will get a $1 million boost courtesy of Ripple.

The funding to the university – one of 11 universities in partnerships with Ripple – will support academic research, technical development, and innovation in blockchain, cryptocurrency, and digital payments.

The university will put the cash towards establishing a ‘FinTech Collaboratory’ to develop a curriculum, as well as study the engineering and business aspects of cryptocurrencies in new applications such as smart cities.

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“The most important thing this funding allows us to do is integrate engineering and data science with finance and policy to craft financial models to fund infrastructure, developing models to close the infrastructure finance gap,” said Peter Adriaens, director of the Center for Smart Infrastructure Finance and professor of civil and environmental engineering and finance.

“These solutions will democratise access to infrastructure and level the playing field between the rich and poor,” he added.

Eric van Miltenburg, senior vice president of global operations at Ripple, said: “In less than a year, we are already seeing UBRI partners create new cross-disciplinary research programs and courses, as well as collaborate with one another to share ideas on how to grow the blockchain ecosystem.”

Last week, Coin Rivet reported on the Russian education board including blockchain technology in the main graduation exam for university students.

According to state news agency TASS, the Russian Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Education and Science (Rosobrnadzor) is planning on implementing distributed ledger technology in the Unified State Exam (USE), which is the main preliminary exam to be sat in Russian universities.