September 6 - 8, 2017
Workshop: Understanding Blockchain
The cryptocurrency Bitcoin is well known even outside of technology spheres of influence. Underlying Bitcoin however is Blockchain - a distributed ledger with some very special properties. These properties make Blockchain an ideal data store for all variety of applications, not just financial records. This workshop, half lecture and half interactive hands-on, is designed to help you understand blockchain, and how to use it in your business.
Lecture topics include:
- Where does blockchain fit in your application infrastructure?
- What are the differences between ledgers and databases?
- How does chaining data work, and why does it matter?
- What is decentralized consensus, and why does it matter?
- What patterns identify an application as a fit for blockchain?
- What are smart contracts, and how are they developed?
Hands-on activities include:
- Model the business domain of a blockchain application
- Write transaction functions using JavaScript
- Test a blockchain application
- Interact with blockchain via REST
- Trade physical assets with other attendees via blockchain
Session: Indoor Location with Beacons
Having a highly capable and accurate GPS in everybody's pocket has fundamentally changed the way we live, with broader impacts like self-driving cars, yet to come. The moment you step inside the HDC conference center however, all that technology is virtually useless. In order to solve this problem, various vendors, from Apple to Google, and many others, have been implementing indoor location technologies, predominantly via beacons.
In this session learn how beacons function at the physical layer, how that gets interpreted at the network layer, how to use the APIs at the presentation layer, and how to make sense of it all at the application layer. This will be accomplished as IBM Developer Advocate, Kevin Hoyt, configures and deploys a set of beacons in the conference room, live, during the session. We will also explore how various industries are using indoor location from shopping malls to hotels, and airports to grocery stores.