GMR Innovex launches Blockchain CoE for Airports

Hyderabad: Embracing innovation and building on a commitment to ‘Creating tomorrow today’, the GMR group on Saturday launched a Blockchain Centre of Excellence (CoE) as part of the expansion of GMR Innovex. Principal Secretary (Industries and IT) Jayesh Ranjan was the chief guest. The GMR Innovex – Blockchain Centre of Excellence will identify and incubate […]

Hyderabad: Embracing innovation and building on a commitment to ‘Creating tomorrow today’, the GMR group on Saturday launched a Blockchain Centre of Excellence (CoE) as part of the expansion of GMR Innovex. Principal Secretary (Industries and IT) Jayesh Ranjan was the chief guest.

The GMR Innovex – Blockchain Centre of Excellence will identify and incubate startups and catalyze innovative product development under the guidance of business leaders and domain experts in association with blockchain technology partners. The Blockchain CoE will provide access to the required infrastructure and labs to start-ups, SMEs for the development and validation of solutions and services, from design to prototyping. It will also enable thought leadership, research, and training programs for upskilling in the field of blockchain, according to an official release here.

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GMR Innovex signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Idealabs, Polygon, Koinearth, India Blockchain Forum and Veroince to explore opportunities, identify blockchain technology related use cases for airports and ancillary business.

Speaking on the occasion, SGK Kishore, ED-South and Chief Innovation Officer, GMR Airports said the Blockchain CoE intended to work with various Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) technology players and to build a slew of applications for the distributed technology landscape.

“We believe the industry is slowly emerging with respect to utility and value that DLT systems present, specifically for a multi-stakeholder environment like airports. We already have use-cases that we are earmarking to build on which will help create transparency, trust, data bartering and shared value and experience for our partners and customers,” he said.

Prasanna Lohar, President, India Blockchain Forum, Arpit Sharma, VP, Global Enterprises-Polygon and Pankaj Diwan, Founder, Idealabs Future Tech Ventures also spoke, the press release said, adding that Diwan was the Chief Evangelist for leading the GMR Innovex Blockchain CoE.

The Blockchain CoE will run several innovation activities such as hackathons and startup accelerators to boost the innovation and startup activity in the blockchain space.

As per Grand View Research, the global blockchain technology market size was valued at USD 5.92 billion in 2021 and was expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 85.9% from 2022 to 2030. The market growth can be attributed to the increasing venture capital funding in blockchain technology companies, the release said.