Creating the first Master's of Blockchain Project Design in France

Transcript

hello can you hear me it works okay this is a presentation on the education of blockchain it is the creation of the first specialized masters semesters MBA in blockchain project design and so it's the first fully accredited masses about chain in France and so it's pretty much kind of outlining why we need it and what does accreditation mean exactly so what were the challenges well let me give a little bit this is an introduction of myself my name is Juan Kim and I'm the director of pedagogy at

the Masters specialy J blockchain project design and it is in French and first of all to give a little background the program is a part of a bigger consortium of schools which is owned by in Sec U and in Sec you is the largest fellow and the fastest growing private higher education University in Europe now and so and I'm going and so it has it so we're pretty day up the ambition is to become like a university in the United States and in France it's pretty much they're mostly schools that are

smaller and specialized and what the insect did was bought they bought up many schools and consolidated and I'll show you exactly why that's an advantage so first of all why do we even create a program like this well because the reality is 92% of all brought chain projects are failures okay and why do block chain projects fail well two reasons one either you're technical and you don't know the business parameters and/or your business and you think that you know block chain and this is this is the majority of the reasons and still we're still caught up in

is problematic at the moment and so the reason so this is why we created this program and if you look at the timeline and this is the Gartner hype cycle well we this is when in 2017 is when the proposal for that this program was made and as you can see it was just the beginning of the hype cycle and then of course this hype cycle is about crypt cryptocurrencies of course and then when it was approved it was at the very height of the the cryptocurrency boom and then we are here now okay and so and so this and why is this important because there was a lot of interest in

this program and of course it is a sign of its times we are we are writing it but this is why I like being here I like being here because we don't feel I with with the etherium crowd we don't feel like things we don't feel this cycle at all okay now originally this was a program in a partnership with ESEE and ECU and these two schools ESC is a business school and this is where I am where I work and ECE is an engineering school and so we decided to team up together and there and to get an accreditation called the conference the grounds Accord now what

does that mean the conference the grounds are called it is kind of for those of you don't know the French system there is the ground ecosystem and one can say it's equivalent to like the Ivy League's in the United States and and so it is a prestigious brand and one cannot just obtain it one must already have become have become be a grande Ecole and and so this is what makes it quite unique now what happened well we realized that the majority of the people who really need to realize a project are not students because students they don't know yet even what to create and so we realized that these they're professionals in the field and so this

is why we had to add another school which is under the insect umbrella and this is executive education and this professional to work full-time and to get an MBA and a master's degree and so another accreditation that's really really important is what we call the RN C P in France and this allows you to get public money okay so this so they're the French when you have when you have a full CD what they call a CDI or full-time job you have you put aside a certain amount of money and that you can use for edge of continuing education and and so this is completely paid for by

the French government and so this is a very important option and so we added this and of course the IFC also has an Executive MBA title and so now it's not you only get them not that you only get a masters you also get an MBA so what is the originality of the program well it's taught in French and I know I'm speaking in English now because this is an international community but it's a program taught in French and the decision to do this was a couple of reasons one first of all we found that professionals in France speak French and so it's very hard for them to really dialogue every day in English and that's

the reality of the situation in France the French speak French but the second reason and the more important reason is that the French ecosystem the blockchains the professionals here we're work there's world class and so we saw that those among the professors who are able to come and teach there's nothing lacking and so this is another reason why we did why we didn't hesitate to turn it to make it into French and and what what the objective of this program really is is really to succeed in the creation of a project now why would why does this have an advantage well because imagine if you are a big corporation you knock you don't want to pay hundreds and

thousands for a proof-of-concept to IBM for and so what you're gonna do is you can work with the student - who are whose is a professional and some and the mode half of our students are already there in the prod their programmers are already in the field before at on average about 10 to 15 years and so you're they're gonna be working with professionals but they only pay at an intern rate and so this is risk amortization and so this is why this allows us to be more experimental with big corporations and this allows us to really work on real projects and so this we we were going to be bridging

we're bridging the gap between corporate especially corporate who do not want who want to go a little bit I want to learn at the same time and just and develop more than just the POC and so this is exactly why we made the program and so this is a 14th month 14th month program now who do we attract well this see these are the students currently and this is their profiles okay so we have working professionals we have students seeking another master's so this is a back blue cease meaning that once you have a master's this is like an additional master's okay and so IT professionals and manager profiles and we don't have a big group it's a first year it's aware and we're launched and but among the 10 students that we do

have it falls exactly under these profiles now so it's a 14th month program and we split it between online learning and classroom okay so we have 37 days of live classrooms but of course the way we do it yes you have okay thank you and so the way we do it is in the in the classrooms its Fridays and Saturdays so it allows the students to work and then we have an online program and so and of course because of the accreditation they have to not only realize a project but they have to write a thesis or based on that now of course what are the six phases of the program

of course there is the fundamental concepts but what what's really important is you really want to conduct conduct a study on the opportunity feasibility you really want to cry the tech stack so we're not we're blockchain agnostic even though they learned the fundamentals of ethereal and and then they have to defend the project and then most importantly they have to be able to raise money okay so raising money this is the this is the big objective at the end so they have so it's what what do you get out of this you get two diplomas and then you get two certifications because we go to San Francisco and London and so this is the advantage of being part of the in

SEC you is that one week is spent in London and the one week in spent in San Francisco especially in June when they have the projects ready to pitch they're going to be pitching in front of the investors in San Francisco and so this is we came back from London recently and this is us and now blockchain projects well it's the whole thing is is to have like I said it's you're not working with just a student you're working with the team you're working with the professors and so this is exactly why the chances of succeeding in a project is much higher than if you were doing it alone so so what are some of the big questions which protocols should we focus on right obviously right now we're focusing on a

theory as as the foundation and then the other questions on which we start our program with is what are the legal evolutions right now that's a big one and how much should we focus on interoperability and this is a very important question that we're trying to tackle with right now and then and should we focus more of our education on disruption or adaptation especially corporate adaptation and so these are the big questions that we're focusing on now the good thing is is that the French government is pretty much on our side they're investing 25 million euros over five years to help with the design and validation of projects and a lot of this is going to education so we're kind of sitting in the pole position at the moment and so what are the job opportunities well you're it you know

the people who are here these are the job opportunities so this is why I like being here because I can also discover what are the job opportunities that are emerging at the moment in this field and so so these are some new field new positions and if you have suggestions to tell me which other positions you think are going to be important please come please tell me no now we because of the success of the first program we are opening up another one in April 10 and so the applications are open now and so I'm here to pitch this also alright so if you do have any questions please let me know especially concerning on how to improve a program such as what would be a good blockchain

Master pedagogy ok and this is also why I'm here is because it's evolved every involves every single year every single six months I come to an ethereal convention there's always something new and so for me this is another exciting thing about this is that I constantly as a director I constantly I'm a student I constantly have to be here I constantly have to learn so I'm open to suggestions and questions any questions I'll be shy so how many okay so let's talk about it

so before uh before we go into how many of you here are Auto deduct meaning that you learned the technology completely on your own okay how many of you actually learned some of it in school okay and so for those people who learned it in school what would you do you find the benefit of that or do you think that you it's something that you could have learned on your own anyway so the most some of the edge most of the education that you've learned in the programs are pretty much introductory education right about what is blockchain and did that help you kind of get into the field or or you are already interested already

you're not working in the blockchain field on blockchain okay okay I'm just working in the coding oh so your code okay but you did learn some blockchain in school no I didn't okay okay so you just okay sorry sorry oh no no problem no problem well well the thing is is that right now according to the Minister of Finance in France there is a huge lack of qualified people now the problem is is that I know a lot of qualified people and they can't find jobs right and so this is the tragedy a lot of qualified people that I know also

are looking for work looking for opportunities to connect to corporations and and so if you need that we're also a kind of hub for that and this is again why we've created the masters thank you very much [Applause]